Unconventional Path To Venture Capital With Keshia Theobald-van Gent Of BDev Ventures

Taking an unconventional path in your career journey is one great way to differentiate yourself from the rest – and unlock a different kind of success. Keshia Theobald-van Gent, a partner at BDev Ventures, joins Scott Kelly to share how she uses her non-traditional professional background to help manage one of the most active funds in Silicon Valley. She discusses how their founder-centric investment thesis allows them to take on international-level investments across web3, AI, media, DeFi, and tech. Keshia also talks about BDev Ventures’ status as a single LP fund with an evergreen commitment to founders and companies across the United States and Latin America.

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Unconventional Path To Venture Capital With Keshia Theobald-van Gent Of BDev Ventures

Scott, we’ve got a second Keshia.

I know. It’s interesting how we got a second.

We don’t have a ton of women on the show, and we have two Keshias. I love that that’s what happened. We have Keshia Theobald-van Gent. She has such an interesting background. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Where did you meet her?

I met her through AI. One of our portfolio companies reached out to them because they have such an interesting model. They test drive the consumer response prior to making an investment. One of our companies had started to go through that program. I got introduced to them via that. They have a great thesis on how they help grow companies, build brands, and invest in them. Keshia herself has a pretty interesting backstory.

She certainly does. Let’s talk a little bit about that. She’s a partner at BDev Ventures. She leads the sourcing and portfolio operations, managing both the strategic and operational aspects of the fund. She previously founded and directed Dialog to Learn, forging tech partnerships to advance literacy, and led the US programs at a German Accelerator, specializing in global startup expansion and cross-border growth. We’re talking international, big-picture-type investment going on here. She holds a Master’s from the University of Groningen, and she’s a frequent speaker and a nonprofit board member.

She started her background in Laos, of all places. The reality is she comes in with an interesting international perspective and operator perspective. She’s taking all those past experiences to applying them to companies today.

Let’s hear from Keshia Theobald-van Gent and all about BDev Ventures.

I’m excited to congratulate Keshia on becoming a new partner at BDev Ventures. Keshia, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, genuinely. I am super excited to be here.

Keshia Theobald-van Gent Of BDev Ventures

Before we get into BDev, give us a little background about yourself, what you did prior, and how you got into the industry.

Like most people in venture, I did not have a very straightforward path here. That’s not an uncommon story in our industry. I grew up in Kentucky and Indiana. I did my undergrad in Kentucky. I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I knew what a startup was until college. It was a while. I went to law school, so business wasn’t on my radar at all.

I ended up having an opportunity to work and live in Laos in Southeast Asia for about a year and a half. A personal part of my story, but on my way over, I met this fabulous Dutch guy. I ended up spending about a year and a half with him in Laos, and then followed him back to the Netherlands. We’ve been married for twelve years, so it worked out. It was good, but a wild path. It was fully unexpected.

I went back to school and studied business. I have a Master’s in Conflict, Religion, and Globalization. It was not a direct path. I saw myself working for the government or doing something very different. At the time, my husband got a great opportunity to come work here in Silicon Valley, and that was about a couple of years ago. I showed up not knowing a ton. I had been working in the education space, which is why I was in Laos, and in international education.

I was excited about some of the opportunities here. I did a few different things, but within about a year of being here, I got connected to a principal in East Palo Alto, which was a rougher neighborhood here in the Bay Area. He was doing his postdoc at Stanford. He and I launched an ed tech company. It is very difficult to make money in education. We had a product that was for low-income elementary schools.

We did try the traditional startup route. We ended up rolling all of that technology into a 501(c)(3) because our customers were these schools, and they loved it. Through that process, we built a ton of partnerships with local big tech. At the end of that, once that had a nice bow on it, I was a board member there at the nonprofit.

I needed a job. That was the truth of it. I started calling my board members, people I had worked with, and investors that I had worked with, and I got introduced to the team at GSV Capital. I was like, “I’ve been an EdTech founder. You guys invest in EdTech. You’re the biggest name in EdTech. Are any of your portfolio companies hiring?” At the end of the day, they offered me a job at GSV Labs, which was their early-stage arm. That was how I got into venture.

I had been a founder. I understood the experience. I was at GSV Labs for a while. I got promoted to the Director of Strategic Partnerships. I was spending a lot of time with large corporations, doing a lot of startup scouting, as well as some internal design thinking and internal innovation for large corporations. Our team is on a bunch of patents, which is quite fun.

I then got recruited to run a startup accelerator. I did that for several years. German Accelerator is a cool program. It is very well funded. They take high-potential European startups and launch them into the US market. I started off running their Silicon Valley programs and ended up running all their US programs. I had a blast.

Accelerators are an amazing place to learn because you’re constantly interacting with amazing mentors and amazing founders. You’re seeing in real-time what’s working and what’s not working. Since I had my own company previously, I had a lot of context for that. I could make that actionable for myself. I did that for over three years and loved it, but then I got an opportunity to join BDev.

At BDev, we’ve been actively investing for about three and a half years. When I joined, they hired me to join the investment team as an investment manager to lead a large group of associates. I very quickly didn’t do that. I ended up building out our portfolio team, if you will. We have a unique offering on the platform side of the house. I did that for about a year, got things set up, handed it off, and came back over to the investment team. Now, I manage our investment team, all of our operations, and our product team internally here at the fund, and anything else that needs to get done. I work with three other amazing partners. Collin Groves and I lead the fund day-to-day.

All About BDev Ventures

That’s awesome. I love the non-traditional background. I spent almost twenty years in Silicon Valley. I was probably the more traditional, like the B-school, internship, investment banking, and all that. I love talking to folks like yourself in the business who have taken the non-traditional path. You bring a different perspective, a real-world and worldly perspective to that. I appreciate the background. BDev has an interesting thesis in what they invest in and what they do. I’d love for you to share with our audience, and talk about BDev Ventures, the thesis, and how you invest in what you do.

We are unique. One of the coolest things about BDev is one of our partners, Nacho De Marco, who is a super successful founder. He’s a founder. I’m a founder. Everyone on the leadership team has that experience. Nacho was the reason I joined. Raising money in LATAM many years ago, when he started his company, was challenging.

Something that you’ll hear me and other VCs say sometimes quietly and behind closed doors is that venture capital is expensive capital. There are a lot cheaper alternatives out there. If you are a founder and you’re raising VC money and taking on that VC business model, because we push founders to grow and grow fast, because we need that within our model, if you are doing that, your investors need to be working for you. That was the basis of BDev Ventures.

In Fund 1, we have $150 million AUM. In addition to capital, we provide all of our portfolio companies with access to a suite of go-to-market tools. We have two primary tools. One is proprietary. These are all in-house. They feel in-house, but they’re effective. One is a cold email outreach platform. We call it WinDifferent.

We’re not necessarily reinventing the wheel. We have a proprietary database of about 300 million leads. We have a unique way of validating that data, so we’re hitting real emails. It’s a cold email outreach campaign. It’s fairly straightforward. It’s highly automated, utilizing a lot of machine learning, which is what makes it so effective. With that platform alone, we make up somewhere between 6% and 65% of all new revenue for our portfolio companies. That is a meaningful addition to a company.

For the other tool we have, Beta-Plus is the stage it is at. It is a warm intro tool. It utilizes a lot of machine learning. We’ve got some great technical talent here. What it does is inject founders’ networks, their C-suite, as well as all of our team’s networks. We can score your relationships, like how well-connected you are to these people.

Within your ICP, it’s like, “You know this person fairly well. They know this person fairly well. You should ask them for an introduction.” We have a community component to that. We’re building that part, which is founders helping founders. I may not have the right connection for Founder A, so Founder B can help Founder A, and then maybe Founder C can help Founder B. We’re all pulling our resources and growing together in that sense.

To your point, what else makes us unique? We’re not just throwing these tools at our companies. We’re using them in diligence. As a part of our diligence process, we run campaigns. Can we help you grow your business? Can we help you bring in new revenue through new leads? How does the market respond? Do you understand your ICP? It has been a wonderful tool for us. We’re pretty active investors. We had our biggest month in June 2025. We made seven investments.

Congratulations. I love that concept. The reality is, from a pragmatic standpoint, you get to gamify your potential upside by being active in the lead generation. You and I have probably talked to a lot of technical founders who can get great technology but don’t know anything about marketing and sales. The reality is, we can’t get a return on our capital until you generate revenue. If you’re proactive, that’s great value for the fund, both pre- and post-investment, but it’s a great opportunity for the entrepreneurs themselves.

That’s the goal. Most founders, if you have a strong founder market fit, you probably don’t have a great background in sales and marketing.

Success Stories At BDev Ventures

You’re right. Congratulations on June. I’m going to lead it to this question. Let’s talk about some of the success stories, some of the companies where this model has worked gangbusters, and maybe some of the ones that are on the horizon doing some great things.

I’m not going to cover all of our great companies. If somebody tunes in to this and I didn’t mention them, I apologize.

We’ll start by saying they’re all great.

All fabulous. One company I’m excited about is Piñata. Piñata works with renters and property managers to increase and reward renters for paying their rent on time. There are a few competitors in the market doing this, although Piñata is skyrocketing very quickly. If you’re a renter, go sign up for this. It’s free. It’s amazing.

If you’re renting, you’re probably not getting any of that credit toward your credit score, which is too bad because if you do want to transition one day to a house, you’re going to need that credit score. They help support that. They also give you lots of little perks along the way. If you pay your rent on time, you might get a little gift card to Starbucks or other local businesses, which is pretty cool.

They raised their Series B and could not be happier. We invested in them pretty early on. We’re doing follow-on investing. The team is amazing. They have two amazing women co-founders, which I’m personally very proud of. About 2% of founders in the United States are women. To be able to partner with them is amazing.

How BDev Ventures Takes Advantage Of AI

Agreed. It’s interesting you say that because we host events from time to time. We did one, promoting women entrepreneurs to women investors. It is a market that’s severely underserved. Outside of Piñata, what other things are out there? What are some of the trends and some of the earlier stuff that you think are going to be the next home runs for you guys?

Everyone is looking at AI. If you’re a startup and you don’t have AI somewhere in your plan, why? You need to have a very good reason for that. For us specifically, we do a few of what I would call AI infra within that category. Personal AI is a portfolio company of ours that we love, and they’re in that space. For the most part, our model works well at that application layer.

I would like to make the point that we’re going back very much to business fundamentals. It’s hard to build a moat nowadays. Technology is moving very fast. To not differentiate your product is probably unlikely. Maybe today, but probably not in five years. How do you build a moat? One way you can do that is through your sales channels. If you do some right to win because you have some unique access to your customers, then you can build on that. You build up, and you have that unique data set. You can have a very unique offering that solves their problems.

All of that, for me, goes back to the business fundamentals of whether you know your customers. Are you solving real-world problems for your customers? This is the application layer. Are you doing that in a way that delights them? Are you the right person to do it? Do you have some unique access or some unique insight that you’re going to build that mote with?

Personally, one of the things that I’m excited about is that in the past, enterprise-grade products have not been accessible to the entire market. They were too expensive. That is changing. Being able to offer those enterprise-grade products to SMBs. We’re B2B software investors, so we’re not on the consumer side, although personally exciting because I like better tools for myself that are not something we’re investing in. It is generally interesting.

How BDev Ventures Chooses Founders

You made this comment. It’s the second time I’ve heard it in my second interview, which is the right to win. The other thing is the will to win. Getting back to the founders, give me the attributes of the typical founder that you invest in, and what makes you pick one founder or founder group over another.

I’m going to answer your question, but first, I’m going to say venture capital is an interesting industry in that there is very little data. There’s little traction. We invest seed to Series B. Certainly, by the time you get to Series B, that’s changing, but at seed, it is difficult to pick a winner. Oftentimes, you are anchoring on, “Is this the right person to take?”

I would say, for me, not just build something that’s valuable, but build something that’s valuable, but also a sustainable business. It’s not as frothy as it once was. That’s a consideration. Can you build that with intention? I would add to that, can you build that in partnerships? Can you get other people excited about building? It doesn’t matter if those people are your employees, early customers, or investors. You need to be someone who can convince others that you are the right person. I’m always looking for some of those attributes.

Founder market fit is whether you are the right person to do this. That speaks to what your background is. Let’s say you’re pitching me a company in the EdTech space, and your background is all in corporate finance. I’m going to ask you some questions. That doesn’t quite match. Does your background match? Do you have some unique access to this community? Importantly, I’m also looking for grit. I’m looking for a character. Do I trust you? Do I trust that you’re going to tell me the truth? Do I trust that you’re going to be a good partner as we continue to work together? When times are tough, are you going to stick with it? Being a founder is hard.

I’ve been a founder like yourself many times. You have the days when you’re on cloud nine and the days you want to curl up in a ball. You’ve got to be able to push through those tough days to get more of the good days.

It’s okay to curl up in a ball, but you have to set a little timer. Set a timer for twelve minutes.

BDev Ventures’ LP Profile And Portfolio

Exactly. I’m going to switch gears a little bit. We’ve been talking about it from a founder’s perspective, and somebody who may be interested in having you as an investment partner. Let’s talk about who your co-investors are, who your LPs are, and what their makeup is. Tell me a little bit about who those people are.

I’ll start with co-investors. We’re minority investors. We prefer not to lead rounds. We don’t want to be the largest check in a round. That being said, we are comfortable through a safe in-between priced rounds being the only investor, but because of that, we work well with others. It’s also what allows us to be a higher volume investor. That’s certainly an important part of our model.

One of our first investments that I’m excited about. We invested in Brazil in a company called Pipo Saúde, which translates to People Health. It is an amazing company that is working with large enterprises to bring healthcare directly to their employees in a much more accessible way. Within the Brazilian context, it makes a ton of sense. That’s an example of how we added a ton of value to the company. We were super excited about them. Thrive came in as the lead investor. We couldn’t be happier to invest alongside other great funds.

We have, to date, over 80 investments across 59 portfolio companies. With that, we have a ton of co-investors. I would say most major funds, including some of the a16z and Sequoia’s search funds, as well as Strategics. We are actively cultivating a lot of relationships with CVCs. They offer unique opportunities to our founders.

A big part of my job, and probably more so Collin Grove’s job, who is another partner of the fund, is that as minority investors, whether it’s an existing investment or an investment we’re excited about, we are going out and helping them secure those leads and helping them fill out their priced rounds. As a part of that, we spend a lot of time with other investors.

Why Choose BDev Ventures

That’s awesome. We talked about the past and the present. Let’s talk about the future. I love to ask this question because it opens up Pandora’s box. Why BDev Ventures, and why now?

Times have changed. Many years ago, there were fewer than a hundred VC funds. I want to say the exact number is 68 or something. Now, there are thousands.

3,200 and counting.

In the past, a winning strategy could be to raise a certain amount of money, go out, and make very strategic bets on the companies that you think are special. We’ve not seen those funds have great returns in the last few years. Part of the reason for that is twofold. One, venture capital is a lot more competitive. You have to fight to get into rounds. Two, there is a lack of liquidity for LPs, which means there’s a lot of money going into these mega funds. Their valuations, investments, and strategy are very different from many of us.

Three, to be able to win and to be able to pick winners, you need to invest more, and you need to add value. We very much are putting our thumb on the scale and saying, “We think you’re a winner already. Also, here are a ton of resources.” A lot of funds, especially the big funds, provide a ton of resources to their portfolio companies. To be frank, we’re not that big yet. I don’t have seven billion AUM. It’s going to be a few years. I can’t hire a 200-person platform team. That’s not realistic.

What we can do is very strategically target, come in, and systematically affect the bottom line of the companies that we work with through getting leads and generating new revenue. For us, that is a game-changer. It means that the companies we partner with love us. We’re talking to them very regularly. We’re getting regular updates. We’re able to jump in a lot earlier and support. Also, we are being honest with our founders about what we can provide them and what we can’t.

Get In Touch With Keshia

That’s important because all this value-add improves alpha, which is a win for all involved. Any last things you want to share, like ideas, thoughts, pieces of advice, or anything you want to share with our audience?

Yeah. We are a single LP fund. We had an initial commitment of $150 million. Now, we have an evergreen commitment that will probably not be true in the future. Not the evergreen. That’s not going to go away. I mean the single LP. We are seeing some promising returns on this unique model. It is a unique model. We clearly are getting access to deals that maybe a fund of our size wouldn’t otherwise.

As some of those companies mature with big pro rata rights within some of those later-stage rounds, we are excited to take advantage of that. We are always looking for new partners, co-investors, and founders. We are one of the more active funds in Silicon Valley. We invest across the United States and LATAM. If you are a B2B SaaS company and you’re in that late seed through Series B, I am the only Keshia Theobald-van Gent on LinkedIn.

They can find you on LinkedIn. Where can they learn more about BDev Ventures?

BDevVentures.com. You can see us there. Our investment criteria are pretty straightforward. You can also email us at Info@BDevVentures.com. We respond to every founder.

That’s fantastic. Thanks for being on the show. For everyone tuning in, make sure you check out BDev Ventures and check out what Keshia is doing on LinkedIn. If you like, comment, and share, we appreciate that. Again, Keshia, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much. You are fabulous and doing great things for founders. We appreciate you.

Thank you.

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I’m so fascinated by her broad experience, but also by how all these things intertwine. That’s a theme going on with all of the interviews that we’ve done here. They take an experience here and experience there, and then they apply it to this investment. That is magnified here because it’s so broad across the world.

BDev Ventures didn’t start out as a traditional venture capital firm. They had a platform to send out millions of emails and outreach for companies. They became so successful in that. They set up a fund using the money they accumulated over that time to invest, but also applied the technology that they have to make sure the investment has product market fit before the investment, and then a successful post-investment.

We are all getting a lot of this email outreach. If you’re a startup, a CEO, or a founder, we are all on some list somewhere or in one of those LinkedIn programs. I probably get 3 or 4 a day, asking me if I want to sell my company or if I want leads for my company.

Since we’ve been on this show, I’ve already gotten four phone calls that I know there are companies saying, “I’ve qualified for $1 million in funding.” This constant outreach is ever-present in our lives.

I’m very curious. They did well. They said 65% of new revenue was coming from this cold email outreach. Those are crazy numbers.

The reality is that people have to understand that marketing is a process. There’s an old adage that if you get to six closes, your close rate goes up geometrically. The vast majority of entrepreneurs don’t get past the second close. If I automate this process, it’s whittling down. We both have kids. For my boys, if they wanted something for Christmas, they would ask me every day starting on Halloween. That repetition is ingrained in your psyche. The reality is that they do it in such a way that is strategic. It’s well thought-out. They have had great success with it.

I don’t see those numbers from others. You have to send out a lot of emails to get to a 65% success rate. That’s a lot of emails. I haven’t seen those numbers from any of my clients, and I’ve got over 1,000. That is an astounding number in this day and age. Good for them to be able to do that.

Honestly, they’re able to take that technology and apply it to the companies that they invest in. The reality is that if you can take an investment, capital is important, but execution is mandatory. They are helping these companies execute better using this tried and true technology, and this marketing tech that they have. The numbers have not lied so far.

The other thing that I thought was interesting is that I hadn’t heard the term we always talk about, which is product-market fit. She talked about founder market fit. I love that because that is what we see more of. She identified it succinctly that that’s what they’re looking for. You have deep expertise in the area and deep expertise in what you’re going to market with.

The will to win is an interesting theme that I’ve heard over the last couple of interviews I’ve done. Keshia was one of those. Founder market fit is important. You have to have a founder who has the will to win and all the attributes to be successful. Being an entrepreneur and running a startup, as we both know, is not for the weak, not for the timid, and not for those who are easily discouraged. It takes a certain type of personality. You can determine whether that’s a good, bad, or different personality to be successful.

BDev Ventures and Keshia Theobald-van Gent are looking for B2B SaaS companies in the late seed and Series B stage in the US and Latin America. She’s expanding. Reach out to her. You can connect directly with her so you don’t have to remember it while you’re reading at the gym, taking a walk, or whatever you’re doing. Hopefully, you’re not washing dishes. That’s why we keep it so convenient there. If you are one of these emerging managers and feel like you should be on this show, don’t forget to reach out to Scott on the website. There’s a little form there. You can fill it out and let us know that you think you belong here. We’ll be interviewing you next.

I’ll see you all soon.

We’ll be back with yet another emerging manager.

Important Links

• BDev Ventures
• Info@BDevVentures.com
• Keshia Theobald–van Gent on LinkedIn
• WinDifferent
• Piñata