Kristy Kim

The state of venture capital is wild right now. We are witnessing a surge of innovation across the spectrum: - Funds merging - VC doing PE - PE doing VC - Secondary funds - Buyout funds - Spin-out funds - Debt funds - Continuation funds - Infrastructure funds - GP turnover - Hard Tech surging - Family Office uptick

60

8 Comments

Interesting concept to rename rounds by milestones. But "Series Client Expansion Extension" just doesn't have the same ring to it 😋 . Maybe we can start incorporating it into a descriptor to add context, "Series Seed Extension: client expansion." #startups #venturecapital

24

2 Comments

Dan Primack had some pointed criticism for #VC yesterday in his Axios Pro Rata newsletter (a daily must read IMO 😤). In short, the model doesn't work if it can't produce exits for LPs. Don't blame public markets (which are at all-time highs) for the lack of liquidity either. 📈 💸 Instead, this is a "liquidity drought of your making" where "...swinging for the fences on every pitch, rather than taking the single or double that's available" is the only way out when you invest at "sky high valuations." 😰 "A whopping 37% of "unicorns" are being held for at least nine years by VC funds, including 13% that are past the 12-year mark." 😳 ⌛ Is he right? Is VC at a dire inflection point? Or is Primack prematurely hitting the panic button? 🚨 https://lnkd.in/dts92pXr

2

Let the wave begin! Pioneer Fund company Recall.ai *grew their revenue 10x* in the past year, has 300 enterprise customers, and just raised a $10M Series A led by Ridge Ventures. David Gu and Amanda Zhu dropped out of college at age 19 to start the company. They've grown it exponentially with a tiny team. They make it easy to build meeting bots that are cross-platform. They're aggregating all these different APIs into one unified API, the way Twilio did with cell phones. At first it "sounds" easy to build a meeting bot -- just integrate with the Zoom API. But in fact there's a huge long tail of things you need to build, security and privacy pitfalls, automations, transcription complexities, integrations, the calendar invites where someone is using Google Meet or Teams, staying up-to-date with the libraries, etc etc. Recall takes care of all of that. It's WAY easier to build on top of Recall.ai and focus on the features that make you unique. Congratulations to the Recall team!

86

7 Comments

Announcing: $300M raised for The General Partnership's Fund II When we launched The General Partnership, we aimed to redefine venture capital partnership and closing this second fund is one more step toward that vision. Working with Daniel Portillo and our team of industry veterans, we've shown that true partnership goes beyond capital. Our approach is unique: We offer customized support for each company's needs - recruiting, product and engineering, GTM and Capital. We give founders the resources they need with capital and by deploying experienced recruiters, engineers, designers, and GTM leaders to work with leaders at each startup. We maintain alignment with founders through our Sweat Equity model. To our founders: Your trust validates our model. We're committed to driving your success through hands-on work, not just checks. To our LPs: Thank you for believing in our vision. Your support enables us to continue redefining VC and supporting the best as they build their companies. With Fund II, we're doubling down on supporting founders from formation to breakout stages and if you’re a builder, Let’s run it back! More here from Dan Primack and Axios https://lnkd.in/gcn9U9s5 And our note on TheGP II here: https://lnkd.in/gTJ8pyZu

612

104 Comments

I'm excited to be leading my third YC demo day fund for the S24 batch! I've been involved with YC since 2015, first going through YC myself, staying closely involved with the community for 7+ years, and culminating in working there as a Visiting Partner, where I invested in over 120 companies and helped them raise over $200M in capital. Over all this time, one thing is clear to me: YC founders are only getting better and better, and YC companies remain the cream of the crop for early stage founders. And it's not because companies come out of YC "fully baked" -- many of the best companies went through Demo Day with no revenue, or even pivoting just a few months afterwards. Yet, over 5% of this batch will likely become unicorns. This batch is appears to be the biggest one since 2021, which will make for the most interesting (and more competitive) cycle in a long time. I have opened this fund up to friends and connections who would like to join me. If you are interested in participating, click the link below for special friends-only terms! https://lnkd.in/eSKEbqQJ

25

The hidden years of inception stage. Founders & LP’s rarely understand that the journey of building a great company can involve up to three years of work before an early stage VC will get involved. h/t Peter Walker for the years from incorporation data from Carta https://lnkd.in/e5fFkvDt #vc #founders #investing Antler

83

12 Comments

Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

114

4 Comments

Juniper Square recently released their look back at the state of venture in Q2 2024, and the data is interesting. 👉 The liquidity drought continues to stifle fundraising, with $37.4B committed to 255 funds YTD. 👉 In the current climate, established managers are securing 77% of fund value YTD, the highest concentration in the last decade.  👉 Over 63% of capital raised in 2024 so far is in funds of $500M+, the second-highest percentage in the last decade. 👉 Q2 reflects an uptick in US venture deal momentum, with quarterly deal count climbing to the highest level since Q2 2022. 👉 Q2 data shows a third consecutive upward quarter in both exit value and the total number of exits.  👉 Q2 hit a 9-quarter high in total number of exits, and the total exit value recorded was the second-best quarter since Q1 2022. The data shows that the landscape is especially competitive for emerging managers. When it comes to generating returns though, a fresh perspective can help find the most interesting deals. I wrote a bit about this last week, if you’re curious to dig into stats on unicorns at the seed stage, and the funds they’re raising from. You can check out the full report from Juniper Square here: https://lnkd.in/eN6VnY-k #emergingmanagers #stateofvc

7

Many VCs shy away from hardware. But I see hardware as a brilliant VC opportunity, especially when combined with software and done right. Here’s why and how I see that hardware can offer the required outlier VC returns and fit into our model: 🔒 Unique MOAT: Hardware, paired with software, creates a robust barrier to entry, enabling solutions that pure software can't achieve. 🤝 Enhanced Stickiness: Installing a physical device creates a deeper commitment than a software subscription, leading to lower churn rates. The tailored experiences and direct value from these devices are hard to replace. 📊 Data Advantage: Hardware devices can enhance software capabilities by collecting valuable data, building a powerful data MOAT. What type of hardware investments are attractive to me as a boutique VC? Scalability: Hardware that is almost as scalable as software, meaning easy to ship and install. Service-Oriented Sales: Sold as a service with high blended software-like margins. Capital Efficiency: Low capex to enable capital-efficient scaling. 💡 For the skeptics, here are a few formerly VC-backed examples showcasing the potential for VC-returns in hardware/software businesses (not even mentioning Nvidia, Apple and the likes..): 🪹 Nest Labs: Smart home devices (thermostats, smoke detectors etc.). Acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014. 🏃 Fitbit: Wearable fitness trackers and smartwatches. Acquired by Google for $2.1 billion in 2021. 🛎️ Ring: Smart doorbells and security cameras. Acquired by Amazon for over $1 billion in 2018. I'm proud that we at Zenith Venture Capital are backing the next generation of hardware-enabled companies, like Minut led by Nils Erik Mattisson and Valpas with Martim Gois at the helm, which are on track to be the next Nest Labs and Ring. What are your thoughts on the future of hardware investments in VC? #VentureCapital #Hardware #Investment #TechInnovation #StartupSuccess

50

9 Comments

Pretty excited about this one - a team with a remarkable track record across top DeFi protocols, propelled by a clear & effective go to market strategy. The result? Over $300 million in TVL and $2 billion in trading volume within just a few short months. ___________________________ As Blast was gearing up for its launch, the market was flooded with over a dozen different spot and perpetual DEXes seeking funding. At the time, Blast had already achieved over $2 billion in TVL and we anticipated they would launch various mainnet incentives to maintain liquidity within the protocol. Our aim was to identify the team most capable of capturing the majority of mindshare and swap volume from the $2 billion+ of captive liquidity in the ~3 months leading up to the Blast token generation event (TGE). Consequently, we engaged in several discussions and reviewed numerous pitches to better understand how the DEX competition might unfold. We were particularly impressed by the Thruster team and their strategy to attract early attention and liquidity through focused partnerships and integrations. ___________________________ At Futureproof, we invest our own capital, which can sometimes be seen as a limitation in the venture capital space. We do not write overly large checks and cannot invest in all the deals that come our way. However, this constraint sharpens our investment focus. Ultimately, it leads us to invest in those we believe are best positioned to dominate their respective niches, rather than just securing a competitive position. High conviction, high hit rate... betting on the fastest horse. Thruster is exactly that - winning, growing and showing zero signs of slowing down. We can't wait to support them as they staff up and double down on their winning formula to integrate Thruster products and liquidity into other top protocols across DeFi, NFTFi and beyond.

2

1 Comment

High Impact Biz, Ops & Investment Roles at Early Startups & VCs: • Opportunity to run a VC newsletter with over 55K subscribers • Analyst/Associate position with a former Softbank Vision Fund Partner • Director of Ops & Director of Biz Dev at a company that recently raised one of the largest seed rounds in history • Associate at a seed stage fund with investments in Deel, Jasper, Relativity Space & more • Head of Growth at a company founded by a best-selling author & a serial entrepreneur with a substantial exit • CEO of a company incubated by an entrepreneur with 1.5M+ followers • Strategic Finance Director at one of the fastest-growing consumer companies • Associate Investor at a fund hyper focused on people • Chief of Staff to an ex-Googler aiming to teach robots quickly & at low cost • Head of Marketing at a company reimagining K-12 education • Chief of Staff at a company focused on delivering hyper personal nutrition • Head of Demand Generation at a stealth cybersecurity startup • Top-tier free VC fellowships 💸 All companies are well-funded and backed by top-tier investors. You can find links to the roles above, plus many more, in the comments. +Some really useful resources for breaking into venture.

36

2 Comments

Ross Haleliuk posted the fantastic article below. This is the world where I live day-to-day. At TechOperators, we invest mostly in early-stage cyber, but we do things a little differently, and we believe there are ways to invest successfully outside of pure Power Law math. The article argues that many security problems are too small for VC. I agree. I often try to convince bootstrapped founders not to raise venture because doing so can turn a successful, slow-growing bootstrapped company into a failed venture-backed company because, despite a large infusion of capital, it couldn't double every year. VC is not monolithic--not by stage, strategy, or style. Venture is often equated with "Tier 1 Venture". Ross argues that VC is not always great for early-stage cyber--and he is right. Bootstrapping AND VC work when incentives are aligned. Does it work for an early-stage VC with a <$200M fund to invest in several early companies at reasonable valuations, setting up the conditions for reasonable exits that pay off for both investors and founders? Yes. Does it work for $800M funds investing in seed stage at $100M+ valuations? Well, that depends! Power law says it does (for VC), but the unfortunate externality is that these rounds destroy companies and founder equity more often than not. There is a role for patient capital in this ecosystem to fuel successful companies that retain exit optionality as they scale--driving exit value for both founders and investors.

34

2 Comments

Seed VCs are turning to new ‘pro rata’ funds that help them compete with the big firms Alpha Partners, SignalRank and now SaaS Ventures help seed VCs pay for shares when big VCs try to price — or push — them out Lee Edwards, partner at Root VC, has a saying at his firm that “pro rata rights are earned, not given.” That may be a bit of a stretch since pro rata refers to a term that VCs put in their term sheets that gives them the right to buy more shares in a portfolio company during consequent funding rounds to maintain an ownership percentage and avoid dilution. Still, while these rights are not exactly “earned,” they can be expensive. One of the latest trends in VC investing these days are funds dedicated to helping seed VCs exercise their pro rata rights. https://lnkd.in/dRM3RvdA By Christine Hall

13

⛳ Emerging fund managers pulse check. PitchBook tracks over 10,000 funds that are raising money, with 45% being emerging fund managers (defined as firms with less than 3 funds). Despite a dip in available capital—down to 16% from the pre-pandemic 23%—these managers are finding creative ways to stay competitive, like partnering with larger firms. 💼 Joanna Drake (founder turned investor) shared how "wildly different" it is raising a fund versus for a startup. One key datapoint she shared on the fund side was how little feedback you get along the way (and the years you can wait for it). The “long-winded and challenging process to raise capital” inspired Drake and Ben Black to create RAISE Global, a community for emerging fund managers and the “forward-thinking LPs” who back them. (A decade later, several hundred emerging managers with AUM under $200m are on the platform) They've found the newest emerging managers are more diverse and geographically dispersed than Silicon valley, and more were able to crack the ceiling and raise larger $100m funds (although this is still a small % of the market, requiring partnership with larger funds at the late stage). ▶ And not a hugely surprising datapoint: A lot of action is in the sub $49 million range, where roughly 50% of emerging managers are raising. Theresa Sorrentino Hajer, Head of U.S. venture capital research at Cambridge Associates warns that past success isn't actually a strong indicator on it's own to assess emerging managers. We've had a valuation reset. And newer managers with investments during the 2019-2021 "party days", need to build relevant track record and play to their strengths. A lot of emerging managers are specializing (70% who applied for Raise had a thematic focus), and betting on getting in as early as possible in the startup's lifecycle (Raise: 31% at accelerator/ pre-seed stages, and 47% at seed stage). “Emerging managers have to compete on a different dimension,” Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures. You're no longer just dealing with capital. Emerging VC's need to be as innovative and nimble as the startups they invest in, having a unique thesis and insights. They also play a role at the top of the deal-flow funnel: helping larger firms find promising companies, so finding a thesis, sector or philosophy aligned partner at a larger firm is helpful. Onwards! #EmergingManager #Startups #VC

24

1 Comment

Today is an inflection point for Breakout with the announcement of our $4.5m venture growth round led by the experienced team at RockawayX with participation from Mechanism, Round13, CSquared, IOBC, and Mentat Group. Operationally, we’ve accomplished one of the hardest feats — going zero to one. We currently have over 5,000 traders that have collectively traded over $12B in notional volume and we’re growing exponentially. It’s now time to take things to the next level with a stacked treasury that we can leverage to improve our product even further and get Breakout into the hands of tens of thousands of new traders across the globe. I often get asked what it’s like to run a startup and many times I don’t even know where to begin. Startups are HARD. I won’t get into the minutiae but after 4 startups and 16 years, the biggest takeaway for me has been that in order to succeed, you have to mentally overcome the fact that successful startups need to fall forward and constantly navigate unique obstacles without allowing any one of those obstacles to paralyze the company. This is a constant battle that is unachievable without a resilient team that all share the same mindset and entrepreneurial drive. Our team at Breakout is the best I’ve ever been a part of and our growth in such a short period of time could not have been achieved so far without each and every person involved. You know who you are, thank you. We’re going to continue to push the envelope and will have some really exciting news to share in the coming weeks on the product front. Stay tuned. https://lnkd.in/ezPs8pdE

33

3 Comments

Deal Sheet (pricing going up again) – Save Carry + Get Access In Q1, 2024 we launched Deal Sheet, a paid email offering that provides accredited investors: 1) Access to some of the best startup opportunities across the VC syndicate ecosystem (est. 150+ deals on Deal Sheet per year) and 2) All Deal Sheet deals come at discounted carry – all opportunities on Deal Sheet are listed at 10% carry (versus 20% standard) with select opportunities (at our discretion) at 0% carry. Pricing is going up again Thursday August 1st.  To date - Deal Sheet subscribers have received 0% carry opportunities (versus standard 20% carry)  in a large number of highly prolific startups and 10% carry on almost 100 of the most interesting startup opportunities YTD from pre-seed to pre-IPO from across the syndicate ecosystem. We leverage our 4 step Alpha Access process to provide you the best venture capital opportunities: 1) Insider Access → Curating the best investment opportunities from 50+ Venture Capitalists that we’ve built relationships with and co-invested with over the last decade. Tap into a decade of our cultivated relationships including Midas List members, to access the premier startup investment opportunities. 2) 365 Deal Hustle → 24/7 deal-hunting to uncover tier 1 VC co-investment opportunities across all stages and industries, extending beyond our established network. We relentlessly pursue tier 1 deals, ensuring you access many of the best venture capital deals from across the startup ecosystem. 3) The Midas Matrix → Investing alongside the top co-investors is important to syndicate LPs.  We leverage co-investments with Midas List partner funds, and gain early access to deals that have already passed through some of the industry's most discerning filters. 4) Carry Crusher → Deal Sheet members get their carry cut in half. We provide specific links to 10% carry on all deals as opposed to the industry standard 20% carry, providing a 50% discount in carry for all 150+ annual Deal Sheet deals with select opportunities at 0% carry. Get Deal Sheet: https://lnkd.in/eS9xPvHN On Carry Savings:  Invest in just 1 Deal Sheet deal out of the 100-200+/year, and Deal Sheet “could” pay for itself 3x over (example below): - A Deal Sheet customer invests $25k in one deal - The deal 5x’s (net dilution) - Capital Returned = $125,000 - 10% carry paid to GP (instead of 20%) = $10k (instead of $20k) - Savings from being a Deal Sheet customer = $10k - Deal Sheet Annual Fee today (pricing going up Aug 1) = $3.5k  - Savings post Deal Sheet fee = $10k (2.9x ROI) - Savings on a 0% carry Deal Sheet (we’re expecting around 12 of these a year) = $20k (5.7x ROI) And this is just the potential savings for 1 deal. We are offering 100-200+/deals a year with LPs investing as little as $1,000 up to >$5M into our deals. Get Deal Sheet at the $3.5k/year pricing before prices increase. Get Deal Sheet: https://lnkd.in/eS9xPvHN

14

Y Combinator is still, to us K Street Capital, the hands down best accelerator for in the US, if not the world. Thankful to be invited back every year! #dealflow #venturecapital #venture #demoday #ai #startups #seedstage #robotics #opportunities #showcase #fundraising #closed #oversubscribed

22

1 Comment