a16z Partner Flew to London on 90 Minutes Notice to Win This $11B Deal

ElevenLabs is now an $11B company. Three years ago, a16z's Bryan Kim flew from San Francisco to London on 90 minutes notice to win the Series A. He packed in a minute, got his assistant to book the flight, landed, met the founder for lunch, and signed the term sheet on a piece of paper.Four hours on the ground. Then he flew home.In this episode of Very First Win, BK walks host Robert Hilmer through how it actually went down, and the principle he credits for making the call: "If it's worth doing, always ask yourself, what is a strong form of it?"Bryan "BK" Kim is a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads early-stage consumer and AI application investments. His portfolio includes ElevenLabs, Captions (now Mirage AI), Cluely, BeReal, Partiful, and Function Health.In this episode:00:00 The flight to London00:36 Intro: Welcome to Very First Win01:22 What BK invests in at a16z02:12 Jensen's "five-layer cake" and where AI value is created04:43 Chatbots vs agents and what's actually changing05:55 The very first win: leading ElevenLabs' Series A07:30 The decision to fly to London08:50 Signing on a piece of paper09:34 Why "what is a strong form of this?" is BK's mental model10:35 Closing thoughtsVery First Win is a podcast hosted by Robert Hilmer, founder of Goanna Capital. Each episode features top investors and operators sharing the story of a defining win and the lessons behind it.Goanna Capital is a global multi-strategy private markets investment firm and shareholder of companies including Anthropic, SpaceX, Canva, Neuralink, Databricks, Ramp, Rippling, and OpenAI.Subscribe for more conversations with the people behind venture's most important deals.Listen to Very First Win:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoannaCapitalSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0cTzEJW3juIZEBnyswNl9c?si=bfb732637e434b12Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/very-first-win/id1896315027Follow Robert Hilmer:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthilmer/Follow Bryan Kim:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirbyman/#ElevenLabs #a16z #VentureCapital #AI #BryanKim #ConsumerAI #Startups #Podcast