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