Alternative Approaches to Startup Funding – The Syndicate Group – Chad Cardenas – ESW #337
In this interview, we talk to Chad Cardenas about why he created The Syndicate Group, which operates very differently from the typical VC firm with LPs and a collective fund to draw from. We'll discuss how the investor/startup relationship differs, and what the advantages of this model are.
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Guest
Chad Cardenas is Founder and CEO of The Syndicate Group (TSG), and Managing Director of Syndicate Venture Partners, which is pioneering a new evolution of Venture Capital investing. TSG helps startups scale faster by organizing exclusive investment access to channel partners that commit capital and also tap the broader channel ecosystem to support a company’s go-to-market strategy. With 25 years in the enterprise technology sector, Chad maintains a wealth of experience in sales, leadership, business transformation, innovation, distribution channels and go-to-market strategies for enterprise startups. Previously, Chad co-founded Trace3, where he served as President and Chief Innovation Officer, studying macro trends in the IT industry and their effects on the VC, startup, channel, CXO and investor communities. He helped build the tech reseller/integrator to 400 people and over $500M in revenue before a private equity event in 2017.
The Syndicate Group was born out of these experiences, based on the realization that startup founders need more than just capital, but partners who really understand their business and who can align both the investor and startup interests from a sales perspective. Channel partners in the TSG network are able to stay ahead of emerging tech trends, gaining early access to great resale relationships as well as sharing in the value-growth upside of the greatest enterprise tech companies through private, pre-IPO investments. TSG’s investment scorecard includes high-fliers such as AppDynamics, CrowdStrike, Nutanix, Vast Data and Cohesity, where Chad played a key role driving an aggregate market value of over $30 billion.
