4th Newsletter (Week of 6/29)
Welcome back to EVCA's growth vertical newsletter! EVCA is a non-profit dedicated to supporting the emerging (pre-partner) venture capital community. Feel free to visit our website: https://www.evca.org/. Twice a month we'll be looking at the latest news and trends in growth investing in a fun and interesting way, while also helping you get to stay on top of what’s going on in the EVCA community. Subscribe to our newsletter here if you're new!
We will be posting a few questions/polls to our Slack channel in the coming days and would appreciate any responses.
Transportation & Mobility during COVID
As everyone is preparing for their 4th of July travels (or not), we decided to collect some stats on transportation and mobility during COVID. Hopefully this helps shed some light on how far we have mobility has changed during COVID and how things compare with pre-COVID levels last year.
The Punchline
While we’ve seen signs of gradual reopening and increased local travel (mobile parking and rideshares), recovery of commercial flights may still be a bit further off into the future. Scooter sharing platforms have not been performing as well as other types of transportation pre-COVID on a year-over-year basis and have continued to perform poorly relative to other modes of transport during COVID.
Monthly Mobile Pay Parking Sessions in 50 Select Major US Cities
Currently at ~63.4% of 2019’s sessions
COVID Low: 7.0% on 4/12 (6k in 2020 vs. 88k in 2019)
Scooters: Monthly US Bird and Lime Transactions (data per Second Measure)
Currently at ~12.2% of 2019’s rides
COVID Low: 2% in April (356 in 2020 vs. 17k in 2019)*
Currently at ~5.4% of 2019’s rides
COVID Low: 0.4% in April (199 in 2020 vs. 47k in 2019)*
Rideshare: Monthly US Uber and Lyft Transactions (data per Second Measure)
Currently at ~12.7% of 2019’s rides
COVID Low: 9.1% in April (187k in 2020 vs. 2.1M in 2019)*
Currently at ~13.2% of 2019’s rides
COVID Low: 9.4% in April (73k in 2020 vs. 776k in 2019)*
Long-Distance Travel: Daily Flights (TSA data on daily number of checkpoint travelers)
Currently at ~25.5% of 2019’s TSA checkpoint travelers
COVID Low: 3.6% on 4/16 (95k in 2020 vs. 2.6M in 2019)
*Scooter & Rideshare data includes Second Measure captured data only
Keep Reading
Check out how other industries are being affected during COVID: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/28/here-are-five-charts-illustrating-the-us-economic-recovery-amid-the-coronavirus-pandemic.html
AMA
Nikita Parekh (GS Growth)
Hi everyone! I’m an associate at GS Growth, Goldman Sachs’s growth and venture investing team. I was previously working in GS’s New York office in the Investment Banking Division. In addition to my “day job” I also work closely with our Launch with GS team, which is focused on investing in and supporting businesses led by diverse founders. I’m really looking forward to getting to know more people in the EVCA community!
1. You’ve lived in a number of different places across the world: West Coast, East Coast, Hong Kong, and Singapore. What’s one aspect of each that has shaped you or had a lasting impact on you?
I've been super lucky to have had the opportunity to grow up all over the world. Each place has certainly had an individual impact on me, but the total experience is probably what has shaped me the most - I've gained an appreciation for exploration, new cultures, and most importantly the strength of family and friend relationships. The East Coast is home – my parents still live there now, but most of my extended family lives there too. My brother and I are super fortunate that a lot of our cousins are in the same age group so growing up there was great because I got really close with my cousins, who were also my first friends, and I think that has had a huge impact on me. No matter where I’ve moved to, it’s always been really important to me to keep those relationships close. I was pretty young when I lived in Hong Kong so some of the memories are hazy but spending formative years there was incredible - I was exposed to new cultures, cuisines, language at such an early age. Being an expat there, and in Singapore years later, just came with a wealth of awesome opportunities - for example on school breaks, since it was too far to fly back home to the US, we got to explore Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and several other amazing places. That sense of adventure and desire to travel has definitely stayed with me! Most recently, living in SF for the past two years has been pretty cool – I didn’t really know many people here so it’s been really nice to just meet new people. I love that I can keep the sense of adventure going here by taking weekend trips to so many amazing places close to the Bay Area.
2. What events / activities are you most looking forward to once shelter in place restrictions have been lifted?
I’ve been SCUBA diving since I was 12 years old, and while it’s not a hobby that I can pursue on a weekly or even monthly basis these days, it is something I really look forward to when I travel. It’s an incredible experience and I definitely miss being able to dive, so I’m looking forward to hopefully getting back to that soon, once it’s safe to travel!
3. Say you had to live in a quarantine house for the next year with any 3 people on Earth (excluding personal friends & family). Who are you choosing as your roommates?
It would be amazing to live with Emma Watson, Christina Tosi, and Lilly Singh. I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, and think Emma Watson is super talented, smart, and passionate about the causes she fights for – I think she’d be a really great person to get to know! I love to bake, so living with Christina Tosi, the founder of Milk Bar, for a year would be pretty incredible and hopefully I could pick up some tips and improve my baking skills over that time. Lilly Singh would be a pretty awesome roommate – she seems like a really fun person and I admire her for going from a YouTube star to a household name as a talented comedienne and just being unabashedly herself.
Karthik Ramakrishnan (IVP)
Karthik is an investor with IVP and is actively involved with IVP portfolio companies Attentive, Checkr, Curology, GroundTruth, Hopin, MasterClass, Qubole, Skydio, Tanium, The Players’ Tribune, and ZEFR.
1. You’re from New Jersey, and have spent most of your life on the East Coast. Now that you’re living in SF, besides friends and family, what do you miss most about the East Coast?
I went to college at NYU, so New York has a special place in my heart – I’ll always believe it’s the greatest city on Earth 😊. I miss the endless vibrancy and convenience of the City – the ability to find a restaurant, store, bar or anything else you want at any hour, the urban density and skyscrapers, the fun of the East Village (where I lived for four years), the subway system that makes intracity travel so easy. I’m a big sports fan, so I miss attending some of my favorite events like Brooklyn Nets games, the US Open tennis tournament, etc. (though the Warriors bandwagon over the past few years has been to fun to watch). This might be a hot take, but I also think the food scene on the East Coast, both in variety and quality, is better than the Bay Area.
I am really glad I’ve had the chance to experience both coasts. The Bay Area has much to offer, and I’ve come to appreciate the outdoorsy and more diverse aspects of life out here. And the weather is something I love – I thought I’d miss the different seasons on the East Coast, but I’m perfectly content never having to check the weather since SF is within a 10 degree temperature band all year round.
2. If you could be an expert in any one field, what would it be and why?
The ability to speak any language. I think that would unlock a lot of interesting doors, including travelling, meeting new people, etc. I’ve tried Duolingo recently to try to get my Spanish skills back up to par, but I haven’t been very good at this.
3. Once the shelter in place restrictions are lifted and it’s safe to travel, where is the first place you would want to go on vacation and why?
Barcelona – it’s #1 on the list of places I’ve visited. It has the perfect mix of beautiful beaches, intriguing architecture, history, nightlife, and amazing food. It sounds like a perfect place to meet up with a large group of friends after so many months of sheltering in place.
I studied abroad in Europe in college, and one of my biggest regrets was not attending a soccer match. Next time I visit Barcelona, I will definitely be going to Camp Nou to watch FC Barcelona and (the undisputed GOAT in my opinion) Lionel Messi.
Thanks Nikita & Karthik for sharing! Feel free to reach out to Nikita (Nikita.Parekh@gs.com) or Karthik (kramakrishnan@ivp.com) directly to get to know them better. Stay tuned for our next newsletter, where we’ll feature two EVCA growth members from outside of the Bay Area!
Thanks Everyone!
-EVCA Growth Team
Jeremy Zhu (jeremyzhu@capitalg.com)
Russell Yue (ryue@higcapital.com)
Alexander Lin (alexlin1@stanford.edu)
Shaurya Mehta (smehta12@stanford.edu)