Global Corporate Venturing Rising Stars Awards 2018: #14 Gil Beyda & Daniel Gulati

The year 2017 seems to have been an active one for Comcast Ventures.

Just in October alone, the unit closed three investments, including a contribution to a $10m series-A round for digital office management platform Eden, to a $25m series-C round for intelligence software developer AtScale alongside UMC Capital, and to a $25m round for hair-colouring brand Madison Reed that it led.

September was just as busy, again with three deals, including two as lead investor -a $25m series-D for digital locksmith KeyMe, and a $20m series-B round for Mealpal.

At the team level, Comcast also witnessed several moves. In July, early-stage investor Christian Ebersol, who had been part of the firm since 2014, announced his departure for VC-backed healthcare analytics firm Health IQ.

Two months later, the unit announced the nomination of Gil Beyda as managing director, following the promotion of principal Daniel Gulati to partner and they have both been chosen for GCV Rising Stars 2018.

Gil Beyda, Comcast Ventures

Gil Beyda joined Comcast Ventures as a managing director from his managing partner role at Genacast, a seed-stage venture fund that he founded in partnership with Comcast Ventures, and which invests up to $1m in business-to-business technology startups in the US’s northeast region. Aside from his duties at Comcast, where he mostly focuses on late-stage investments, Beyda still runs Genacast.

There, at Genacast, he led numerous investments in the past, including in behavioural data management platform Demdex, acquired by Adobe in 2011, and in mobile productivity app Divide, acquired by Google in 2014.

Beyda remains a board member for 10 portfolio companies, including DoubleVerify, Jornaya, YieldMo, Rocketrip, ZeroFOX, Revmetrix, STAQ, BigID, Uptycs and DrayNow.

Amy Banse, head of Comcast Ventures and ranked 16th on GCV Powerlist, said: “With five exits and 16 investments under his belt, Gil Beyda is an extraordinary investor with a proven track record. 
“He’s also a successful entrepreneur with a natural ability to identify new startups and build rapport with entrepreneurs. I have learned a lot from him over the past nine years working together and value his partnership, expertise and perspective.” 

Beyda, who grew up in Los Angeles, was always an entrepreneur at heart. Before founding Genacast in 2008, he worked as software engineer for 10 years, heading the Beyda Consulting Group.
Having spent time working in Hong Kong and Brussels, he came back to the US in 1995 to co-found online advertising company Real Media, sold to WPP for $650m in 2007. He then went on to be chief technology officer (CTO) and executive vice-president of engineering at targeted advertising network Tacoda, which exited to AOL in 2007.

Looking to the future though, Beyda does not see himself anywhere else than in CVC. He said: “CVCs have something unique to offer. Through their corporate relationships, they have the ability to accelerate the growth of portfolio companies through strategic insights, partnerships, advisers, customer engagements and channel partnerships. VCs just do not have that close a relationship with any one enterprise to afford that luxury.

“I love working with entrepreneurs to figure out the knobs, dials and switches that make their company go. It is a constant puzzle, changing at each stage of a company’s development. You are never bored.”

Based in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, where he has spent the last 20 years with his wife and four daughters aged 17 to 26, Beyda also loves skateboarding and going around town on his OneWheel, a self-balancing electric skateboard reminiscent of Back to The Future gadgets.

Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures

A graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he was at once an Arthur Rock Entrepreneurial Fellow, a George F Baker Fellow and a recipient of the Robert F Jasse Distinguished Award in Entrepreneurship & Leadership, Comcast partner Daniel Gulati seems to have shone as a rising star in more than one way throughout his career.

Having started his journey as a KPMG auditor in Sydney, Australia, Gulati first made a mark in the fashion and retail world as the founder of several successful businesses, including Sydney-based pop-up urban apparel company mls.gear in 2004, Italian bath and body products company Erbario Toscano, which he headed for four years, and finally FashionStake, an online marketplace for indie fashion designers based in New York, and acquired by Fab.com (where he subsequently became fashion director) in 2012.

Meanwhile, he also made his first steps in the corporate world, first as senior associate as part of management consultants Boston Consulting Group between 2006 and 2009, and as a consultant within the same group three years later.

It is in 2015 that Gulati was named principal at Comcast Ventures, where his ascension has been just as fast as his previous progression.

Banse said: “In a short amount of time, Daniel Gulati, has proven to be a talented investor who can identify category-changing companies. He just has a knack for identifying great entrepreneurs.”

And indeed, Gulati has made this his number one priority: “My goal has always been to invest in, help and learn from the best and brightest entrepreneurs in the world,” he said.

“Nowadays, we are seeing a lot of tech for tech’s sake. I want to back companies that make a true dent in the world- that I can be proud of looking back at.”

His efforts seem to have paid off, as he was promoted to partner at the end of last year and three years only after entering the firm as entrepreneur in residence (EIR) in the New York office.

In his current role, Gulati focuses on early-stage consumer opportunities, trying to invest in companies and teams “before product-market fit exists or is obvious to others,” he said. This usually means investing first, at seed and series A stages.

As he shifted from EIR to principal in 2015, he created Comcast’s seed investment practice, which is an area in which he said the unit had dabbled before but was now much more formally involved in.

Since 2014, he led and managed the fund’s investments in 11 companies, including travel brand Away, currently generating $50m in revenues; meal subscription service MealPal, which recently raised a $20m series B round; health data platform Kang Health; and social audio app Unmute. He also sourced the unit’s investment in KeyMe.

Reflecting on his experience at Comcast, Gulati said his biggest challenge had been a “messaging” one.

He added: “We want to articulate to entrepreneurs that we are looking to back world-class teams first and foremost, and are essentially domain-agnostic. We do have areas of focus at any given time, but entrepreneurs should not walk away with the impression that we are, for example, only investing in media and ad-tech companies.”

Gulati also insisted on the fact that CVC units should make a point of providing a strong, enduring support to the companies they choose to invest in. He said: “Stability of capital base – taking the long view of investing in early-stage technology – is reputation-accretive for the company and the industry.

“Otherwise, it is probably not worth entering at all.”

In his spare time, the partner plays “a ton” of basketball, often practicing on the courts of nearby University of San Francisco and “trying to relive the glory days, as if those ever existed!”