Patrick Eggen, Founding General Partner at Counterpart Ventures, talks about the different facets of corporate venture capital (CVC), where it has a real edge in the startup world, and why entrepreneurs should work with CVC investors. Patrick debunks some myths around CVC and shares his observations on how CVC and venture capital have evolved over the last decade.
Patrick Eggen, Founding General Partner at Counterpart Ventures, talks about the different facets of corporate venture capital (CVC), where it has a real edge in the startup world, and why entrepreneurs should work with CVC investors. Patrick debunks some myths around CVC and shares his observations on how CVC and venture capital has evolved over the last decade.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
[2:33] The advantages of being early in corporate venture capital
[14:23] Myths about corporate venture capital
[19:28] What founders need to know before meeting a corporate venture capital investor
Cause that Patrick is passionate about: Pediatric surgery research at UCSF
Patrick Eggen is the Founding General Partner at Counterpart Ventures. He has held key thought leadership around core investment themes ranging from hardware, software, adjacent verticals, and frontier tech. In his 13 years of direct venture investment experience, Patrick has been involved in 100+ transactions and 30+ exits. He actively sourced or served as a Board Member/Observer for Qualcomm Ventures investments in Clarifai, Cloudflare, Matterport, Noom, OpenSignal, Particle, Plivo, Sense360, Sparta Science, and Swift Nav.
Counterpart Ventures is a San Francisco-based life cycle venture capital fund investing in B2B SaaS, mobility, and marketplace technologies that target nontrivial problems or fill missing gaps in large markets. Counterpart’s portfolio includes: Zoom, Cruise, Matterport, ANNEX CLOUD, AptEdge, Cloudbeds, Glidian, Particle, and RPA Labs.
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Patrick Eggen: Most CVCs have insane domain expertise or access to distribution channels or real edge. And those that do it well have an advantage over traditional VCs. Now, there are a lot of CVCs who don't do it well or are learning or might be bad actors, but we're trying to fix and reconcile that gap.
Gopi Rangan: You are listening to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur, a podcast for founders with ambitious ideas, venture capital investors and other early believers tell you relatable, insightful, and authentic stories to help you realize your vision. Welcome to the Sure Shot. My guest today is Patrick Eggen. He's the co-founder and partner at Counterpart Ventures.
Counterpart recently closed a $110-million fund. They're based in the San Francisco Bay Area in the city. Let's talk to Patrick to find out how he makes investments, what's his focus area, what questions he asks entrepreneurs, and what excites him. When does he say, "I want to invest?" Patrick, welcome to The Sure Shot Entrepreneur.
Patrick Eggen: Gopi, how are you, sir? I'm honored to be here, really excited Gopi.
Gopi Rangan: I'm looking forward to this conversation. I know you and I have had many conversations about trends in venture capital. What's happening in the world? What are things that startups do that work well for us, and what are the things that we wish they do differently? We'll talk about all of those. Let's start with your new fund. Give me a quick description of what the fund is about. How did you make it happen?
Patrick Eggen: Sure. I'm originally from outside of Philadelphia. As you noted, we've just closed Fund II. We're ecstatic about that $110-million fund. We're lean and my partner, Joe, was an utter machine behind the scenes last year in terms of fundraising. Mikey, on our team as well did an incredible job. There's a very collaborative effort here. We invest in classic B2B SaaS, marketplace, and mobility. Definitely a bias towards early-stage, I would say pre-series A. I like these old school series A's like $4 to $8 million in capital-efficient businesses, and invest $2 to $6 million checks in creative and nimble ways. We love to lead and price.
We're in the process of closing our 12th investment and we have this unique edge or access to a number of corporate venture capital funds. Joe and I, our early roots are in CVC. I led the U.S. investment team and started the early-stage fund at Qualcomm. Joe led the U.S. investment team at Recruit Strategic Partners. It's a very progressive Japanese company and it owns Indeed.com and Glassdoor. And we're deploying out of Fund II. We close earlier this summer. We wanted to wait until we had some proper ammunition to announce last week, got a lot of good inbound, and we're excited to work with wonderful and thoughtful investors like you Gopi.
Gopi Rangan: Oh! This is very exciting. Congratulations on the fund.
Patrick Eggen: Thank you, sir.
Gopi Rangan: I'm looking forward to watching your investments and hopefully having opportunities to collaborate as well. But let's start with your journey, your career in venture capital. You spent more than a decade at Qualcomm Ventures and you were the head of the early-stage venture fund at Qualcomm. How has growing up in the corporate venture world shaped your ideas for venture capital?
Patrick Eggen: Yeah, sure. We try to dispel a lot of myths around corporate venture capital. I, as you mentioned, was at Qualcomm Ventures for over 12 years. I wore multiple different hats there. I evolved as an investor and what I tell a lot of young people is there is a very net positive to being in CVC. I was able to lead and write checks as a young investor. I was able to get a lot of reps and learn the business in a corporate style. I took that responsibility with gravitas and very seriously, but it allowed me to learn the business on a broader platform. As we all know, venture is an apprenticeship business. You don't learn it on blogs. We see all these hot takes on Twitter. A lot of it is just inaccurate or based on raw anecdotal evidence or just bad examples.You learn it by getting deep.
At Qualcomm, I was very fortunate when I was hired as an associate at the time in 2005. It was a relatively sleepy strategic fund. And as you, Gopi, know, our mutual friend Nagraj Kashyap, who was head of Qualcomm Ventures at the time and now a managing partner at SoftBank. He really gave me the opportunity to run. And what I mean by that is I was the first associate promoted to investment manager. I was very fortunate to have some nice early wins under my belt. I then started the early-stage fund, the first of its kind. It was a micro fund and the timing was so auspicious. It was early 2010, it was the early days, and the track record of our team at the early stage was phenomenal with Zoom and Cruise and Matterport and Noom and many others. And then Nagraj allowed me to open up the Bay Area office and ultimately I was promoted there to lead the U.S. investment team. And we shepherded that group from a sleepy strategic arguably into one of the top three CVCs in the world. That's based on investment velocity, the number of deals per year, the scale of the platform. That gets you respect and garners admiration from founders and allows you to win deals. We had a bit of a chip on our shoulder. CVC, I don't think is tier 2. I don't think it's dumb strategic money. We're an ambassador for CVCs. The best CVCs capture both elements where it's pure financial with an interesting and compelling strategic edge, which offers a lot to founders.
CVC gave me this unique opportunity and without that, I would have never started a pure-play financial VC. And we carry that experience in an interesting way where we're ambassadors of CVC. We think we're the rare, or maybe the only Silicon Valley-based fund that can be this unique bridge between traditional funds and CVC.
Gopi Rangan: Patrick, this is fascinating. You grew up in the corporate venture capital side of the VC industry, and so did I. When it's done right, it can have a huge impact. I've always believed that, although there is a lot of bad rap against CVCs and Nagraj has been phenomenally helpful to me as well. Especially in the early days when I had no clue how to build a venture program, he was one of the first people I reached out to, and he was very generous with his time and advice.
Patrick Eggen: He's the best, Gopi. I was fortunate enough to be part of his group and with his guidance, he allowed me to run independently and frankly fail. That's how you get better. It's a humbling business. It's a fun business, but it's one where if you find the right platform, you could really grow by giving opportunity.
Gopi Rangan: Yeah, it is. We get exposed to so many different things. There are lots of opportunities to learn. It's intellectually very satisfying.
I want to ask you about Counterpart. How is Counterpart different from other venture capital firms? I know that you have a very strict inclination towards partnerships with corporates. Can you talk a little more about that?
Patrick Eggen: Sure. Look, you need to have an edge as a new fund. We were frankly humbled in the first few months. We had a great track record and a lot of significant, important relationships. But when we took a step back there were thousands of options. Capital is a commodity. So you need a real edge. What are you bringing to the table that's unique and different? We thought a lot about this. How do we win deals? How do we build a franchise that's sustainable over time and really has an edge?
There are various facets. First, on the financial element, there's the adage that your AUM or the size of your fund is your business model. We, with in Fund II, $110 million, we're at the lower end of mid-market. We're not a micro fund doing small checks. We're not a big megafund. And we see a unique opportunity where we can provide really healthy capital infusion and it doesn't set misguided expectations. So we love these old-school series A's- $4 to $8 million when we put stakes in the ground and lead with conviction.
The reason why we can win is that the market's bifurcated, where you have the sheeps and the pigs. We're somewhere in the middle where we can actually lead and price and find the right alignment. I always tell founders, we've got to find the right alignment. If you're dilution sensitive, if you want to do a smaller round, I need to work with your existing investors. And by the way, we have our own interests. Life's much easier if we have alignment. If we find the right type of company that's in the middle, there is a company-investor fit. It's a very simple rule, but it's one that we strive for. So I want to find really capital-efficient businesses where we can come in and own a meaningful piece and show leadership. And two, we like these twinner rounds; in between seed and A, in between A and B.
On the CVC side, Joe and I over the last few years during our tenure at Qualcomm and Recruit, we were literally seeing one to two CVCs a week. Half of it was therapy sessions, and half of us was being the internal optimist. Right? Here's our playbook. Here's what we did well at Qualcomm. More importantly, here's what we didn't do well. And we slowly built this very formidable network of CVCs where it was refreshing. It was all off the record, no judgment zone, and helped the CVCs and asked nothing in return.
We like to build and foster relationships. This ain't transactional. This is a long-term business of 10 years plus. We hope to build a franchise here in 20, 30 years. So we built this quiet community of CVCs and when we started Counterpart, we activated all these CVC relationships into what we call Counter Club. Counter Club is the most engaged and active community of CVCs out there. We host a number of events, typically twice a quarter. Gopi, you've attended a few where we pick a meaty topic or something that's just non-party line and we dig in. I do a ton of one-on-one chats with CVCs to help them, whether it's demystifying the IC committee. "Oh, CFO departed. What's my contingency plan. How do I deal with equity accounting? How do I deal with the legal eagles? Oh, there's this misalignment with the BU."
For better or worse, Gopi, I have a PhD in CVC. And, historically that was perceived as a negative. We have parlayed that into a positive. And say, look, a quarter of deals or venture back companies have CVCs involved. It's a critical source of capital. Most CVCs have insane domain expertise or access to distribution channels or real edge. And those that do it well, have an advantage over traditional VCs. There are a lot of CVCs who don't do it well or are learning or might be bad actors, but we're trying to fix that and reconcile that gap. So with our community, we feel like we are the unique leader to step up and just be this glue and then get out of the way.
We destroy the sea of ambiguity of dealing with corporates and that's the quid pro quo. There's no hidden agenda. All our stuff is free. We're just trying to create a community and there's this really nice flywheel effect. It helps our brand. Sure, we get value out of it.
What makes us different, it's a combination of this unique financial approach that's correlated with our AUM. Two, we package our CVC context into this trojan horse BD arm. Intros to customers translate to partners, translate to potential customers which could convert to revenue. Revenue is a valuation uptick. There's nothing else. If you bring customers or recruit smart people, those are the best two things you can be as a VC. And finally, on the value side, don't take yourself too seriously. You don't want to be a friend. You want to be respected. And that means taking the right stance when it's appropriate, whether it's governance, but also being there during bad times.
Gopi Rangan: You are never shy with your opinions. It's great to hear candid stories from you. I wish this Counter Club existed when I was in the early days of venture capital. Like you said, it's an apprenticeship business that also makes the traditional institutional venture capital industry very insular. They don't really allow other people in easily. There are a lot of benefits to corporate venture capital because it brings opportunities to people who otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to get into venture capital. But corporate venture capital is not well-respected. A lot of people say that the incentives are not aligned with the entrepreneurs'. It's not perfectly aligned with traditional VCs as well. But with corporate venture investors, the incentives are much less aligned.
The famous statement by Fred Wilson at Union Square in 2016, was that "CVCs are devils" - is what he said. Do you agree with that? What are the problems that exist in the CVC world? What should an entrepreneur do when they work with a corporate venture capital investor?
Patrick Eggen: First of all, every venture fund, every CVC is different. For as many bad actors there are in CVC, there are a lot of bad actors in traditional VC, maybe even more. But over time, CVC is evolving and moving in a much more positive trajectory and it starts with having experienced investors at the helm, setting up the right structure, moving with speed, having the right follow-ons, and not orphaning any investments. Ensuring that there's alignment, avoiding some rogue business unit that intervenes and becomes a challenge to work with. Look, there are a ton of challenges with CVC, but there's significant opportunity to improve.
First and foremost, with CVC, we call it dependency risk. Most of the CVCs are evergreen balance sheet funds and could be shut down tomorrow or could go in a significant shift of mandate in a close time period. Just look at Comcast - exceptional fund for decades and did a very significant shift over a year ago.
So it's important to have the right structure, to have the right communication, to have the right aligned incentives. And that takes time. Gopi, I think you're pretty familiar with this. Counterpart in partnership with our friends from Silicon Valley Bank, we just did the largest primary self-reported survey of nearly 110 CVCs and asked some pretty probing and private questions about the structure incentives, velocity of deals, performance, and KPIs. And we dispelled a few myths. One was more incentives are aligned at the compensation level. 25% of CVCs will often carry. Sure, that can improve significantly. But 10 years ago, that would have been a fraction. Two, the speed at which CVCs are moving from initial meeting to actually funding; most can close a deal within two months at a lightning speed in today's market but a second closing allows them to be pretty nimble. Third, they're leading and taking board seats at a greater frequency than ever. Fourth, 50% of CVCs are doing indirect investments and have LP stakes. So all of these combined show that CVC is going in the right direction.
There's room for improvement. Absolutely. But to consider them the devil or some nefarious characterization is inappropriate. A lot of VCs are lazy in their assertion about CVCs because now they're competing with them. And I'm a big believer in what I call balance syndicates. Balance syndicates are where maybe you have a traditional lead but it makes a ton of sense to bring in complimentary investors who can open up distribution channels or have the right domain expertise, or can really bring this halo credibility to a small startup. CVCs can pack a punch way above their weight class relative to traditional VC with that criteria. But let's keep in mind CVCs have to step up. Sometimes they promise the world and then they fail to deliver. Don't be that. CVCs earn respect where they really help out the broader CVC ecosystem, they deliver on the value add, and they're good citizens. And as our friend, Nick Roz said, capital is cheap but value add is expensive. That's where CVCs can win and can outflank traditional VCs.
But again, they're both symbiotic. That's why I believe in this concept of balance syndicates. It's something that I think traditional VCs have to be more open-minded and receptive to. And frankly, CVCs have to ensure that they don't fall into the pitfalls of common mistakes of being too slow or being a challenge to work with or not stepping up or not following on. Again, both sides have to meet, but it'll be interesting going forward. I'm optimistic about the future of CDC.
Gopi Rangan: Capital is a commodity. So the value-add that comes along with that capital differentiates an investor. In the venture world, it's harder to make that differentiation. The value-add is much harder to achieve. But in corporate venture capital, it's not just that one investor. There's an army of folks in the large corporation. All these different business units have different priorities. If it doesn't fit in one place, you can try some other place. So it's a lot easier to find that value-add. And I wonder if the expectations are very high when entrepreneurs start working with CVCs. They see the possibility of value-add, when it doesn't realize quickly they get impatient. I wonder if that's one of the reasons why entrepreneurs are frustrated with CVCs.
What advice would you give founders? When you meet them, what questions do you ask? What advice would you give them to prepare ahead of the meeting with you?
Patrick Eggen: First of all, just be very open and humble. I like to have a conversation like we're having right now. Most of the time we meet an entrepreneur/founder for the first time, we tell our story first. We have to develop this rapport and they have to trust us. This is a marriage if we're ever going to invest. This is not the public equity market where we can dip in and out at a moment's notice.
So we typically tell our story many times. If I reached out to an entrepreneur, I don't ask any financial questions. I ask very few on the proprietary side. I just want to ensure that they don't think this is a fishing expedition. Too many VCs dial for dollars and start asking really probing questions in the first meeting.
From the founder's perspective, come prepared. Understand if there's a potential fit. If not, ask why or what's the investor's focus area. For us, if you're early stage and in old SAS marketplace or mobility, and not shiny object crypto, consumer, or frontier, there could be a nice fit. Be transparent about your process. Also, we'd like to see folks that are very coachable and take constructive feedback very well. Also, have a crisp and coherent narrative and really have practice on the Q&A. If you don't have an answer or something, it's okay to say, "I don't know. And I'll get back to you." That's a real big degree of maturity.
Gopi Rangan: Can you give an example of a startup where this worked well? The story was clear and the entrepreneurs were coachable. They chased after a very big market and the story played out really well after the investment.
Patrick Eggen: I'm going to give all credit to my friend and co-investor Varun Jain who's gone on the big and great things at SE Ventures. He pursued aggressively Cruise, a self-driving car startup. In 2014 or 2015, he wrote this crisp cold email where he talked about why he's reaching out, why he has spent time in the space and has a particular thesis that's complimentary to Cruise, and ultimately why they should partner with Qualcomm Ventures or explore such. We had a meeting or two. Initially, it was not a fit. They were not looking for capital and they were going in a slightly different direction that was publicly known at the time. But Varun chipped away and developed a relationship with Kyle and the team over there.
So when there was the natural fit 15 months later, Varun was able to follow up. It was a very smooth meeting and we did the anti-CVC move where we actually proposed a deal in real-time and how we could get it done in a short period. We spent time developing the relationship and followed up in a timely and authentic way. Ultimately, what it made sense for both parties, we moved with speed, conviction and got it done. And there was this really authentic feeling on both sides that this would be very symbiotic.
So that's a perfect example, where we met a year or two before. It didn't make sense for both parties, but Varun from our team developed this rapport. And there was this wonderful follow-up where Kyle had an open mind to work with a corporate, and we had both the thought leadership, cultivated the right relationship, and ultimately won and paid the right premium to get into a deal. And then Cruise was flipped eight months later for 8X what we had invested.
Gopi Rangan: What got you excited about the deal? When did the light bulb go off for you?
Patrick Eggen: This is where it's important to believe in your team. VC is a very collaborative exercise. I have been dismayed about how many VC partners work in a silo or don't work as a team. I'm a big sports guy and all of this should be a collaborative effort where you win and lose as a team. We have deal buddies where you push each other, where you debate in a healthy way. It's okay to disagree or agree to disagree. Many of the best deals we did at Qualcomm were very polarized. With Zoom, four of us were the only ones that raised our hands and all four left Qualcomm. We were the ones that pushed that through. Waze was similar. Humane, Matterport, Cruise absolutely were similar.
Varun had demonstrated that he did all the homework, a lot of homework. He had done the right calls. He'd done the right reference checks and he devised a thesis with imperfect information but had the right conviction that I believe since he believed.
And we're a team and the reality of the early stages is that you're going to lose. But if you ain't losing, you're not winning. You have to take risks. For people just getting into venture, if you're not taking enough risks, you're not losing, you're probably not going to win big. The goal is to find outsized returns, generate alpha by being right when everyone else is wrong.
Success has many fathers with a track record, but if you can really work as a team, attribution goes around the table. So VC should be a team game, whether you win or lose. Also, and maybe this is a good nugget for founders out here, one issue with VC dynamics or how VCs are set up is the Monday partner meetings where the founder can articulate in a very eloquent, amazing way the value prop and why they'll win, why he or she is the right steward for this company and is going to be a category winner. And then the individual partner or the lead on the prospect has to pitch it again without the founder in the room. Many times I see great companies and I hear this from other funds, great companies where a certain individual can't pitch it properly on Monday, or perhaps doesn't demonstrate the right conviction level. Or the opposite, maybe it's not a great company, but they have this amazing uncanny ability to persuade. Or maybe there's some horse-trading in the room. Maybe there's some activity where it's not the best idea, but the deal will get done. What I always think from a founder's perspective, have someone counting the table for you on Monday. Monday's the classic meeting. I don't know in a Zoom world if that is as common as it was pre-March 2020. Even in our shop, we do it on Monday, but pretty much do it throughout the week.
I encourage founders to build that script or to give that one-page cheat sheet to the partner so he or she can read it or refer to it when they have that 15, 20 minutes. "Here are the key five reasons, the thesis of why you should invest. And by the way, here are the risks, considerations, and here's how to combat or mitigate any issues or concerns in the room." You're not going to have all the answers, but you look really well prepared.
Gopi Rangan: Yeah, I've found that some of the best entrepreneurs would understand my situation and make it easy for me by giving those bullet points, saying these are all the highlights. And these are all the risks and this is what we're doing to mitigate those risks. That makes it easy for me to communicate and be an ambassador for them.
Especially in the corporate venture world, where I had to convince a lot of other people to get behind the investment, having that cheat sheet type of help was very valuable. Otherwise, I had to paraphrase things and sometimes misinterpret and that would create probably
Patrick Eggen: Yeah. Who knows their business better than they do.
And everyone talks about storytelling and the narrative. Yes, yes, yes. I get it sort of hackneyed at this point, but the ability to coach an investor on how to tell the story is a cool skill. That's a great proxy for how to recruit, how to win customers, how to develop partnerships, how to ultimately engage Corp Dev and have a company acquire you.
If you're able to coach someone to translate your story to an investor who can pitch it at a partnership, that's powerful. It's a great proxy for a successful founder or CEO.
Gopi Rangan: So you've been in venture capital for many, many years, more than a decade.
The way you approach startups is very different today, compared to how you used to do it when you were new in the industry. What has changed for you? Can you give examples of what happened in those conversations when you spoke to founders, how was it in the early days of your career and how is it different now?
Patrick Eggen: Oh! Vastly different. We were spoiled with choice in the early days. I've been in venture for 15 years. In the early days, it was more of a club. You didn't have this proliferation of micro funds, solo capitalists, non-traditional, crossover hedge funds, growth, sovereign, angel, seed angel list, all that.
It was more of a club where you had access, but the deals moved with slower velocity. There was much more diligence done. VCs had a lot more leverage. Now, what is good is that the tables have turned, absolutely. I do think what is challenging is investors are getting sloppy by cutting corners on diligence, moving with insane speed, and pricing deals that could cripple the company going forward because they'll never be able to grow into that valuation.
There's a remarkable difference from a decade ago where we had a chance to spend time to go deep into whether they're smaller rounds at a lower valuation. Today, we'll meet a company on a Monday or Friday and less than seven days later, we'll be submitting a term sheet or trying to get into a deal and give a commitment. That was unheard of at Qualcomm Ventures or even many traditional funds 10 years ago. And now it's almost table stakes to be in the game to move at that speed if you want to lead, if you want to price, if you want meaningful ownership. And the result is you have to move faster, you have to overpay and you're going to own less. So it's a founder's market and the pendulum shifts back and forth. So that is very positive for the tech ecosystem, but also these are times where as an investor, I need to be disciplined. Joe and I need to stay in our lane. And at the same time, We can't be too entrenched with dogma and be too risk-averse. We have to look at every particular deal with the potential that it can return the fund. It's a very simple equation that actually most CVCs don't do. But again, it's remarkably different from 10 years ago.
We have to hustle more as VCs. But at the same time, the amount and frequency of great companies or opportunities or prospects we're seeing is at just a new level.
Gopi Rangan: Yeah. The changes that we have seen in venture capital in the past 15 years are probably much more than ever in the industry in the previous 50, 60 years.
So I'm excited to see how this world evolves. You have a very refreshing take on how to build a VC firm and openly embrace partnerships with corporate. So I'm very curious to see the future of Counterpart.
I want to switch to the next part of our conversation and ask you about your community involvement. Is there a non-profit organization you are passionate about? Which one?
Patrick Eggen: Yeah, absolutely. I'm not even sure if you know this story, but my daughter, Chloe passed away at one month old about three years ago. She suffered from HLHS, which is hypoplastic left heart syndrome. It's a birth defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart and as the baby develops the left side of the heart just doesn't form correctly. She was basically born with half a heart and we knew of this congenital heart defect at week 20 before birth. And unfortunately, it required an open-heart surgery on day three after she was born to not fix it, but to rectify it in a way where you can have a quasi-normal life. Unfortunately, there were some complications during the initial surgery. She had five open heart surgeries in 30 days, and she's in a better place right now.
But during that process, I met Dr. Sano, who was her surgeon. He's a national treasure of Japan. He moved to the states to work with the UCSF pediatric heart group about five years ago. He and Dr. Reddy over there are doing the first heart transplants for pediatric kids. Absolutely phenomenal work!
Dr. Sano is a friend. Dr. Sano is a genius. Dr. Sano's changing the world. After my beautiful daughter passed away, we were able to, with incredible support from friends, family, the tech community, name the room that she passed away in after her. And we support Dr. Sano's research on next-generation techniques and procedures to avoid issues like this. Again, he's a national treasure. They're doing phenomenal work at UCSF.
Gopi Rangan: Patrick, thank you so much for sharing that personal story. Thank you so much for sharing candid stories, your opinions about the venture capital industry, examples of startups that you have engaged with in the past, and how you are spending your resources to support research like Dr. Sano's. Thanks a lot for sharing all the nuggets of wisdom.
Patrick Eggen: My pleasure Gopi. And for those listening, Gopi is one of the most thoughtful investors. He knows the insurance landscape better than anyone. Please approach or engage him. You're not going to get a better investor with those two attributes. This is a long game and you need really incredibly thoughtful investors that have the depth of Gopi.
Gopi Rangan: Thank you very much, Patrick.
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