Investing with Penny Pritzker and Building a Robust Venture & Growth Practice with Momei Qu, MD, PSP Partners

This week I am so pumped to be speaking with Momei Qu, Managing Director of PSP Growth, where she leads PSP’s venture capital and growth equity initiative, working closely with the esteemed Penny Pritzker, former United States Sec of Commerce and American billionaire businesswoman with family investments in the Hyatt Hotels and Marmon Group.

From Momei’s leadership lessons working with a trailblazer to building a robust venture and growth practice to the future of B2B SAAS despite valuation slashes we’ve seen, we cover it all.

Some notable quotables from Momei:

1. On what is venture-backable:

“One of the things I learned in venture is not to over-index the idea; it’s about the execution—most often times things don’t go to plan, so I’m looking at founder agility”

2. On working with Penny Pritzker, American billionaire businesswoman, a trailblazer in many ways:

“If you don’t ask for something, you might not get it.”

Penny often shares how her grandfather initially did not know ‘girls were interested in business’; but she convinced him otherwise with a letter written to him in green stationary.

In Penny’s words at her 2014 Remarks at the Global Conference on Women in the Boardroom;

Let me begin with a story about my grandfather, who was a legendary figure in Chicago. He was the son of Russian immigrants who became an entrepreneur, building a successful business empire. For my grandfather’s 80th birthday, my mother told me I could give him anything I wanted as a gift. So, at the age of 16, I decided to write him a note on my green stationery. In it, I asked my grandfather why he only talked to the boys in the family about business when I was just as interested. He replied, “Penny, I was born in 1896 – how am I supposed to know that young women are interested in business?” He then offered to teach me accounting, which he felt was foundational to understanding business.

I know that I have been very blessed in life, with a family and resources. And I was raised to embrace the statement: “to whom much is given, much is expected.” I have also been lucky to have good mentors like my grandfather, my parents, my uncle, and others throughout my career; in my case, most of my mentors have been men.

3. On the fundamentals of investing in this market environment:

“We’ve definitely had conversations in the past where within 10 minutes; the founder goes ‘we’re oversubscribed; are you in or are you out?’

For those we’ve said, we’re out”

For the right companies, Momei believes that this is a great time to invest in them, given a combination of factors from more realistic valuations and a cheaper cost base for talent. 

“if you can show strong growth in this environment, that means you’re getting corporate budgets at a time when corporate budgets are tightening. So if we look at a company that doubled, from last year to this year, we’ll probably give it more weight than a company that doubled from 2020 to 2021.

Because cost of capital was free then, and, people were just throwing money at innovation. So in some ways today, it’s easier to tell who the winners are from the losers. We’re definitely still active in trying to find as many winners as we can.”

Tune in for more on:

– The fundamentals of B2B SAAS, what’s changing with market dynamics
– If we’re over our skis with AI
– What it takes to build a robust venture & growth equity practice PSP Partners
– Learning from and investing with a trailblazer, Penny Pritzker