A consultant, a corporate defector and a VC walked into an MBA and came out with a podcast.
Over two years at IESE, Shruthi, Prerna and Damian worked on breaking into European Venture Capital through endless coffee chats and notebooks full of golden advice from people at different parts of the space. Analysts, scouts, GPs and LPs investing in a wide range of industries. The advice was varied and it strengthened the thesis that no two people break into venture the same way – and therefore no such playbook exists.
That’s why we decided to build the Fund Side. This podcast emerged as a way to document the varied conversations we were having: industries, functions, ways to break in (no two the same), resources for formal learning and so much more. There’s no playbook for breaking into venture, so we built one for our fellow IESE students, episode by episode. The result is a database where someone who wants to break into corporate VC and someone hoping to become a scout can both find a reference point.
Built by three people navigating the same questions, the Fund Side is a collection of answers from people in the IESE community who’ve figured it out.
As the three of us grow, The Fund Side grows with us. Season 1 started with Prerna and Shruthi chatting with recent graduates who broke into venture or tested the path out. Hugh was candid about how you get in: a cold application “is usually like just submitting it into the void,” so his approach was to reach out to people directly and lean on being a student, because “people like talking to students.” Mercedes talked about using her second MBA year to try VC out once her consulting offer was locked, and why the two feel so different: in venture “you learn a lot from the founders” and from how the whole ecosystem works.
In Season 2, they’re joined by Damian as a third host, and guests further along in their careers talking about their favourite breakfast item to AI. Kyle put it plainly: “we don’t invest in AI for the sake of investing in AI.” And Nikhil shared his tell for genuine AI fluency: the companies he rates ask candidates in interviews how they use AI in their personal lives, not just at work.
A repository of varied journeys, career and development advice from people who’ve done the work just a few years before its listeners, the Fund Side is growing into a community that upholds IESE’s values of lifting each other up. We’re so grateful to our guests for taking out the time to chat with us, and trusting three podcasting newbies with the edits. We’ve loved documenting our casual coffee chats for our peers to learn from and hope we can continue bringing value to IESE as we head into Season 3!
Written by Shruthi Srinivasan, Prerna Nathani (MBA 2026) and Damian D’souza (MBA 2025)
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