Mitchell Green is the founder of Lead Edge Capital, one of the most innovative VCs in the world.  They have built one of the most value-added limited partner bases of any VC firm, comprised of former Fortune 500 executives and other sought after leaders that are involved in helping portfolio entrepreneurs.   Mitchell focuses on two things:  finding unusually high-growth startups and helping them get customers through dogged networking.

Lead Edge is currently investing out of our third fund $290M fund.  Portfolio includes Alibaba, Uber, Duo Security, Toast POS and Spotify.  Among other highlights, Alibaba investments returned approximately $1 billion to his limited partners.

Mitchell graduated from Williams College, then went to work at UBS as an analyst in the M&A group. From investment banking, Mitchell went to work at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he met his now-partner Brian Neider.  From Bessemer, Mitchell was a partner at a hedge fund under Tiger Management.  And in 2009, he started Lead Edge Capital.  Mitchell and his young family now call Santa Barbara home.  

Here are the takeaways from the discussion with Mitchell Green:

1.  CEOs respect and will always respond to persistence.  Lead Edge's deal origination depends on connecting with CEOs of the world’s most successful emerging growth companies.  Mitchell and his team point to one key success factor: dogged persistence.  “They will eventually get back to you.”

2.  Capital efficiency as a key metric. Mitchell has always been drawn to this metric as the ultimate company success indicator.  It was what drew them to invest in Duo Security, who had raised $4.5M cumulatively at the time Lead Edge invested.  Since then, they have grown their revenue run rate over 10X.

3.  China, an underestimated e-commerce innovator.  Want to know e-commerce trends? Look at China.