Ann Miura-Ko is the co-founder of Floodgate, an early-stage VC firm investing in "Thunder Lizard" startups that achieve exceptional scale and disruption.
Floodgate evaluates startups across 4 levels of "value set": Proprietary Power, Product Power, Company Power, and Category Power. They look for founders with deep passion, technical expertise, and willingness to adapt.
The Lyft team's "courage and intensity" in pivoting from Zimride's original vision was a key factor in Floodgate's investment, demonstrating their ability to find product-market fit through experimentation.
Meeting Notes:
Introduction to Anne Murakawa and Floodgate
Anne Murakawa is the co-founder of Floodgate, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in a wide variety of startups across different sectors.
She has a PhD in operations research from Stanford and previously worked at McKinsey before joining Floodgate in 2008.
Some of her initial investments were in companies like TaskRabbit, ModCloth, and the ride-sharing startup Zimride (which later became Lyft).
Hunting Thunder Lizards
"Thunder Lizards" is a term used at Floodgate to describe exceptional, disruptive entrepreneurs and companies that have achieved tremendous scale.
Key characteristics of Thunder Lizards:
They minimize technical and organizational risk/debt
Achieve uncontrolled product-market fit demand
Avoid direct competition
"They somehow converted their advantage to truly disruptive power."
Thunder Lizards are exceedingly rare - only around 17 companies achieve over $4 billion in revenue after an IPO.
Floodgate's Investment Thesis and "Value Set"
Floodgate invests at a very early stage, often the first institutional financing for a startup.
They look for signs of what Ann Miura-Ko calls the "value set" across four levels:
Product Power: Achieving strong product-market fit with a large, growing market
Company Power: Developing a scalable business model, company culture & talent
Category Power: Potential to become a category-defining market leader
"If you're asking if you have product-market fit, you don't."
"It's how you develop your own company narrative and personality."
"They don't want to compete, they want to dominate."
Importance of Authentic Founders
Floodgate looks for founders with deep personal passion and commitment to the problem they're solving.
The founding story and team dynamic are important signals.
"I loved that part...it was very reminiscent of the pitch that John and Logan did."
Technical expertise on the founding team is valued for developing proprietary power.
Lyft's Pivot from Zimride
Originally Zimride (a ride-sharing platform for campuses/companies), Lyft was born from constant experimentation when they struggled to achieve product-market fit.
Pivoting to the peer-to-peer model of Lyft was an extremely difficult decision that required letting go of their original vision after years of work.
"I appreciated the courage and intensity the Lyft founders showed in making this pivot, calling it a really hard moment to appreciate."
Within a week of launching, explosive demand signaled they had struck product-market fit.
Floodgate's Approach to Investing
Wary of investing in "technologies in search of a problem" without strong product-market fit.
Prefer founders with a defensible market position and willingness to adapt through experimentation.
Value diversity in founding teams but alignment on vision is crucial.
Ideal team size is 2-3 founders, with at least some technical expertise.
Look for founders open to building robust internal processes as the company scales.