Pavel Prata, founder of Murph Capital, shares his unconventional journey from Belarus to Silicon Valley and across the venture ecosystem—from startup fundraising and venture investing to investor relations and allocating capital to emerging fund managers.

Pavel shares the first-principles framework he uses to evaluate emerging managers: understand whether venture is a natural extension of their journey, look for genuine conviction, identify their unique superpower, and keep the strategy simple. He also explains why the best VCs focus on serving founders and how LPs can determine whether an investor adds value beyond capital.

In this episode, you'll learn:

[05:25] How Pavel found his natural advantage by recognizing what he was—and wasn’t—best at in venture.

[10:31] Why an unconventional background can become a feature rather than a disadvantage.

[12:11] Why Pavel started Murph Capital to back the next generation of emerging fund managers.

[18:16] Why the best VCs should focus on serving founders and bringing value beyond capital.

[24:22] What LPs should understand before investing in emerging managers.

[29:40] How Pavel evaluates fund managers through first-principles thinking, their natural path, and genuine conviction.

[32:40] Why every emerging manager needs a clear superpower—and a strategy simple enough to understand.

About Pavel Prata

Pavel Prata is the founder of Murph Capital. His experience spans startups, venture investing, fund operations, investor relations, and the LP side of venture. Originally from Belarus, Pavel built his career across different parts of the venture ecosystem before launching Murph Capital, where he focuses on the emerging-manager market.

About Murph Capital

Murph Capital is a new media, research, and community platform for emerging venture fund managers and LPs. It combines curated industry insights, original research and open-source data with a community designed to build stronger relationships between emerging managers and capital allocators.

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Rohini Chakravarthy, Managing Partner at NewBuild Venture Capital, shares her journey from engineering in Silicon Valley to more than two decades of venture investing at Intel Capital, NEA and NGP Capital. She explains why she and her partners created NewBuild around the transformation of the physical enterprise—from procurement and manufacturing to logistics and delivery. Rohini also explains what NewBuild looks for at the earliest stages, expounding on the difference between proof of value and proof of market.

In this episode, you'll learn:
[01:43] How Rohini went from engineering in Bangalore and Silicon Valley to venture capital, including her experience at Intel Capital, NEA and NGP Capital.

[07:06] Building NewBuild around the transformation of the physical enterprise and supply chain.

[13:18] What "proof of value" means at the earliest stages—and why NewBuild wants to see evidence of customer utility before significant revenue.

[15:48] Three pieces of advice for founders: start with a burning problem, examine founder-market fit and deliberately de-risk the company one stage at a time.

[20:50] How investors actually build conviction through conversations, research, validation and back-and-forth with founders.

[25:48] Why investors and founders need the right network of partners and experts

[27:16] The opportunities and challenges Rohini sees in the US-India startup ecosystem.

[31:01] Why Rohini believes computer science remains valuable in the AI era—and why combining computer science with another domain could be especially useful.

The nonprofit organizations Rohini is passionate about: IIT Madras Foundation, Neythri

About Rohini Chakravarthy
Rohini Chakravarthy is the Managing Partner of NewBuild Venture Capital, where she invests in early-stage companies focused on supply chain and the physical enterprise. She has more than 20 years of venture investing experience, including roles at NGP Capital, NEA and Intel Capital. Before entering venture capital, she worked as a hardware design engineer at Bay Networks.
Rohini holds a B.Tech from IIT Madras, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

About NewBuild Venture Capital
NewBuild Venture Capital is an early-stage venture firm focused on supply-chain application and infrastructure, physical enterprise and agentic AI. The firm's thesis centers on the transformation of the physical enterprise through technologies including cloud, data, AI and robotics. Portfolio companies include: Lyric, Freehand, Drumkit, Precursory, Manifold Freight, Cognichip, Pull Logic and others.

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Isabel Bescos, Partner at Entrepreneurs First, shares how EF identifies exceptional founders before they have a company, co-founder, product, or even a business idea. She explains why EF considers itself a talent investor, what it means to invest in individuals at a stage even earlier than pre-seed, and the characteristics she looks for when evaluating potential founders.

Isabel discusses will to power, personal exceptionalism, followership, resilience, and bias to action as key founder traits. She explains why great founders matter more than great ideas at the earliest stage, how founders can prepare before approaching EF, why building a venture-backed company is harder and less glamorous than it appears, and why an investor's "no" can sometimes mean "not yet."

In this episode, you'll learn:

[05:32] Why Entrepreneurs First calls itself a talent investor and backs individuals before they have a fully formed company, team, or idea.

[08:46] What EF looks for in potential founders, including grit, will to power, personal exceptionalism, and followership.

[16:15] Why the founder can matter more than the idea at the earliest stage — and why exceptional people can find exceptional problems to solve.

[17:24] How founders can prepare before approaching EF by demonstrating a bias to action, experimenting with ideas, and understanding why now is the right time to build.

[20:32] Why building a startup is becoming more competitive and why resilience, long-term conviction, and the willingness to face setbacks matter more than ever.

[24:38] Why EF says no to founders and why a rejection can sometimes mean "not yet" rather than "never."

The nonprofit organization Isabel is passionate about: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

About Isabel Bescos

Isabel Bescos is a Partner at Entrepreneurs First, where she works with founders building companies for the U.S. market from San Francisco. Before joining EF, Isabel was an early employee at BlaBlaCar, helping the company expand internationally across Europe and other global markets. She later worked in venture capital at Balderton Capital before founding and running her own company focused on helping remote teams work more effectively. Isabel grew up in Belgium and studied psychology in the UK and the United States. Her experience as an operator, founder, and investor gives her a perspective across multiple stages of the startup journey.

About Entrepreneurs First

Entrepreneurs First is a talent investor that backs exceptional individuals at the earliest stages of their company-building journey. Rather than requiring founders to arrive with an existing company or co-founder, EF helps individuals find co-founders, explore ideas, and build companies around problems worth solving.

EF operates across India, Europe, the UK, and the United States. Founders backed through the program ultimately relocate to San Francisco to build for the U.S. market and raise capital there. The program brings together ambitious founders, advisors, investors, and an international entrepreneurial community, providing support across co-founder discovery, company formation, customer development, and fundraising. EF portfolio companies include Strala, Tractable, Cleo, Gensyn, Opply, Magdrive, Unitary, Better Dairy among others.

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