Abraham Sorock

Is SF Climate Week banter a good barometer of the macro climate tech investment mood? Key nuggets to ponder: 💰💰💰 Climate solutions (like most science/engineering and hardware based deep tech) are capital intensive. They require an "all of the above", creative financing approach to obtain the capital needed to scale (from CVCs, government, public-private partnerships, green banks, debt financing...). 🤖 AI - Everything, Everywhere (all at once). As in most sectors, AI is white hot. It can be a key component of climate solutions, but also a demand accelerant ⏩ More AI = ↗ compute and power demand ⚡= ↗ need for energy storage and grid enhancing solutions 🔋. 🏛 🤵 Political Angst. Real worry that a new administration will cut or impede climate tech catalyzing funding (e.g., DOE funding from IRA). #climatetech #climateweek

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Bridge applications have to be submitted by January 3rd to join the Spring 2025 cohort! Love this program and everyone I've met through it! Application here: https://lnkd.in/gkApsrmv Bridge is opening the Spring 2025 GP membership application for Women Emerging managers (apply till 1/03)  Bridge Funding Global is a data-driven fundraising membership platform and highly curated investor community for top-performing diverse emerging managers. The vision for the platform is to provide LP/GP relationship-building tools to women and underserved GPs, optimize their fundraising process, and match them with actively deploying LPs. Bridge provides very targeted yearly programming including an Annual conference with its unique GP/LP matching program, matching fall dinners, workshops, and more. Some notable LPs: Pivotal Ventures (Melinda Gates Company), Legacy Venture, Illumen Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Cendana, Getty Museum Trust, Babson Endowment, Atento Capital, Hilton Foundation, George Kaiser Family Foundation, UCLA Endowment, Columbia Endowment, Smithsonian Institution, Walton family office. The Bridge Selection Committee of the US top institutional and family office investors will help select twenty additional GPs to become members, access the highly curated programming, meet aligned LPs, cultivate existing relationships, and learn from an incredible community. Selection Criteria Diversity and Leadership: We prioritize funds led by individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those that are 30% or more women-led or led by people of color. Fundraising Stage: Our network welcomes funds at all stages of their financial journey, whether you are currently fundraising or considering future fundraising efforts. Geographic Focus: While our primary focus is on U.S.-based funds, we also recognize the value of global perspectives. Non-U.S. funds that strongly align with our Limited Partners' investment theses may also be considered. In addition, the selection committee scores applications based on clarity of investment strategy and differentiation, evidence of research and understanding of the market, clear and standing out materials, and track record of success within target sectors

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Prime Coalition has long taken a different tack to climate finance compared to its for-profit brethren. It makes the usual venture-style investments in startups through Azolla Ventures and also helps philanthropists direct their money to climate-related projects that it deems high impact. Trellis Climate follows the latter model with a focus on middle stages, where capital has grown scarce. #climatetech #climateVC #climatefinance

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Today marks a groundbreaking moment for BLCK VC and our fellow collaborators—Diversity VC, All Raise, 2Gether-International, SomosVC, StartOut, and VetsinTech—as we proudly announce the launch of the Diversity Data Alliance. This important alliance underscores our unwavering commitment to nurturing a venture capital and entrepreneurial ecosystem abundant in equity and inclusiveness. By standardizing and linking our data, we empower ourselves with the essential tools to track deeper trends that have, until now, eluded us to identify and fill funding gaps for historically excluded investors, founders, and operators. We can’t change what we do not measure, and now with the Diversity Data Alliance, we're now equipped to do both. Join us in this mission. Learn more and get involved: https://lnkd.in/eEZKdrac #DiversityDataAlliance #BLCKVC #VentureCapital #MeasureToChange

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Hey all 👋, I finally got around to editing the PMF workshop (yes, please hype me up for just doing my job). Thanks again to #founders Mina A. Leonel Lacayo and Monica Vespe Lincoln for sharing their startups and building in public! Grab the video or sign up to be notified of the next workshop at the link in the comments. —— Want to a stress test your #startups Product-Market Fit? Get the free PMF workbook at the link in my profile and make sure your #marketing and #branding are minimum viable for your stage of growth.

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That feeling when you watch the macro forces that undergird your Industrial Transformation & Supply Chain Technology investment thesis at ⁦‪REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund unfolding every single day: Escalating Geopolitical Tensions; The Climate Crisis & Severe Weather; Consumer Behavior & Demographics. At most venture capital firms, Industrial Transformation & Supply Chain Technology is a tiny, emerging “area of interest” . . . At REFASHIOND Ventures, it’s our entire world. Join us. #IndustrialTransformation #SupplyChain #Innovation #Technology #Startups #VentureCapital

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Last week was the "why", this week is the "what" - what data can be helpful in building FOAK projects smarter & more efficiently. This includes: ✅Modularity score ✅Mean cost overruns of comparable projects ✅Estimate size of project ✅Cost of production ...etc. The table in the article is just a sample of what we could use...thinking through what more metrics might be helpful. And again, looking for collaborators / partners in this endeavor. Please reach out if you're interested in contributing! Caleb Cunningham Christian Okoye #FOAK #Scalinginfra #infradata #newinfra

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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Fundraising decks are important but only within the context of a well-orchestrated fundraising process. A deck itself is unlikely to directly lead to a term sheet. Rather, it is important to understand how you want to use the deck (or any collateral for that matter) as part of your fundraise process. For example: - Is it to secure the first meeting with a VC? A teaser deck is important. But so is the email snippet and warm referral! - Is it part of a deeper-dive session about your business? Excellent. Is it a deeper dive on product or GTM? And, is the next step a track to a partnership meeting? - Is it a diligence deck? Excellent. Is it more about showcasing the financial plan and key levers? ... what is the ONE thing you want this deck to help you achieve? More tips on fundraising your early-stage round here: https://lnkd.in/gvWYaCwk #startups #venture #fundraising

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Wing Venture Capital's Founder Docs project is a unique collection of startup wisdom, by founders, for founders. The authors of the docs are talented founders themselves, sharing their experience on the topics they are most passionate about. I'd like to highlight the contributions of Edo Liberty, founder / CEO of Pinecone. Edo writes about the special opportunities for the scientist / founder (and he is one of the best of this breed!), as well as some of the risks and challenges they face. I got a lot out of reading Edo's stuff and I suspect you will too! https://lnkd.in/g_wyRMiE

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Not all of the investments that Kindred Capital VC makes can be a 13 year sourcing process.... but... this is one of those very fortunate moments in which a relationship that started over a decade ago in the Bay Area where the brilliant A-H. Hleileh and I overlapped has now turned into an incredibly exciting opportunity for Kindred to lead his and Ron Holifield's first institutional round at Civic Marketplace. We believe: 1. Local government procurement is one of the most underserved areas in technology today, and has failed to keep pace with the private sector. They deserve better. 2. This is a huge opportunity, with US local governments spending alone amounting to over $1.5 trillion in annual spend, which is only going in one direction... 3. As the brilliant Kip Harkness shared with me in our diligence phase, "this industry moves at the speed of trust." And this is a unique founding team with A-H. Hleileh and Ron Holifield at the helm who bring together two critical ingredients: 1) decades of trust-building within this domain, and 2) a team who can build beautiful and scalable technology platforms. Onwards!! 🚀

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Amongst our friends and neighbors there are people who are allowed by Federal Law (Reg D 506(b)) to invest into startups. Yet 99% of them are not investing. When we explore why it is that folks might not be angel investing, we come up with a few thoughts: 1) They don't know that they were allowed (See Reg D 501) 2) They thought it took LOTS of cash (like Bill Gates kind of cash) 3) None of their friends are investing 4) They think it is more risky than Real Estate Investing (worth a debate) 5) They do not know where to start If you look at Reg D 501, it says that "Accredited Investors" either have $1M networth (not counting the house) OR they have an income of more than $200K... When we look at the median income for Meta in Seattle, the last number I was told is $379K a year.... So something more than 50% of folks in Meta could be Angel Investing.... But folks don't know where to begin. We often point people to the David S Rose book "Angel Investing". But for a more personal way to start, we will run an Angel Investing 101 workshop virtually online. Do you know a neighbor or coworker who might find it useful to learn how to invest in the innovation economy directly? Perhaps you could mention this workshop to them.

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Fundraising Lessons ____ In the next week or two, we will complete the final close of PHX Ventures Fund II. It's been a successful process as we exceeded our fundraising target by 20% and will hit our goal of $30m. I've been contrasting my experiences raising VC funding as the Founder / CEO of CampusLogic to my experience raising a VC fund as the Founder / General Partner of PHX Ventures. Here are five similarities I have observed: - Founder Market Fit. Fund investors seemed drawn to our personal experience scaling VC-backed software companies. It would have been hard for us to raise money for a climate tech or biotech fund as we know nothing about those areas. Investors need to believe that a VC deeply understands the areas in which they invest. - Differentiation. We aren't the only B2B software investor in the world but we are differentiated. Our operating experience, concentrated portfolio, institutional mindset, diligence framework, community investments (i.e., PHX FWD), founder support model, and network of later-stage VC / PEs are unique. Investors value differentiation. - Track Record. The last year has not been the easiest time to raise a fund but thankfully the track record from our first fund is strong. That fund was fortunate to be an early investor in Virtuous, Trainual, Nectar, equipifi, Nurture Boss, and other winning software companies. These past investments provide valuable reference points to investors. - Skin In The Game. When I decided to start PHX Ventures, I committed to be the largest investor in every fund we raise. That has resonated with our new investors. We regularly hear that the percentage of dollars coming from us, the partners managing the fund, is 5X-10X higher than they have ever seen. Our investors feel aligned with us. - Cast A Wide Net. Like founders, VC firms must talk to myriad investors when raising a fund. Many investors passed on our fund for various reasons and some that we thought would come in fizzled out at the end. That's all normal, but next time we raise a fund I will likely cast an even wider net to ensure we get in front of the right investors at the right time. I'm excited about PHX Ventures Fund II. We have already made four investments including Soraban, Fluint, AudiencePlus, and Rivia Health. I love these founders and the high-growth companies they are busy building. Lastly, I am thankful for our investors who have joined our efforts to find, back, and support ambitious founders building high-growth software companies that will change the world for good. ____ #venturecapital, #b2b #software, #saas, #VC

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As Energy & Climatetech is one of the tracks at TechChill, I’ll be out there this week, looking for founders ambitious to ramp up their activities. SFV is in search of just that. A few noteworthy speakers to look out for if you’re attending and are curious about cleantech in general: 📣 Julia Bialetska from S.Lab striking the stage with the topic of “Eco-innovations unwrapped”. A great person, a recognized founder hitting the heights. 📣 Andris K. Berzins from Change Ventures, Jarna Hyvönen from Volare Solutions and Janis Putrams from Aerones are discussing “The dilemma of commercializing deeptech”. It is never an easy task and never should be too easy either, right? 📣 Agate S. Freimane from Norrsken VC brings us insights on “Building a thriving climate economy”. A topic Norrsken is superb at and gets to the nuts and bolts of making a real impact. At side-events: 📣 Beamline Accelerator is hosting the “DeepTech Demo Day”! 📣 EIC dials in on details on “Funding your deeptech startup to scaling in the EU”!

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New year, new cohort!!! Please help us spread the word. We're looking for top-notch early-stage climate tech startups in the U.S. for NETI's Climate Tech Bootcamp Cohort 4.0, a pre-accelerator program powered by Climate Tech Bootcamp (a Riffle Ventures program), OHUB and Greater New Orleans, Inc. – GNO, Inc., part of H2TheFuture, a Build Back Better Regional Challenge of The Economic Development Administration. This bootcamp is a 10-week program for climate tech and new energy entrepreneurs in the United States that have an interest in building in or expanding to South Louisiana. ‍ Five (5) founders from the program will pitch for a $100,000 (US) investment on the terms of their current round. Application is in the comments and here's a quick overview as well: - 📆 When: April 2 - May 30, 2025 - ⏰ Deadline to Apply: March 24, 2025 - 💻 Location: Virtual - 🆓 Cost: Free. The $5,000 per person fee is waived thanks to GNO, Inc. and The Economic Development Administration's Build Back Better Regional Challenge. - 💰 Funding: Up to $100,000 US (equity investment) in current round to the top startup selected at the end of the cohort. - 🈺 Cohort Size: 25-30 entrepreneurs - 🌍 Cohort Geography: United States - 📈 Stage: We welcome applicants from multiple stages, though having a minimum viable product is ideal.

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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

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See you there tomorrow? ​"The Network State Conference is for people interested in founding, funding, and finding new communities. This year's speakers include Naval, Vitalik, Bryan Johnson, Raj Gokal, Brian Armstrong, Pieter Levels, Ranveer Allahbadia, Niall Ferguson, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. ​Topics include startup societies, network states, digital nomadism, competitive government, legalizing innovation, and internet first institutions. Watch presentations by startup society founders from around the world, invest in them, and find the community that fits you." https://lu.ma/ns2024

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What do VCs look at when investing in founders? In my interview with Jeremy Tan, he breaks down three things he looks for in founders. 1. Founders with loosely-held convictions. Can they change their mind when presented with countervailing evidence to their initial thesis? 2. Founders with a Growth Mindset. Can they grow as leaders as their businesses scale? 3. Intellectually Curious Founders. Do they actively seek out new information to enhance their business' offering?

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Gathering my notes and framework for my next piece on one of the platforms I write for. The title of this one is **“THE WAR ON INNOVATION.”** I’m diving into why corporate innovation fails time and again while the big dollars are funneled towards tech that prioritizes the immediacy of war. There’s “perfect,” and there’s “good enough” – and sometimes the latter is all you get. Case in point: During my first tour in the Invasion of Iraq, we didn’t even have bulletproof vests or armor for our trucks… those came in the second tour. Our government thought Marines on the ground with bullets is good enough and for the most part it was How can we get business leaders to do REAL innovation and accept GOOD enough NOT PERFECT The Iraqi Republican Guard dropped heaps upon heaps upon heaps of weapons and ran from us Marines. The mounds of AK-47’s stacked 6 feet tall and 5 to 6 feet wide. #Innovation #CorporateFailure #TechForWar #MilitaryExperience #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #InnovationGap #IraqWar #LessonsLearned #TechPriorities #VC #VentureCapital

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