Podcast

417: DCM Ventures, David Cheng Explores Agriculture & Food Tech

DCM Ventures is a venture capital firm with over $3 billion under management. Since 1996, they have invested in more than 325 technology companies across the U.S. and Asia. With offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing, and Tokyo, DCM Ventures empowers our entrepreneurs with hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources.

David Cheng is an investment manager at the venture capital firm. David has a particular focus in AI and agricultural tech with companies including x.ai, an automated scheduling service, and Plenty, a vertical indoor farming company that recently raised a $200 million funding round led by Softbank.

I often speak with guests about how technology is transforming multiple industries, but I wanted to explore the emergence or agriculture & food tech. On today’s podcast, David Cheng talks about:

How larger corporations are going to integrate AI (internal AI practices)
Agriculture & Food Tech – Using AI and Machine Learning for food production
AI graveyard: AI is tough and expensive to train up (you need massive amounts of bandwidth and a lot of humans to do it)

David is a strong believer in the power of a company’s narrative and is excited to work with talented entrepreneurs to discover those narratives. At DCM Ventures, David focuses on opportunities in the consumer internet, mobile applications, and Software-as-a-Service space. Having advised venture capital and hedge fund clients in the past as a consultant, David looks forward to utilizing his experiences and knowledge in order to find great companies with powerful stories. David actively supports portfolio companies such as Athos, Coffee Meets Bagel, Life360, MegaBots, Plenty, Roomi, SoFi, Stride Health, and X.ai.

Most recently, David worked as a management consultant at Accenture in New York City where he focused on strategy engagements for Venture Capital, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Technology clients. He was also recognized for co-authoring a firm-wide white paper regarding mobile payment industry trends and highlights. Prior to that, David spent time working at Streeteasy (Acquired by Zillow) and Citibank.

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