How Top-Tier VC Firms Build Portfolio Support
Platform has gone from "nice to have" to "expected" in a decade. Top-tier funds like Bessemer built their platform function over years, with budgets emerging managers can't match.
In this 60-minute fireside, Kiran Arokiasamy of Bessemer Venture Partners, in conversation with Myrto Lalacos of The Emerging VC, gives us the insider look from inside one of the most established platform functions in venture. Bessemer has built portfolio support across 952 companies and 78 unicorns over the firm's history.
The conversation is what they've learned, what they've changed their mind about, and what they'd tell an emerging manager building this function for the first time.
What we'll cover (questions every emerging manager building platform is asking):
What a top-tier platform function actually looks like behind the scenes, and how long it took Bessemer to build it
Which platform interventions consistently move the needle for founders, and which ones look promising but don't land
How to measure whether platform work is actually working, and what to do if you can't
What separates the funds that build genuine platform functions early from the ones that treat it as a later problem
Where an emerging manager should put the first dollar of platform budget, and what to deprioritise
Who should attend:
Emerging managers building, thinking about, or assessing their platform function. Fund I and II GPs deciding whether platform is worth investing in right now versus later. Platform Managers and Portfolio Operations leads at emerging or established funds. Aspiring fund managers thinking about how to differentiate from day one.
About the speaker:
Kiran Arokiasamy is Platform and Community Manager at Bessemer Venture Partners, working across one of venture's most established portfolios in VC history. Before Bessemer, he ran the European programme at LSE Generate, the entrepreneurship hub at the London School of Economics, and spent six years working with cutting-edge tech companies across more than a dozen accelerators including Entrepreneur First, Aerospace Xelerated, and Open Data Institute.
About the host:
Myrto Lalacos is the founder of The Emerging VC, an independent platform for the next generation of fund managers. After years inside VC and helping launch more than 1,900 emerging GPs at VC Lab, Myrto now writes, hosts, and convenes the conversations that shape how the new generation of fund managers and VC leaders think and build.