Index Ventures' Danny Rimer Talks Figma's IPO and VC Bets

**Tom Dotan** (0:00)
Hey, everybody, it's Tom Dotan here. Welcome to this week's episode of The Newcomer Podcast, shortly known as Newcomer. I'm joined here by Eric Newcomer, Madeline Renbarger, and our special guest, Danny Rimer of Index Ventures. Welcome to the show, Danny.

**Danny Rimer** (0:15)
Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

**Tom Dotan** (0:17)
Are you, by the way, in the San Francisco Index Ventures office, or you, where are we right now?

**Danny Rimer** (0:22)
Thank you for asking. I'm actually in our New York office.

**Eric Newcomer** (0:25)
Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. What is happening this week? Figma is going public and you are on the board, so I imagine it's a good week to be in New York.

**Danny Rimer** (0:34)
Indeed, it is a good week. It's always a good week to be in New York, but definitely this is a momentous week.

**Eric Newcomer** (0:41)
Is it New York Stock Exchange or is it NASDAQ?

**Danny Rimer** (0:44)
New York Stock Exchange.

**Madeline Renbarger** (0:45)
Nice. You get to go do the whole place.

**Danny Rimer** (0:50)
Exactly.

**Madeline Renbarger** (0:51)
Do a little ringing.

**Danny Rimer** (0:52)
Exactly right.

**Tom Dotan** (0:53)
Yeah. I mean, we'll go deeply into Figma in a second here, but this is not your first IPO here. Have you done the bell ringing before? Have you been on the floor as one of your companies was out there?

**Danny Rimer** (1:04)
I've been to the NYCN, NASDAQ for my companies. I'm very privileged, but my policy is actually not to ring the bell because I feel like it's really about the team and the founders and their family. And so it's not something that I think makes sense for us to do.

**Eric Newcomer** (1:25)
Skulk in the background.

**Danny Rimer** (1:27)
Exactly.

**Madeline Renbarger** (1:29)
Admire from the sidelines. Happy to be there.

**Danny Rimer** (1:31)
That's right.

**Tom Dotan** (1:32)
The floor is dangerous though because reporters hang out there. I know. The one time I ever did a stock exchange debut thing, I was like really snaking around the floor trying to find the investors in that company. So that's very bold of you to hang out there.

**Danny Rimer** (1:46)
Yeah.

**Tom Dotan** (1:46)
Thank you.

**Danny Rimer** (1:47)
Yeah. I'm used to it.

**Eric Newcomer** (1:48)
Well, I did the Uber one and I'll always remember, Travis Kalanick was up in the balcony. He couldn't be in the fray with Dara and everybody. So it was a funny dynamic. That one, Uber's done well, but that was a reminder like the day itself can be painful because I think the markets are just not good and so it was a hard one. Anyway, we are recording this on a Wednesday and this will come out on Friday after Figma has gone public. So you get to safely sidestep the how do you think the IPO went because of the timing.

**Tom Dotan** (2:22)
We can't get your assessment of was the pop too big? Was money left on the table?

**Danny Rimer** (2:27)
Exactly.

**Tom Dotan** (2:29)
So tell us the Figma story for you guys.
You were one of the first, maybe the first VC investor in Figma. So you and Dylan Fields go way back. What's the origin story?

**Danny Rimer** (2:40)
Yeah, we were indeed. So the origin story is quite a long one. I mean, it's sort of interesting, right? In this industry, I was just reflecting for other investments that we've made, that I've made, that I've gone public, and also that I've had liquidity events. It's not always a long journey, but this has been 13 years. It was 19 when I first invested or when Index first invested. So it's definitely been a journey with ups and downs and with chapters. And so there's something really gratifying of being able to remember and reflect on this journey. Sorry, that was a long-winded, even preamble to your question, Tom. But I was just, you know, I was getting a little philosophical about it.

**Eric Newcomer** (3:25)
Well, the length, I think, is key to this. Both that Figma raises sort of pre-traction, and some of your bet is like before they really had that sort of the viral takeoff.

**Tom Dotan** (3:35)
And then obviously, before they had a URL, I think, right? They didn't even have a website yet.

**Danny Rimer** (3:39)
It was before the URL, that's right.

**Eric Newcomer** (3:40)
And then down the line, there's the acquisition that wasn't of Adobe trying to buy it for $20 billion.

**Madeline Renbarger** (3:46)
Yeah, there's pre-seed and then there's pre-URL.

**Eric Newcomer** (3:49)
Yeah.

**Danny Rimer** (3:50)
Exactly. To answer your question, so first met Dylan when he was an intern at another company that I was on the board of called Flipboard, which was this really sensational company in its time where Mike McHugh, who was the founder of TellMe, which was another company that we had invested in. Actually, I wrote his first seat check ever in that one that sold to Microsoft, and Dylan was an intern, and at the time just really remember his enthusiasm and his amazing ability to communicate information with enthusiasm but also with detail, and then lost touch with him because he was an intern. I've taken a note that I should do a better job on tracking interns, and then resurfaced after I was having a conversation with Jeff Weiner from LinkedIn, who's a good friend, and I was telling him about this thesis that we had on who's going to inherit the mantle of the most important business franchises out there, like Microsoft Office and Adobe Studio, and he said, well, you should talk to this intern that I can't get to stay at LinkedIn called Dylan Field, because he wants to do something around the area of design, and I think you'll really enjoy the conversation. So that was how I met him again. He came to pitch what was not Figma at the time, but to pitch his idea with Evan, his co-founder.