What does founder-friendly VC look like in practice? In Part 2 of our conversation with Kealan Doyle and Michael Theodosiou from Symvan Capital, we explore how they scale their portfolio without sacrificing personal support — and why their long-term, lifecycle approach to venture capital is built for both performance and relationships.
We dig into exit strategy, failure rates, the broken early-stage funding landscape, and why hands-on VCs are rare but essential.
Plus:
💬 Why most founders fail at sales (and what to do about it)
🔁 How to avoid hiring the wrong first salesperson
🏗️ The startup-to-film analogy that will reframe how you think about building
💸 How Symvan plans to scale without becoming just another big fund
📉 And why 80% failure rates at some funds are not just bad luck
If you're raising at pre-seed or seed, managing an early-stage fund, or just trying to make sense of today’s VC market — this episode is a must-watch.
📍 CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro – What’s next for Symvan Capital?
01:10 Growing their fund without losing quality
02:20 Plans for a new conventional (non-tax efficient) Series A fund
03:35 Exit strategies and tracking performance over hype
05:15 Why failure ≠ exit, and exits ≠ cash windfalls
06:45 Symvan’s lifecycle flywheel – proving the model works
08:10 Limiting portfolio failure through hands-on VC
09:45 Why most pre-seed and seed money is wasted
11:00 How they’ll scale while keeping support personalised
12:30 The real reason Symvan avoids big AUM models
13:45 Incentive misalignment in VC fee structures
15:15 The long game – why reputation and founder experience matter
16:30 How predatory term sheets and cold relationships harm early-stage founders
18:00 Founders talk – and bad actors get exposed
19:10 The “bubble years” and inflated valuations: lessons from the inside
20:25 Encouraging new portfolio companies to call existing ones
21:45 The dangers of raising at too high a valuation too early
23:10 What it really takes to work in VC today
25:00 Why “diversity of thought” beats traditional finance pedigrees
26:15 What VC analysts should really be learning
28:00 Final thoughts on founder support, pivoting, and resilience
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🔗 Follow Kealan Doyle on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kealandoyle/
🔗 Follow Michael Theodosiou on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-theodosiou-4a9280a3/
🚀 Check out Symvan Capital:
https://www.symvancapital.com/
💬 Book a free 1-hour commercial advisory session with host Greg McCallum:
https://meetings-eu1.hubspot.com/meetings/gmccallum?uuid=c8f5cecd-0222-4c6e-92d1-ea9f224a60fd
