Austin Clements's guest appearances

Austin Clements

Origins - A podcast about the LP and VC ecosystem.

LA Venture

Fiftyfaces Focus - The Last Frontier: Diverse Founders and VCs  

Mark Suster

Dustin Rosen

Eva Ho

Brad Feld

Brian Garrett

Josh Kopelman

Ben Marcus

Renata Quintini

Jeff Fagnan

Nicole Quinn

David Waxman

Leah Busque

Semil Shah

Shalom Lloyd

Ryan Hoover

OwlTail

Austin Clements is a co-founder and managing partner at Slauson &amp; Co., an early-stage venture capital firm whose mission is to democratize access to entrepreneurship by bridging the gap between untapped founders and the right capital and resources required to create sustainable equity &amp; economic inclusion. Austin is a former Principal at TenOneTen Ventures where he played a role in investing in 50+ companies across two funds, and also the founding Chairman for PledgeLA, a city-wide initiative that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in Tech. In this episode, we cover a wide range of topics, including Austin's early experience as a founder, joining TenOneTen and learning and growing as a junior VC, and finally teaming up with his partner Ajay and launching and building Slauson from the ground up. We dive deep into the LA ecosystem, what it means to be a truly inclusive firm in 2022, and the impact that they hope to have on LA and beyond in the years to come.

Austin Clements is a co-founder and managing partner at Slauson &amp; Co., an early-stage venture capital firm whose mission is to democratize access to entrepreneurship by bridging the gap between untapped founders and the right capital and resources required to create sustainable equity &amp; economic inclusion. Austin is a former Principal at TenOneTen Ventures where he played a role in investing in 50+ companies across two funds, and also the founding Chairman for PledgeLA, a city-wide initiative that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion in Tech. In this episode, we cover a wide range of topics, including Austin's early experience as a founder, joining TenOneTen and learning and growing as a junior VC, and finally teaming up with his partner Ajay and launching and building Slauson from the ground up. We dive deep into the LA ecosystem, what it means to be a truly inclusive firm in 2022, and the impact that they hope to have on LA and beyond in the years to come.

Austin Clements, Slauson & Co.

Austin Clements is a partner at Slauson &amp; Co., a Los Angeles based venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to a range of founders. He's a Kauffman fellow and has a strong interest in economic empowerment. He was previously Chair of Pledge LA, and alliance between LA's venture capital community, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti. He also holds a number of board roles. We start by talking about his upbringing in LA, his time at Morehouse College and how his taste of business there left him determined to find a job in venture capital. We hear how his initial search came up dry, but how he persisted and fulfilled his goal eventually. We talk about the difficulty in threading the needle of supporting deserving founders and sifting through 100s of prospects to find the gem.  Austin's philosophy is to get behind people, that are delusional with their vision, but pragmatic with their execution. He says that they want people that have a vision that's almost unsettling about how big it is, and what they want to grow their company to be. But they also need to be very pragmatic in the sense of they know what the first few steps look like. There is more information on Grid110, an affinity group with which Austin is involved, here (https://www.grid110.org/).  See here for his Medium article "The Delusion around Inclusion" (https://medium.com/@austinlac/the-delusion-around-inclusion-34bc30e89694).This series is brought to you with the kind support of Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest independent asset managers, focused on delivering long-term investment excellence for clients and their beneficiaries, as well as Nile Capital Group, a sector-focused, operationally-oriented private equity firm based in the Los Angeles Area.

Austin Clements is a partner at Slauson &amp; Co., a Los Angeles based venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to a range of founders. He's a Kauffman fellow and has a strong interest in economic empowerment. He was previously Chair of Pledge LA, and alliance between LA's venture capital community, the Annenberg Foundation, and the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti. He also holds a number of board roles. We start by talking about his upbringing in LA, his time at Morehouse College and how his taste of business there left him determined to find a job in venture capital. We hear how his initial search came up dry, but how he persisted and fulfilled his goal eventually. We talk about the difficulty in threading the needle of supporting deserving founders and sifting through 100s of prospects to find the gem.  Austin's philosophy is to get behind people, that are delusional with their vision, but pragmatic with their execution. He says that they want people that have a vision that's almost unsettling about how big it is, and what they want to grow their company to be. But they also need to be very pragmatic in the sense of they know what the first few steps look like. There is more information on Grid110, an affinity group with which Austin is involved, here (<a href="https://www.grid110.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.grid110.org/</a>).  See here for his Medium article "The Delusion around Inclusion" (<a href="https://medium.com/@austinlac/the-delusion-around-inclusion-34bc30e89694" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://medium.com/@austinlac/the-delusion-around-inclusion-34bc30e89694</a>). This series is brought to you with the kind support of Wellington Management, one of the world’s largest independent asset managers, focused on delivering long-term investment excellence for clients and their beneficiaries, as well as Nile Capital Group, a sector-focused, operationally-oriented private equity firm based in the Los Angeles Area.

Episode 4: Austin Clements - Blending vision and execution to seed the next generation

Many VCs shy away from tech that serves SMBs.  Austin explains how this has left an enormous opportunity and his tips for entrepreneurs in the space. We talk about his partnership with Ajay Relan at Slauson &amp; Co and the work that PledgeLA and Grid110 have been doing to support underrepresented founders ($25k checks!)

Many VCs shy away from tech that serves SMBs.  Austin explains how this has left an enormous opportunity and his tips for entrepreneurs in the space. We talk about his partnership with Ajay Relan at Slauson &amp; Co and the work that PledgeLA and Grid110 have been doing to support underrepresented founders ($25k checks!)

Austin Clements -- Slauson & Co