In today’s episode, David Cruz e Silva talks with Justinas Milasauskas, an investment manager at Willgrow, a single-family office based in Lithuania. Justinas explains how Willgrow approaches venture investments worldwide, focusing on US and European early-stage managers. He shares the family office’s history, reasons for getting into venture, and how they think about manager selection, covering everything from ticket sizes to fund-of-funds benefits. It’s a great look at how an LP outside the traditional financial hubs can still build a global venture portfolio.
In this conversation, Justinas also reveals the importance of balancing conviction with consistent due diligence, highlighting why his team benchmarks managers against top peers worldwide. He talks about how they stay disciplined by maintaining a structured watchlist, stacking GPs based on strategy fit, and investing across multiple vintages. It’s an honest, behind-the-scenes view of how a first-generation family office grows its exposure to private markets while keeping that entrepreneurial spirit front and center.
Watch it here or add it to your episodes on Apple or Spotify 🎧 chapters for easy navigation available on the Spotify/Apple episode.
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✍️ Show notes
How to win allocations in access-constrained managers?
Align with the vision of the partnership.
Build conviction fast and stipulate it as early in the fundraising process as possible.
Do most of the diligence in the background with as little friction as possible
Willgrow is an ideal LP from the ticket size perspective - not too large, but significant enough and growing over time.
Our long-term commitment to the asset class resonates well with GPs
From underdog to global player - How being based in the periphery comes with an advantage?
At first, being based in Vilnius might seem like a disadvantage. But in the long run, I believe it will be a positive factor for our portfolio due to the following reasons:
Operating with an underdog mentality
Instead of the “come and see me” approach, we are most of the time on the road with a hunter’s mindset.
We have to activate our creativity and find ways to expand beyond the top of the funnel (FoF, advisors, events, etc.).
From the manager’s perspective, they typically love working with someone who has an entrepreneurial mindset and understands the nuances of venture well. Additionally, managers love diversifying their LP base geographically and structurally.
3 biggest learnings in venture
Willgrow is an emerging LP, especially in venture, as it is our newest asset class in the portfolio. Having said that, we’ve already identified a number of learnings during the past 3-4 years since we started allocating to venture, which we are implementing going forward:
Stay disciplined with ticket sizing. Do not overcommit.
Diversify properly across funds and vintages.
Never compromise on benchmarking. Or in other words, do not pick one out of one anymore. Always meet as many managers in a similar domain/geography as possible.
Strongly held belief you’ve recently had to change your mind on.
I believed that funds of funds did not make sense, but I strongly changed my mind after researching the topic. As a consequence, we have five fund-of-funds relationships today that cover all segments of the venture market.
What’s the last book you read that truly inspired you?
Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United, by Alex Fergusson.
It resonated very strongly with our underdog mentality.
The book disclosed Sir Alex's incredible talent for picking future star players. Exactly what we want to achieve here at Willgrow - choose the best managers across all asset classes in private markets.
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🗓️ The VC Conferences You Can’t Miss
There are some events that just have to be on the calendar. Here’s our list, hit us up if you’re going, we’d love to meet!
0100 Europe 2025 | 📆 02 - 04 April 2025 | 🇳🇱 Amsterdam, The Netherlands
0100 Emerging Europe 2025 | 📆 14-16 May 2025 | 🇭🇺 Budapest, Hungary
GITEX Europe 2025 | 📆 23 - 25 May 2025 | 🇩🇪 Berlin, Germany
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