When you think of global venture capital, Lithuania isn’t the first country that comes to mind. Yet in this episode of the Ignite Podcast, Justinas Milašauskas, Investment Manager at Willgrow, shares how a family office from Vilnius has built one of the most disciplined and globally connected venture strategies in Europe.
With over 15 years of experience across trading, institutional sales, and portfolio management — from Amsterdam to Paris — Justinas brings a rare blend of analytical rigor and entrepreneurial spirit to the world of private markets. What started as a family office focused on transport and real estate has evolved into a diversified investment platform spanning buyouts, venture capital, credit, and real assets.
From Derivatives to Venture: A Career Built on Adaptation
Justinas’ journey into finance began early. Growing up in a family of bankers, he was surrounded by financial language long before his first job. After studying econometrics, he launched his career as a trader in Amsterdam and later joined Aegon, a global asset manager, where he managed credit portfolios.
His career path took him through multiple institutional roles — from portfolio management to trading — but the turning point came when he joined a smaller family office in Lithuania. There, he discovered private markets and venture capital, a space that combined his love of numbers with the human side of investing: backing founders, selecting teams, and building trust.
The Birth of Willgrow’s Venture Arm
Willgrow’s story starts humbly — with a single truck in the early 1990s. Decades later, that transport business had scaled into Europe’s largest asset-heavy logistics company, and its founders launched Willgrow as a family office to manage and diversify their wealth.
Today, Willgrow manages relationships with nearly 100 fund managers worldwide, investing across asset classes and geographies. The team of five focuses relentlessly on one principle: manager selection as a source of alpha. Rather than chasing deals or co-investments, they concentrate on identifying fund managers with exceptional strategy fit and proven execution.
“We decided the best idea wins,” says Justinas. “If we don’t find a fund that meets our criteria, we simply don’t invest.”
Why Willgrow Chooses Funds Over Direct Investments
Unlike many family offices, Willgrow doesn’t rush into direct deals or co-investments. The reason? Focus and efficiency.
Direct deals, Justinas explains, can consume time and distract from their primary goal: evaluating and backing the world’s best managers.
Instead, Willgrow follows a fund-of-funds approach, building a “bulletproof fund portfolio” before moving into any co-investment strategy. The team spends its time conducting deep diligence, attending global LP conferences, and refining its asset allocation — not chasing the next flashy startup.
Building a Balanced Portfolio
When it comes to allocation, Willgrow applies both discipline and flexibility. Their strategic asset allocation typically targets:
30–35% in buyouts
20–25% in venture
10% in credit
10% in real assets
The rest in liquid markets
Each asset class is meaningful but not oversized. They periodically reassess assumptions — like expected IRRs and risk dispersion — to adjust course as markets evolve. Venture IRRs, for instance, have cooled from 29% in 2021 to around 14–15% today, prompting Willgrow to incorporate secondary funds for better liquidity and shorter durations.
Sourcing GPs and Avoiding Red Flags
Being based outside major financial hubs poses unique challenges. To overcome this, Willgrow invests heavily in relationships — partnering with fund-of-funds, established LP networks, and on-the-ground advisors.
When evaluating GPs, Justinas prioritizes what he calls “GP-strategy fit” — ensuring that a manager’s experience and expertise align with their fund’s thesis. First-time GPs are welcome, but first-time teams are a red flag. “Team risk is the biggest risk,” he says. “If they haven’t worked together before, that’s an automatic no.”
He also looks for managers who are credible within their networks, operate with transparency, and have evidence of thoughtful decision-making. Track record matters, but so does the story behind each investment.
From Concentration to Diversification
Willgrow’s early approach leaned toward concentration — larger checks in fewer funds. But as venture markets became more competitive and AI blurred the lines between winners and copycats, the firm adapted.
Now, they write smaller checks across a wider range of managers to capture more opportunities while reducing idiosyncratic risk. It’s a reflection of Willgrow’s core philosophy: stay consistent in process but flexible in execution.
Inside the LP’s Due Diligence Playbook
For emerging GPs hoping to work with family offices like Willgrow, Justinas offers practical insights.
A well-organized data room is essential — with detailed investment schedules, ownership breakdowns, co-investor lists, and concise deal memos. “Every data room can be better,” he laughs. “There should be a standard by now.”
LPs don’t need glossy presentations; they want clarity, structure, and evidence of thought. Willgrow reviews sample deal memos — including hits and misses — to understand how a GP reasons through decisions. And while references help, off-sheet backchanneling remains key to gauging credibility.
Lessons from Four Years of Venture Investing
After four years in venture, Justinas admits that some early assumptions have changed. Ticket sizes are smaller. Diligence cycles are longer. Patience matters more than ever.
He’s also learned that manager selection is as much art as science — requiring intuition, relationships, and humility in equal measure.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Willgrow
Willgrow’s next chapter focuses on fine-tuning fund selection, expanding global reach, and backing the best emerging managers — especially at Fund II, where there’s more track record and stability.
The firm plans to deepen its presence in the U.S., Europe, and Israel while exploring opportunities in India and Latin America. “The goal,” Justinas says, “is simple: meet the best managers in the world — and back them early.”
Books, Mindsets, and Lasting Lessons
When he’s not analyzing funds, Justinas looks to books for perspective. His favorites include Why Nations Fail, a deep dive into why some economies thrive while others collapse, and Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson, whose approach to talent mirrors Willgrow’s investment philosophy: find the right people early and nurture them to greatness.
Ultimately, Justinas believes success in venture — like in leadership — belongs to those who stay curious, humble, and yes, a little paranoid. “The paranoid will survive,” he quotes. “Those who constantly adapt will thrive.”
Key Takeaway
Willgrow’s rise from a local family office to a global LP powerhouse offers a playbook for long-term investing:
Stay disciplined. Never chase deals for the sake of activity.
Build relationships. Your network is your best source of truth.
Diversify wisely. Flexibility is key in fast-changing markets.
Invest in people. The best returns often come from trust and partnership.
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Chapters:
00:02 Early life in Vilnius and family influence in finance
03:00 Starting career as a trader in Amsterdam
04:10 Transition from public markets to family office investing
05:30 Discovering venture capital and building early networks
06:25 Joining Willgrow and professionalizing the venture journey
07:45 Lessons from angel investing and early portfolio wins
09:45 Evolution of Willgrow from transport and real estate to investments
11:50 Growth into a diversified global investment platform
13:00 Five core investment areas at Willgrow
14:10 Why Willgrow focuses on funds over direct deals
16:30 Building a “bulletproof” fund portfolio strategy
18:10 Strategic asset allocation and balancing risk across classes
20:40 How Willgrow sets portfolio weights and long-term targets
22:40 Shifts in venture returns and performance assumptions
23:50 Managing liquidity and duration through secondaries
25:55 Currency exposure between U.S. and European investments
28:20 Sourcing fund managers and building LP networks
30:40 Partnering with fund-of-funds and global advisors
31:00 GP–strategy fit as a key selection criterion
32:30 Evaluating track records and past success indicators
33:00 Investing in first-time GPs and assessing credibility
34:20 Soft referencing and network-based validation
35:00 From concentrated bets to diversified fund portfolios
37:20 Navigating a more competitive venture landscape
38:20 Specialist vs. generalist fund approaches
40:40 How Willgrow evaluates sector focus and adaptability
44:30 Benchmarking and monitoring fund performance
46:50 Lessons learned after four years of venture investing
48:50 Ticket sizing, pacing, and realistic growth assumptions
49:30 Risks of first-time teams in emerging managers
51:00 Case study: when a first-time GP team collapses
52:00 Evaluating fund valuations and markup practices
53:00 Due diligence and data room best practices
54:20 What LPs look for in deal memos and documentation
54:37 End of main discussion
Transcript
Brian Bell (00:01:09)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Ignite podcast. Today we’re thrilled to have Justinas Saskas, I knew I’d butcher that, on the mic. He’s an investment manager at WillGrow with 15 years across asset investing and prior roles spanning trading, institutional sales and portfolio management. He’s also an active angel investor and a member of Litban, which we’ll talk about. WillGrow is a family office, diversified investment platform rooted in Lithuania. So we’re excited to have him on the program today. Thanks for coming on.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:01:37)
Thanks, Brian. Super glad to be here.
Brian Bell (00:01:39)
So I usually kick off every recording with the same question. What’s your origin story?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:01:44)
Yeah, well, it dates back 41 years ago when I was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. My parents were both bankers. And since day one, basically, I’ve been hearing all the terminology like, you know, margin, Vibor, default, things like that. And probably subconsciously, I was basically driven to this field of finance and math was my strongest subject at school and I studied econometrics which is pretty quantitative field and I love numbers, I love finance. That was basically programmed consciously or subconsciously in my mind since day one and I started as a trader in Amsterdam after graduating my master’s there and from that moment it just kept growing from there. After trading derivatives I joined a large asset manager called Agon which is multinational with offices in the US, Netherlands and UK managing portfolio there in credit. After that I joined investment bank in Paris, moved to the sell side, then managed also fixed income portfolio and trading at a bank in Lithuania. And at some point, after changing three, four institutional roles, I somehow was tempted to join a smaller, more nimble, hands-on activity that was in the form of family offices. So basically, my first experience in a family office was at a smaller family office in Lithuania, where we were doing industrial projects, real estate projects, investing in a few funds as well. And at that time, I got familiarized with venture capital, private equity that was outside of my liquid public markets experience that I had before. And this world just fascinated me because you basically could combine investment skill and add on top of that people skill, which is needed to select teams, manage relationships, and get access to the best opportunities out there. So during that role, I think around 2020, something around that time, I said it would be just great to invest my own capital in some of these funds. And obviously, I didn’t have that much money to do that, you know, to write minimum checks of 500K to 1 million. So I started pooling my friends and family capital and accessing small managers mainly in Silicon Valley, created sort of proprietary fund where I started investing my own capital, sourcing these funds and sharing best ideas with my friends and family who would also join in on these opportunities. So that’s how I started actually doing venture as a hobby, basically. And a few years down the line, since Lithuania is such a small world, basically people at WillGrow decided to start investing in venture as well. And basically we matched, we met a few times, we discussed ideas. They liked what I’d been doing and I liked their vision and ambition in the space. And basically we just decided to join forces and I’m super glad now I’m working for four plus years at WillGrow — basically professionalized my hobby from five or six years ago and continue that journey at WillGrow.
Brian Bell (00:05:29)
Was there a pivotal moment for you — maybe a deal, a mentor, or a failure — that reoriented your trajectory? Especially at an institutional level, I mean, starting in the public markets and then kind of moving to the private?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:05:42)
I think so. My first… so as you mentioned, I’m an angel investor locally, part of the Lithuanian Business Angel Network. And maybe there were one or two catalysts actually that, you know, impacted my path and maybe where I’m currently at. So first one was my first two angel checks were in the old, old industry type of ideas. One was in the hotel, another was in a restaurant chain. So it was all to back friends. And, you know, it was exciting back in the day, 10 years ago, I guess. And they didn’t go that well. And then I realized at some point, you know, when I was still on these investments — now one is fully written off, another is, you know, thankfully I received my money back without big profits — I realized, like, what am I doing? I should be just, you know, investing in technology instead of these old-style businesses. And that’s how I started doing Litban, angel investing in technology companies. And my very first check returned nearly 40X in two years. So that was incredible success. Beginner’s luck.
Brian Bell (00:06:52)
It kind of ruins you for all other investing, right? When you get a 40X.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:06:55)
Exactly. So then you extrapolate that — that’s how it should always work. That’s so easy.
Brian Bell (00:07:00)
You’re surprised when the next one doesn’t go that way.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:07:03)
No, I’ve written a few off since then. So basically…
Brian Bell (00:07:08)
One of my first ones went 33X, and like, yeah — same. It was like 18 to 24 months. I was like, “Wow, I must be really good at this,” you know?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:07:15)
Totally.
Brian Bell (00:07:15)
Kind of ruins you for everything else.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:07:17)
So these two, I think, kind of shaped that, okay, technology is the right field — but it’s not as easy as it can be sometimes, you know, given the amount of luck involved. But yeah, I think this is the most exciting asset class and we see what is happening these days with the proliferation of AI.
Brian Bell (00:07:35)
And so no turning back from that. And there are a lot of doomers out there on the internet right now talking about, you know, AI is going to take all our jobs. And it must be like being a farmer in 1810, and you’re looking at all these factories and tractors and equipment coming to the farm — maybe in the 1800s, not 1810 — but probably in the 1800s at some point, you’re like, wow, you know, we’re not going to have anything to do. All these machines are going to do all our jobs. What could we possibly do if all these machines are doing all our jobs? And I think we’re kind of at that moment now in the 2020s, as we record here in 2025. You know, it’s like, oh man, AI is going to do all this cognitive work. And what are we going to do? And well, I don’t know — we’ll do podcasts and stuff like that.
Brian Bell (00:08:21)
So tell us more about WillGrow. What’s the charter there? What’s your mission? What was the kind of origin story there?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:08:28)
It all started 30 plus years ago with one truck, and the rest is history. So basically our principal, in the early 1990s, just bought a truck, spent all his money. And the company basically bootstrapped until today — now thousands and thousands of trucks on the road in Europe, the largest asset-heavy transport company. And after that, they invested a lot in real estate, built another company which is the largest regional warehouse business called Sirin. So incredible success on the business side.
And at some point, you know, you have to put a strategy in place — how to reinvest, how to sort of think about the future and capital. And WillGrow was started nearly 10 years ago, gradually investing in bonds and in real estate projects locally and started with one CIO. And then gradually every few years, a new investment manager would join. Now we’re five on the team. And our evolution was from a local investor in opportunistic ideas — single asset vehicles, mainly in real estate — and then some private credit, direct lending stuff for local developers or companies, to a global player in private markets.
We have nearly 100 manager relationships around the globe across buyouts, venture, private credit, and real assets. Venture has been the newest asset class that we added — that’s when I joined four years ago, give or take. And it’s all a global approach. The US probably takes up two-thirds of our investments. The rest is Israel and Europe, obviously Europe dominates that part. And the vision is to be very good in fund selection. That’s the only core skill that we practice and fine-tune every day. We try to be better in that, and we think this will generate a strong alpha over the cycle. Markets go up, markets go down, markets close, markets open — but manager selection alpha persists. So that’s what we focus on and that’s our objective.
Brian Bell (00:10:54)
That’s amazing. So you’ve grown to five investment managers and I would imagine each one of you has a different area that you practice. So what are those five areas?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:11:02)
Exactly. So it’s buyouts, credit, venture, real assets, and public markets as well.
Brian Bell (00:11:08)
Interesting. And so you guys have taken the tact of, especially on the venture and startup side, investing in funds rather than directs. Tell us about what drove that decision.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:11:16)
Yeah. So I think it’s a function of a few elements. First, we’re not that huge in terms of assets. We don’t have pressure to invest, and, you know, direct deals or co-investments are probably the fastest way to employ dollars or euros from day one. We don’t have that problem or issue. We said best idea wins. If we don’t find, we just don’t invest.
And the other item is we’ve done a few co-investments. We’ve noticed some of them were pretty successful, some of them are still TBD. But what we noticed is that it takes a lot of time, and then you have to drop everything, start to spend a week or two on the deal, and then come back to your day-to-day — fund selection, travels, diligence, reference calls, things that we do every day. Not that productive from our side. So we said, okay, there is no need, no FOMO, no need to rush.
If we decide later down the road to do that — which I think is a likely path — we can talk about that in a moment. But first we build a bulletproof fund portfolio, and I think it’s a natural evolution of the family office. We call ourselves an emerging LP. We’re pretty new, we’re still learning. It’s a natural evolution to build a bulletproof fund portfolio and then take it from there with an open mindset and maybe build a small team of one or two people dedicated on that activity.
Brian Bell (00:12:54)
Really fascinating. So I almost have the exact same journey that I followed personally on the real-estate side. I grew up — my dad was a fixer-flipper, entrepreneur kind of guy. So when I was in my twenties, you know, when I was in and out of Wall Street and stuff like that, I was doing a lot of real-estate deals, directs. I’d buy a house, fix it up, sell it, rent it — you know, those kinds of deals. And I did probably 50 of those in my twenties and I was making good money, but I wasn’t enjoying the work. You know, like what you said — you drop everything, you had to work on the deal.
And then I sold most of my real-estate holdings and I started being an LP in deals. And then even that started to just be a lot of work — all the individual deals, these dozens of updates, like what’s going on with each of these. And now I’ve kind of graduated on my real-estate portfolio to just doing funds. I just hire a GP, I know they’re good at what they do, and I’m going to pay them the two-and-twenty — or in real estate, sometimes it escalates even to thirty — but I’m going to pay them the money they deserve to go manage this money properly, right, in this asset class. So that’s really interesting that you guys have kind of come to the same conclusion and are picking funds.
And it is a lot of work to look through deals and do due diligence and keep up on a portfolio. And, you know, a lot of my day now with 250 portfolio companies goes to managing the portfolio, and I try to build automation and systems and I have an assistant and everything — a lot of AI to kind of keep tabs and automation — but it is a lot of work to keep track of all these startups. How do you guys balance allocations between these asset classes? How do you think about that?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:14:28)
Yeah, good question indeed. That’s where we spent the whole day last Monday — on this topic. Basically that’s what we call strategic asset allocation, and how do you define weights and trajectories of the whole investment portfolio.
So I think it boils down to a few things. First, we decided to be diversified. We decided to be in the private markets. We are fine with illiquidity. We say manager selection is the source of alpha through the cycle, and these remain stable pillars of our activity. What can change is always, you know, you can fine-tune weights and proportions and some tactical things surrounding these pillars.
So how do we define weights and targets? First, it’s very important that each asset-class portfolio has a meaningful weight, but not too large. So our rule of thumb is somewhere between ten and thirty percent — that’s probably the range where an asset class makes sense to start doing or to keep in the portfolio. Then we look at the properties of each asset class — volatility or risk, and then returns, dispersion, you know, dispersion within quartiles, dispersion between quartiles — things like that.
And then you sort of define internally what is the most preferred based on these metrics, what is least preferred and has lowest weight. And that’s how we came up with a sort of stack-ranked model — buyouts at the top with thirty to thirty-five percent, venture as a second at twenty to twenty-five percent long-term target, credit around ten percent, real assets around ten percent, and the rest in liquid bonds and equities.
This would be the approach. And then every year we review our assumptions for each asset class because it was funny — this year we looked at assumptions for all asset classes since we started these: venture four years ago, buyouts five years ago, credit six years ago. And, you know, for venture it was five-year rolling IRRs at nine percent, things like that. Buyouts also looked like incredible hits. And then, you know, you see assumptions change over time and you can readjust your views and preferences.
But we haven’t done any big swings in our allocation because there’s a lot of inertia, obviously, in privates. But secondly, these relative rankings from our perspective — they’ve remained pretty much the same for the past few years.
Brian Bell (00:17:17)
So fascinating. It’s incredible. On your venture portfolio so far, you’re clocking a 29 percent IRR, which is really great. That’s probably top five or ten percent.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:17:27)
So it’s not us — just to clarify. So we started venture in 2021, and at that point in time, when we were starting venture, venture was showing incredible performance. So at the end of the second quarter 2021, venture had rolling five-year IRRs of 29 percent. And now when we look at five-year rolling IRRs from today’s standpoint, it’s at 14 or 15 percent — something like that. So assumptions and market dynamics change over time, so we need to always evaluate that. Our portfolio in venture is still young since we started four years ago. We’re super glad that it’s out of the J-curve — it’s already showing good signs of performance.
Brian Bell (00:18:21)
Yeah, that’s fascinating. So let’s talk a little bit — I had one more question here on asset allocation, which is how does liquidity and maturity timelines factor into your asset allocation decisions? Meaning, you know, a lot of family offices I talk to will say, hey, yeah, great, you got great performance there, whatever, but it’s going to take 10 to 15 years for an early-stage venture fund to really fully mature, and we’re just too impatient — we need a five-year timeline.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:18:48)
Yeah, absolutely great questions. Again, back four years ago, in 2021, the liquidity profile — say, cash yield or distribution yield — was around 30 percent in venture. So meaning, you know, over the course of 12 months, you’d get 30 percent back of your NAV or get your money back after three, three and a half years basically, after investing. Today, the yield is around 9 percent — it’s eight or nine percent. It means basically 10 years to get your money back. Again, very different regimes, very different environments.
So from 2021 to today, we actually did a lot of things as a function of the changing environment. We saw that squeeze happening, and since 2022 we started investing in secondary funds. Secondary funds are much shorter duration, because our core thesis is on early stage — pre-seed and seed managers. And we started seeing the J-curves getting longer, deployment pacing slowing down, so we realized we needed to do something. Because we still like the asset class, but then liquidity can become a little bit of an issue. So we started doing secondaries to balance it out, to smooth the J-curve, to get liquidity going. Same thing happened in our buyout portfolio as well. So we just took measures at that point of time — the best we could.
Brian Bell (00:20:22)
So you’re in Europe, and you guys have got to be probably watching the dollar get deflated a little bit over the last year — I think we’re down 10 or 15 percent against other currencies. How are you guys thinking about that as LPs?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:20:32)
Yeah, so that’s indeed a topic internally. And I think in a family office setup, it’s all about, let’s say, the principal and his view of earnings and potential expenditures in terms of currency — like, okay, is it in euros, is it in dollars, how it’s going to look years into the future, etc.
So actually, we are quite flexible in that respect. Our target currency setup is 50/50 — US versus Europe — at the moment and into the near-term future. And that’s pretty much exactly where we are. As I mentioned, 50 to 60 percent is our US investments, and this fluctuation is impacting our management reporting in euros and maybe end-of-year balance sheet, let’s say, you know, values in financial statements. But all the investing performance that we track — performance of managers — is always in local currency. So if a manager fundamentally is flat, not adding value, but the currency moved 20 percent in his or her favor, then if we don’t take that into account, we might say, oh, it’s great performance — but then it actually means nothing because it’s just the currency move. So we always exclude the currency, and the US managers look in dollar IRRs and TVPIs, European managers in euros.
Brian Bell (00:22:04)
Yeah, fascinating. Let’s talk about deal flow. How do you guys find all these GPs to evaluate?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:22:06)
So a few years back when we started venture, we realized we’re far away from a financial center like London, New York, or SF. And we need some help — at least to avoid adverse-selection issues, which are super prevalent in venture. I think in buyouts it’s still the case, but in venture it’s incredible. And especially, you know, if we talk about directs and co-investments, that gets even worse.
So we said, okay, how can we solve that? We took a few steps. First, we are four times a year at least in the US ourselves for a week or two — attending key events, meeting other family offices, LPs, etc. So that’s one.
Second was to build a strong, established LP network. So we realized we’re an emerging LP — we need to find like-minded people who are more established, that have done venture and private equity for 10 or 20 years. That’s what we’ve done successfully and continue to do. It’s an ongoing process.
And we realized that we need to partner up with fund-of-funds and bring on board advisors to the family office on a portfolio level or an asset-class level. That’s what we’ve done on the venture side. So fund-of-funds help us a lot — it’s an incredible, aspiring partner. We get a lot of insights from people on the ground in the Bay Area, in New York, in London, or in Germany — wherever they are. So we backed four fund-of-funds in venture, a few in buyouts — so that works really great.
Brian Bell (00:23:52)
So you get a bunch of pitch decks, like probably I do for startups. So you’re getting all these GPs pitching you all their funds. What are some filters — especially on the venture side — or red flags you apply when you’re kind of doing that first screen?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:24:06)
Yeah. So initial screening — it’s all about GP–strategy fit. We look at biographies or people profiles and try to understand why are they doing this strategy? Does that fit their profile to the core? And if we have any doubts on that, that’s an immediate no.
Brian Bell (00:24:25)
First and foremost, GP–market fit. It’s like this GP has a good GP–market fit — there’s a why.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:24:30)
Exactly. And that could be, you know, operating experience in that area. It could be previous investment track record in the space — various items in the background of a GP or a team that indicate that this is the right fit between the team and the strategy they’re going to be executing. So that’s the initial checklist.
And then, if we get comfortable with that, we look at what have been the signs of success in the past while being active in that field. Again, it could be, I don’t know, a unicorn exit in enterprise infrastructure, maybe a topic, and now the person is creating an enterprise-infrastructure fund. So it’s not necessarily that we need to see 10x realized in previous fund or funds. It could be successful angel track record investing — factors like that. We look at success by various angles.
Brian Bell (00:25:47)
So it sounds like you’ll look at first-time GPs as well — like, hey, I’m just starting my first fund here.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:25:52)
True. And this is very hard, actually. That’s why we want to look at the whole space. For us, we don’t have a predetermined bucket or weight for established, emerging — things like that. You just look at the manager, and being emerging is just one of the features. It’s like, I don’t know, team of three, team of one, solo — things like that. These are just features.
So we look for the fit, we look for success, and then we put it into our pipeline, dig deeper, and also discuss these managers with our fund-of-funds partners — you know, did they invest, have they looked at them, why didn’t they look? Because the third layer is probably what we could call soft referencing. It’s like — are these people credible in the area? Do they have other LPs on the cap table? Are they sourcing from relevant networks? Have they done anything in the past to piss founders or anything on the positive or negative side?
We don’t have these insights from being far away. So that’s why we just talk to our LP network — fund-of-funds being part of that — and get a lot of interesting insights. And then we either continue or stop from that point. That’s fascinating.
Brian Bell (00:27:13)
So when you’re thinking about your portfolio, do you prefer to concentrate in just a few funds, or do you prefer a little bit more diversification? And how do you think about kind of building that portfolio in venture in particular?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:27:26)
Yeah. It’s funny — when we started, we thought we knew it all. And then we started in a concentrated way. The more we do it, the further into the forest we are, the more the trees there are. So it’s getting a bit — it seems so challenging. But that’s sort of a little bit of humor.
I think it depends. So at this moment, especially since two years ago — since, you know, the ChatGPT moment — we realized, hey, this market is changing for real. So the moats in startups — they will be blurred. There will be a few large infrastructure winners, but then, you know, on the application side, who knows how all the things will play out?
For the best idea of the manager that he or she backed a few weeks ago, there are 20 competitors after one month, and after three months there’s an even better idea in the same field. So the opportunity set, the competitive nature, the moats — they just changed dramatically.
So we realized that it’s also become so much harder for us as LPs to pick winning fund managers with a very high conviction. So since 2023, we started to diversify a bit more — write slightly smaller checks, but a few more checks per year — to just diversify, capture maybe some ideas that we wouldn’t be able to capture in a more concentrated way, and give us a little bit more security or visibility into some managers and their ways of investing.
We’ll see — maybe when the market settles down or changes a few years later, then we have these relationships, and maybe again we can concentrate a bit more. So I think it’s very dynamic.
What we said to ourselves is we will always be investing every year — same amounts or even more — and we’ll continue doing that for many, many years. That will not change. But what we can change is where we invest. Maybe we do more secondaries, maybe we diversify more, maybe we concentrate more, maybe we go more with micro funds or multi-stage funds. So this remains flexible to navigate depending on how the market behaves.
Brian Bell (00:30:02)
It’s a multidimensional problem, and it’s fascinating to think about, right? Because you have five different practices at a small family office — or smallish, smaller than some — and you think about all the asset classes in the world that you could be investing in, and there’s five people doing five different things.
And then you just dive into just venture. You start thinking about just venture and how complex it is — you have different stages, multi-stage, you have different geos, you definitely have different sectors, you have generalist funds, you have niche funds. How do you think about all of those options? There’s just such a menu in venture capital.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:30:38)
Yeah, it is. Especially if you open PitchBook or a directory of all funds — thousands and thousands of managers — then your head starts spinning. But I think the part is that our job is basically to say “no” 99.9 percent of the time.
Brian Bell (00:30:59)
I say that a lot too. I say that exact phrase — my job is basically you’re paying me to go say “no” 999 times out of a thousand. Basically, I only invest in probably one out of a thousand startups I see — maybe one out of 500, you know? That’s literally my job.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:31:12)
This is just the job — nothing personal. You know, so many great ideas out there, but we just try to be very structured, very disciplined. And even after saying all these no’s, when I look at the pipeline, it’s still like 20, 30 managers where we need to select 10. So that’s why we need that extra layer of help, as I mentioned before.
Brian Bell (00:31:38)
Yeah, I think — you know what’s interesting about the fund-of-funds? I’ve talked to lots of them over the years. They’ll typically look at me, because I’m a pretty diversified 100–150 per fund investor, and they’ll go, “Well, we’re kind of looking for niches.” Do you hear the same thing from your fund-of-funds advisors? Like, “No, don’t invest in generalist funds — pick five niches every year”?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:31:59)
Coming back to the generalist–specialist and all the opportunities out there — I think we try to be flexible again. Best idea wins at WillGrow. So we look at everything. We say no to many, many ideas, which is normal in this opportunity set — this bigger set of opportunities across all asset classes.
For specialists — you can make a case for both. There are incredible investors both in specialist domains and generalist domains. A lot of research and data has been produced, published all over the internet. I would imagine you could find stats on both sides.
Brian Bell (00:32:40)
Exactly, totally. Totally. No — generalists outperform. No — specialists outperform. No — early stage outperforms. No — late stage outperforms, you know?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:32:48)
Totally. Small funds, big funds, things like that.
Brian Bell (00:32:50)
You can tell your story in any way you want to shape it.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:32:53)
Yeah. But the way we think is there is a handful of really large sectors — enterprise, fintech, cybersecurity, biotech, and a few more — where we think it makes sense to go with a specialist, especially at the earliest stages, where they can add a lot of value. You know, when you’re at sort of pre-IPO or late growth, then any crossover or larger fund can just do their calculus and spreadsheets and write a check. So we think specialists make the most sense at the earlier stages of company lives.
And then going to generalists — I think it’s a higher bar for generalists, because what generalists need to show is that, okay, over the cycle, people are able to identify not only the best companies but also the best sectors. Because, you know, maybe a few years ago people were investing in crypto at some point, then in tech-bio, then at some point in cybersecurity, and then consumer before that.
So as a generalist, the universe is so broad, but then you need to show some evidence of being able to narrow it down based on some algorithms or methods that you have in-house, and to show this track record of being able to — what I call “pivot” — from vintage to vintage, to emerging sectors, not only emerging but sectors to be emerging three to five years later, and capitalize on that.
So it’s even harder. And when you’re a specialist, you’re doing just, I don’t know, life sciences, early-stage biotech opportunities — you’re very good at that, and you just keep producing these returns. But being a generalist — it’s super hard. We found a few teams like that. We continue to keep looking, and I hope it works well.
Brian Bell (00:35:03)
So you’ve picked your funds, and now you’re in the monitoring and evaluating phase. How are you benchmarking? What’s your valuation policy that you tell your GPs to follow? How are you monitoring these portfolios?
Brian Bell (00:44:25)
What do you see as the world-class GP CRM out there? Because there are a few out there that are—do you like any particular platforms? When you see, “Hey, that GP’s on that platform,” I really like that platform. I know it’s going to be really well-organized. Or is it all just all over the place?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:44:39)
Yeah, so going back, it’s basically all these investments, some memos maybe on some deals that we ask to understand the logic.
Brian Bell (00:44:52)
This is a question for me—I’m getting to prep my next fundraise with you. I have 150 deals per fund. You want to see all 150 deal memos, or you just want to see the ones that are worked up?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:45:02)
No, no, no. So it depends. Sometimes we want to see the memo of the deal that went to zero. Sometimes we want to see a memo of, I don’t know, your just average regular deal, or maybe the best deal. So I think a kind of selection of the misses, the hits, and just the thinking—like what played out, what didn’t. And yeah.
So for us, it’s not a necessity to have, I don’t know, a 10-pager on each company produced by a manager, but at least some structured format—how you look at things, maybe a two-pager with something. But then we want to talk about that deal, and you sense how well-articulate, how well sort of, you know, how deep the manager went on certain thesis and rationale. And this discussion can be super and much more productive than me reading a 10-pager. So I think that’s how we look at it.
What else? I mean, standard stuff—you know, some legal docs, then the deck, bios, reference list. Although, you know, we do probably half of, at least half of references, the off-sheet references.
Brian Bell (00:46:17)
Yeah, exactly.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:46:17)
So—but it’s still helpful, because we know these references will be supportive, that’s why people place it there. But it gives a certain signal of the networks— which networks surround the manager and which people, GPs, other GPs or LPs or founders, they go well with and who is on the list. So that gives a little bit of understanding in that space. We can always double-click in certain areas for more clarity. Yeah, I think, you know, basic things.
Brian Bell (00:46:49)
What about fund admins? I’ve been hearing from some of my GP friends that there are fund admins that LPs don’t like. When they see it, they’re like, “Ah, that’s— I don’t like that fund.” Like there’s Carta, there’s AngelList, there’s a bunch of others. Are there any fund admins that you particularly like or dislike?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:47:07)
No, no, we don’t put too much weight on that in venture. Especially in buyouts—it’s a different story.
Brian Bell (00:47:12)
Interesting. What’s good in buyouts?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:47:16)
Well, it has to be well-known, it has to be super established. That’s the key. If we see a first-time one, then it’s a yellow flag.
Brian Bell (00:47:21)
Yeah, so kind of the fund admin’s kind of an afterthought here, it sounds like. Let’s talk about the future—what’s on your radar over the next, you know, three to five years as an LP?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:47:33)
I think more of the same—just keep fine-tuning the fund-selection skill. Meet the best—not necessarily on their Fund I, but Fund II works well as well, because sometimes these fundraises are super, you know, super fast.
Brian Bell (00:47:50)
Yeah, I’ve seen funds close in a week.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:47:56)
Exactly—in a week or two. You know, existing LPs just move, you know, tag along, and it’s like—we don’t chase. We’re fine. We just find a good opportunity to meet them in between the fundraising cycles, build relationships, and back Fund II. We’ve done that a number of times like that. So there’s no rush from our side. But the key objective is for us to meet the best emerging managers—at least on Fund II.
Otherwise, we will continue investing in all these asset classes, and in venture, buyouts, credit. We will be in the U.S. four times a year, Europe every other week, Israel—these are core geographies. We might spend a bit more time in some other geographies—India, LATAM, maybe China at some point. It’s sort of a top-down but also bottoms-up: the best idea wins.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:35:17)
Yeah — we’re a low-maintenance LP. We’re not interfering with GPs on how to do their job or evaluate stuff. We need to understand it, and then we’ll evaluate, of course, for REFs, and in between we can have a check-in.
The way we benchmark — we use Burgiss database. And then, of course, we look at all the funds in a given vintage. We benchmark them to understand how the funds are tracking in terms of net IRR, net TVPI, and obviously DPI — but it’s still too early on the DPI side for us, since we started four years ago. So that’s one.
Also — maybe it’s not that common — but as a family office, we sort of have an evergreen structure. And sometimes when people ask, “Okay, so how many funds do you invest in?” I’m like, “Yeah, it’s not like a closed-end fund-of-funds vehicle where you say, okay, in this fund-of-funds, I just do 15 or 20 deals and that’s it.” We’re evergreen — it’s always kind of evolving.
But internally we said, okay, let’s look at the portfolio from a fund-of-funds perspective. So we have a three-year, let’s say, vintage approach — and now we’re on vintage number two. And then we take these vintages, and we put all the funds in these vintages, and then we benchmark with fund-of-funds as well — not only our portfolio, but also on the Burgiss database.
So various angles — but it helps us understand how we’re doing, where we’re going, and then we can answer the question better: how many funds are you backing? So then we say, okay, per vintage, we back 15–20 managers.
Brian Bell (00:36:56)
How have you course-corrected now that you’ve been doing it for four years? What have you learned? What do you wish you knew four or five years ago that you’re now practicing?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:37:07)
I think first is ticket sizing. Second is selecting one out of one — and to double-click on those. So it used to be, you know, you meet or get an intro with a manager, it looks great, ticks all the boxes, and then you pull the trigger. That’s not the case anymore.
So now we’re mapping things out — talk to all the peers in the space, competitors — and then try to pick the best from that sector or even region. We have one or two geographically focused managers. So that’s one.
And the other is ticket sizing. As I mentioned, at the beginning we were more concentrated. So that’s one factor. I think we were also making certain assumptions about the future growth of the assets, the future liquidity. When you look at all these distribution yields at 30 percent, then you say, okay, in four years I get one DPI — and you project all the portfolio.
Then you say, okay, I need to commit this amount because the assets grow so fast, so it has to be meaningful. So we’re not doing these projections out of thin air — we’re looking more realistically. And that’s why the ticket sizing has scaled down.
Brian Bell (00:38:28)
Let’s talk a little bit about emerging managers for a second, right? Because you’re looking at first-time fund managers, which is super risky. How do you kind of filter through that and balance between that and, say, an established manager? And I think established managers technically are usually on fund four, right? So call it the first three funds as emerging. But let’s really talk about that first one or two funds. What are some red flags that you’re just like, oh, that’s an automatic no?
Brian Bell (00:38:50)
First-time fund.
Brian Bell (00:38:51)
What’s that?
Brian Bell (00:38:52)
First-time team.
Brian Bell (00:38:53)
First-time team.
Brian Bell (00:38:53)
Okay.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:38:54)
Tell us more. So we’ve been mapping one country in Europe — it’s a big one. We have a strong conviction that it makes sense to have a manager based in that country sourcing locally pre-seed ideas, because these ideas can hardly be captured well by a manager based in another country. So we did all this mapping, and then two finalists came out in our rankings.
One was Fund 3, with a team that had been established and worked together. And then Fund 1, which referenced super well, was very hot, nearly oversubscribed — but it was a first-time team. So we went…
Brian Bell (00:39:44)
Meaning they didn’t have history together — like they just kind of came together to do the fund?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:39:47)
Well, they had history together, kind of — but they were not part of, you know, the same fund or team or business.
Brian Bell (00:39:54)
They knew each other, but they hadn’t worked together.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:39:58)
Exactly. They knew each other, hadn’t worked together. And, you know, six months later, we hear the fund hasn’t closed yet — they’re still in the process of closing — but the team just collapsed. So basically they went separate ways. So it just illustrated that we were super lucky and glad we made the right choice at that time as well. So for us, it’s absolutely number one item for, let’s say, first-time funds.
Brian Bell (00:40:24)
Yeah, it’s something I look for too when I’m evaluating a startup. I mean, that’s a pretty big red flag, you know — yellow maybe. That would be kind of a yellowish flag for me. I mean, I think it’s like a must-have, actually. How are you going to go do a startup, which is more intense than a marriage, will last longer than most marriages, if you haven’t worked with that person before?
And I’d say the same thing about a fund. A fund’s even longer than a startup — you know, a fund could be 10 or 15 years per fund. So yeah, I could definitely see that.
Brian Bell (00:40:49)
I wanted to circle back on evaluation — evaluating markups in particular. One thing that I tend to get into disagreements about is cap-adjusted markups. So, you know, we do pre-seed, so we’re investing at 5 and 10 caps in the pre-seed, right? And then they get a seed, and it’s still on safes, so it’s cap-adjusted — say it’s a 20 or 30 cap. So I’m like, well, I’m going to mark that up. I’m going to say that’s a 4x markup or 3x markup, whatever it is. And then some LPs will push back — they’re like, “Well, that’s not a real markup. That’s just a safe markup.” And I’m like, no, that’s another round of financing at a higher cap. And by the way, the priced round will happen eventually, and it’ll probably be even a higher cap. So I’m going to take that intermediate mark. How do you feel about that as an LP?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:41:31)
Yeah, so officially you need to report on the priced rounds — that’s where all the quarterly metrics are produced. But we always want to know the other markups as well, based on caps. I think that’s totally fine — it gives a direction of the fund. Of course, you know, one can double-click on some of these cases — how has been the performance of the companies since these safes have been written.
That’s a trust thing — and then you can, you know, create your own version of the truth.
Brian Bell (00:42:07)
That’s what I’ve basically done. I’ve done two performance metrics: one LPs care about — I’ll do, “Okay, this includes all the cap-adjusted stuff,” and, “This is only priced.” So I literally have a new column in my Airtable where I keep track of my portfolio, and if it’s marked — like, the default is cap-adjusted, and I only flip it to “priced” if there’s a priced round.
But you know, in pre-seed, these priced rounds can take four or five years from that pre-seed round — because you’ll do another seed on safes. Sometimes you’ll do priced, but I’d say three-quarters of the time the seed is also on safes. And then when you finally get to the A — I mean, that could be four or five years into the startup’s journey.
Brian Bell (00:42:38)
Totally. I wanted to circle back on diligence and double-click on diligence for a sec, in particular data rooms. As you’re constructing a data room, what do you look for — especially in venture? What do you like to see? What do you think is superfluous? What are some red flags that you’ve seen in data rooms? What’s the best data room you’ve ever seen — what was in it?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:42:58)
I think one can always remember the worst data room. I mean, there is no best data room, I think, in this world. But imagine my shock after spending so many years in the public markets — all the disclosures, notes, addendums, etc. Seeing the data room of a venture fund — that was shocking. So there is no good data room. I think every data room can be better. And it would be fantastic if all data rooms were standardized — because everybody’s looking at the same thing all day long.
Brian Bell (00:43:35)
Right.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:43:35)
Just representation.
Brian Bell (00:43:36)
I feel the same way about startups’ data rooms and pitch decks. It’s like, can’t you just get with the program here? Here’s exactly what you should have in your data room. I give them a checklist — go check off that all these things are in the data room before I look at it. If they’re not, or say I’m not going to deliver it, or something, but I like that — every data room should be standardized. So what are, you know, the top five or ten things that every data room should have that you look for?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:43:59)
Yeah, so obviously schedule of investments in detailed fashion — initials, follow-ons, co-investors, ownerships after each check, dates, if there’s attribution — who led this from the fund side? Some words on the company, maybe some company metrics, but it can be in a separate file as well.
Brian Bell (00:48:56)
Well, let’s wrap up with some quick questions — some rapid-fire. What’s a book or an article you’ve recently recommended to your team or to some of your LP peers?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:49:06)
Well, it’s a good question. I read — and I mean, everybody on our team read — the book Why Nations Fail. I think this is the most-read book at WillGrow. It’s fascinating storytelling — how things played out in history — and it just puts everything into perspective. That helps a lot while maybe evaluating some new geographies, you know — are these inclusive or extractive markets, or full of problems — things like that. So that’s one.
I’ve read a book, you know, by Alex Ferguson — about his story, how he led teams, top-notch teams, and especially how he selected talent globally. And you know, he never overpaid, but just found the best players ever — like Ronaldo at a young age. So that’s for us like manager selection from Fund I or Fund II. So yeah, books like that — a bit about work, a bit about real life.
Brian Bell (00:50:10)
Which startup or technology outside of your portfolio are you most excited about? So when you’re evaluating a new GP, what’s one metric that rules them all?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:50:19)
GP–strategy fit. And it’s not a metric, unfortunately.
Brian Bell (00:50:23)
Yeah, it’s kind of more subjective. How do you personally stay up on all the trends in venture? There’s just so much. I mean, I’m in a particular niche — a generalist in a niche — but a focused generalist. But you have a much broader aperture. How are you staying up on everything?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:50:36)
I have to read a lot — that’s one. Talk to people a lot. But I’m in a lucky position that our best managers — our best generalists — tell us what the next big trends are.
Brian Bell (00:50:48)
Right. Yeah. That’s one of my favorite things — that’s my newsletter writing. Like, okay, here’s what we’ve been seeing over the last six months. Here are the trends. Here’s how things are shifting. It’s really fun. And you can basically tell just by all the pitches you’re getting, right?
Brian Bell (00:51:02)
You know — you’re seeing the trend. I’m on the ground day after day, seeing what’s happening, who’s getting traction, and who’s failing and stuff like that. What’s an assumption about investing — particularly in venture as an LP or venture capital generally — that you think will be proven wrong in the next decade?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:51:18)
Persistence of returns. I think we see a lot of FOMO or, you know, things that sometimes you’re thinking, why are certain things happening? Especially with certain managers that had maybe one great company in their Fund I — and then it seems they don’t need to think about fundraising for the next four vintages. I think that this is tricky — this is very tricky in venture when things are so dynamic.
Of course, the research shows that venture is probably the most persistent asset class in terms of performance, but I think it’s prone to a lot of disappointment.
Brian Bell (00:51:56)
Yeah, meaning like in public markets, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance — especially for public-market investors. But I think what you’re describing — and I’ve seen this in the data as well — is that in venture, it seems that past performance does predict future performance. Why do you think that is?
Justinas Milašauskas (00:52:12)
Well, when venture was not that competitive in terms of the number of managers on the ground, then maybe you could harvest — let’s say if you land a great deal — and then you can harvest this luck into the future. Promote, market it, and then you attract maybe better entrepreneurs into the future, etc. So maybe you can create a rather clear flywheel effect.
I think today venture is so fragmented, so competitive that only a handful of firms will be able to demonstrate that. As a general rule, in venture, this will disappoint a lot of investors.
Brian Bell (00:52:54)
Yeah, I think there’s like this natural life cycle for GPs, right? Where if you’re able to get inertia and momentum to get off the ground, get your flywheel spinning, you start getting access to deals, you start adding value to those startups, and then you get network access because of your past network access — and it kind of spins on its own.
And I’m kind of seeing that at Team Ignite now — after five years, it’s kind of spinning, and we have momentum, and the flywheel effect is happening. But I think there’s also this natural life cycle, right? Where if you’re in venture too long, you kind of become disconnected. And you know, there’s this almost natural, forced retirement age.
And you’ll see this with old GPs — they sort of hand off the investing reins to the new generation once they hit about 60, 65, it seems like. Because you just sort of get out of touch and you can’t really understand what the 22-year-olds are doing. I hope I never get there, but yeah.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:53:51)
And I think the paranoid will survive.
Brian Bell (00:53:54)
The paranoid will survive.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:53:58)
Anyway — so I think the ones that are really paranoid that they might not sustain their success — how they can reinvent and constantly adapt — those will be the most successful people or managers over time. If this flywheel is taken for granted, then I think the market will just show something else.
Brian Bell (00:54:26)
This has been an awesome conversation. Thanks so much for coming on.
Justinas Milašauskas (00:54:29)
Thanks, Brian. I learned a lot.
Brian Bell (00:54:30)
Thanks, Brian. I appreciate that.
