INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
early-stage venture firm of her own, Inspired Capital, with former U.S
Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker
conversation with A Technology NewsRoom, von Tobel recalled the hectic period around the acquisition, which closed literally days before the
birth of her first child, and when she knew it was time to start her own firm.Von Tobel explained that she created Inspired to be the
clarity.Congratulations on the 10-year anniversary of the acquisition
Looking back, what do you feel proudest of?First, Northwestern Mutual is an incredible company, and our software became an incredibly
important part of the customer experience
And I am so proud that so many of the LearnVest team stayed at Northwestern Mutual for so long, and it really was just a merger of actual
Wednesday and went into labor with my first child that weekend
All jokes aside, I always say it took me about a year to mentally just recover from being, like, all systems were go, my brain was being
pushed to manage so many things
Literally, I was having my first child
It was like the world threw a bus at me and I caught it.So when you were closing the deal, was there a ticking clock in your mind, that you
had to finish everything before this whole other thing happens?Of course
If you think about it, we literally signed on, I think, 11am on March 25 and then we did a press tour with the CEO, and then the next day,
we did a stand up with the entire team, and then I went to sleep and literally woke up in labor.Having your first child is priceless
people on the outside talk about an acquisition, obviously, the first thing they talk about is usually the financials, and then one of the
signs of success is the product
transforming Northwestern Mutual.It was so much bigger than a product
chief digital officer, and then chief innovation officer, and it was really about taking everything and merging it into the broader parent
I had this vision of what it should look and feel like, this sort of rigor and camaraderie and in-the-trenches-ness of what an early stage
started really actively dreaming about what that could look like
on-board with that vision?So, when I talk to entrepreneurs, I always say Inspired is different for four key reasons
The first reason is that we are extremely long duration capital
It means when we back a founder, we truly put blinders on for 20 years
So when we back a company, you actually get the entire team
evaporated your social equity that you built up with that partner
So we like to say that, there are many, many, many, many ways that we can help companies get access to things that are really hard to get as
just a sole founder in your 20s or 30s, where we can actually be a tremendous business accelerant to our companies in a pretty unique way,
with access to tech and government and many other vectors.So in short, that was the firm I wanted.I wanted a deeply cultish commitment to
I started LearnVest because my father had passed away, and my mom overnight had to manage our finances
And I [thought], I never want a family to feel financially destabilized, and I wanted to go build the solution.When we look back at the
broader ecosystem over the last 10 years, one of the big transitions is leaving behind that period of zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) for
Have you seen a change in the venture ecosystem in the last few years, and has that affected the way you approach investing at Inspired?So
We will touch everything from deep tech to health tech to consumer, looking for the biggest, most important ideas of the next 15 years
Every day, when I come to work, I literally mentally walk into this office in 2035
It was regulated, there were so many other things that were really hard about what we were doing
I really like hard businesses, because they have defensibility
They have reasons to exist
feeling both urgent and optimistic about the state of fintech today
adaptive and inclusive financial tools
Not to mention the rapid job loss due to AI.This moment presents a major opportunity for startups to reimagine financial products from the
We think of this wave as fintech 3.0
a changing economy and a more diverse, digitally native population
the A Technology NewsRoom 50 conference in 2009
who, based on who they are and their lived experience, has a powerful, unique insight to a problem that touches hundreds of millions of
Two, I would be looking for something that is non-obvious
Those are the key ingredients that you look for.
