Ignite VC: Eric Woo on The Hidden Signals Behind Top-Performing Emerging Managers | Ep224

Imagine spending 15 years underwriting venture funds, only to realize the biggest risk isn’t the startups, it’s how little anyone actually measures the people backing them.

Eric Woo is the co-founder and CEO of Revere, a platform bringing data, transparency, and product thinking to how allocators evaluate and manage emerging venture funds. Before founding Revere, Eric sat on nearly every side of the table, pricing structured finance risk pre-GFC, evaluating hundreds of managers at Northgate and Top Tier, and helping institutionalize syndicates and nano-funds at AngelList. He’s a CFA, an engineer by training, and now a founder building infrastructure for private markets at exactly the moment venture is being forced to grow up.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why venture underwriting is still mostly vibes, and why that breaks at scale

• The real signals Eric saw across hundreds of emerging managers that actually correlate with outperformance

• Why “value-add” is meaningless unless you can prove it, and how few GPs really can

• How AI changes venture operations versus venture judgment, and where humans still matter

• The tradeoff between concentration and volume, and when more shots on goal actually wins

• Why 1x DPI is a psychological unlock for LPs, and how secondaries quietly reshape fund strategy

• How venture is shifting from an artisanal craft into a distributed financial product

We also zoom out to the bigger pattern Eric sees forming: venture capital is moving toward new distribution, new fund structures, and new expectations of transparency, and the GPs who don’t adapt won’t survive the next cycle.

“Once you hit 1x DPI, everything becomes psychological. After that, it’s all upside.”

“The best VCs aren’t fungible. Founders know exactly who their first call is.”

Eric spent his career evaluating builders. Now he’s building the system he always wished existed, and in the process, forcing venture to look in the mirror.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

00:01 – Eric Woo intro, Revere VC

01:00 – Engineering to finance pivot, CFA escape hatch

02:30 – Pricing CDOs before the financial crisis

04:20 – Front-row seat to the GFC

05:50 – First startup experience, search engine marketing

08:30 – Entering venture via fund of funds

10:40 – Early micro-VC and seed investing era

13:00 – Institutionalizing emerging managers

15:00 – Heuristics for backing new GPs

17:10 – Specialization and GP differentiation

19:30 – AngelList and the rise of syndicates

22:00 – Family offices and venture as participation sport

24:30 – Scaling challenges in GP–LP matchmaking

26:10 – What never changes in evaluating GPs

27:50 – Founder–VC relationship as core signal

29:10 – The origin of Revere

30:40 – Rating emerging managers with data

33:00 – Quantifying value-add

35:30 – Gaming the system vs real substance

38:00 – AI in GP self-assessment

41:00 – Structured vs unstructured data in venture

44:00 – AI, fees, and fund economics

47:30 – Transparency as LP differentiation

50:00 – Revere roadmap and Velvet merger

52:30 – Network effects and venture platforms

55:10 – Venture distribution and new capital channels

57:20 – Efficient frontier of early-stage venture

59:40 – Concentration vs volume strategies

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