Alexander Niehenke

One of my proudest moments as an investor occurred today as Alaffia Health announced its series A because it shows how the Aperture® Venture Capital vision of multi-level, multi-generational #impactinvesting is succeeding in the marketplace. Here’s the model in its most basic form : ✅As diverse fund managers with meaningful capital to allocate, we are changing the VC landscape every day just by doing our day jobs. ✅As Black/Brown investors with ~40 years experience collectively, Aperture GPs have access to talent /excellence that others do not, so our portfolio *organically* is more inclusive by race, gender and geography even while optimizing for financial outcomes (all about the alpha). ✅Our most successful portco’s are using financial #innovation to solve market problems that impact underrepresented demographics and underserved communities. Alaffia Health is a shining example of the impact portion of our overall fund thesis, and we couldn’t be prouder of TJ Ademiluyi and Adun Akanni, MPH, PMP - the dynamic brother-sister founder duo whose vision we have steadfastly supported on their journey. Congratulations to TJ and Adun from William Crowder and myself, as well as the whole Aperture team- Marjorie King Philip McKenzie Yves Louis-Jacques Tanvi Lal Michelle Dhansinghani Lisha Bell Katie Kelly Amy Chung Cindy Chong, CFA Brian Fernandes-Halloran Monroe France Jayden Pantel Darren Herman Evan Wladis Neal Triplett Thomas Scriven Peter Ammon Irina Bit-Babik Tim Milanich Rob Rahbari

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Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.

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Today, GTMfund’s is excited to announce to launch of Operator, its first incubated company. Max Altschuler (founder of GTMfund) teamed up with co-founder Adam M. (design engineer and 0-1 builder) and co-founder Mark Kosoglow (Outreach employee #1 and former SVP of Global Sales) to create Operator.ai alongside an insanely talented team Pleasant Middelhof, Jeremy Jonas, Carl Gunderson. We've entered a period called “The Great Ignore”. Spam and irrelevant, poorly-automated outbound campaigns are running rampant.   Operator gives you an easy-to-use Growth Engineer that allows you to build and enrich lists with accurate data, and run experiments and queries using AI to generate highly targeted outreach.    Check out their website to get updates, early access, and see how they are taking the world back to 2 touches meant to attract buyers into conversations that convert, instead of 20 touches meant to make sure you hit your activity number: https://www.operator.ai/

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PE - Portfolio / Cost of Revenue is up 68% Key to success in PE: - Optimizing Revenue Growth in a capital-efficient and profitable way - Unique strategies that are profitable and drive disproportionate ROI are critical today in PE - Successful growth is both: ARR and EBITDA Great panel with Seth Brody at Apax Partners, Craig Greenseid at The Carlyle Group Rajveer (Raj) Kushwaha at Warburg Pincus Prerak Vohra at Goldman Sachs and Michael Hoffman at SBI at the Private Equity International NYC conference. --------- #pe #privateequity

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Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

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DeepCast shipped a number of really cool new features recently in advance of a broad outreach push to podcast listeners. One new feature is our new Daily DeepDigest tool that sends you a concise daily email including any new episodes from the trailing 24 hours from any podcasts you Subscribe to (on DeepCast). Think daily podcast cliff notes or podcast news ticker tape, with a hint of Morning Brew various brews or PitchBook News—it's increasing information throughput when you're pressed for time. And this feature is rapidly evolving to distill other key extractions from shows you're already interested in, but also exposing you to other shows you might be unfamiliar with that also have nuggets to share—and thus increasing your aperture yet still conscious of your time. Want to go deeper on any given episode? Click the episode detail and you're off to an episode on DeepCast, where you can subsequently read a longer form distillation of that episode or go straight to the source and listen to the episode. (And podcaster friends, these pages are definitely increasing indexing and thus Google entry points to your shows!) I'm loving this feature as a user, personally. Can't wait to see what others think! #BuildingInPublic #Podcasts #AllTheWorldsInformation #HowYouWantIt

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Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse Report is out! We surveyed over 50 CEOs and C-suite leaders of private companies from our portfolio and the broader fintech industry during June and July 2024 to get a quick pulse on what’s top of mind for fintech’s leaders. Here are some key takeaways: Optimism in the Air: More than 60% of CEOs reported being bullish or highly bullish on the fintech industry for the second half of 2024. Regulatory Changes on the Horizon: CEOs identified Cryptocurrency, Open Banking, and Buy Now Pay Later as the top three sectors likely to see increased regulation by the end of 2024. CEOs Want Business Development Support: Beyond capital and fundraising, business development support emerged as the top area where CEOs seek investor assistance.For more insights, including comments from my colleagues Ren Riley, Logan Allin, Matthew D. Mann, CFA, and Stephanie Perez, check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/euHK8-9B

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Thrilled to announce the launch of our inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks at Emergence Capital. This comprehensive report dives deep into the metrics and trends shaping the early-stage enterprise cloud market. A huge thank you to our VC partners and contributors for making this possible! Here's a sneak peek of our findings: --> 60% of companies have already integrated GenAI into their service offerings, with another 20% planning to do so this year. --> While most companies use OpenAI as their primary LLM, many are experimenting with multiple models. We’re seeing a trend toward intelligently routing GenAI inference requests based on cost, performance, and security. --> Companies that have implemented GenAI are showing promising results, with a 7% higher NDR compared to those that haven’t. Beyond Benchmarks goes further with more GenAI trends, insights on the current fundraising environment, and key performance metrics. Our goal is to provide founders and their teams with valuable benchmarks to help them make better-informed decisions. At Emergence Capital, we're committed to helping founders build iconic companies. Dive into the full report here: https://lnkd.in/g6bnvAZM

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🎃 Ready to carve out your path to Product-Market Fit?🎃 Join Companyon Ventures’ Behind the Curtain roundtable tomorrow (Oct 30) with Michael Ho, Firas Raouf, Eric Morgan, and Hersh Tapadia as they 'exorcise' the mysteries of PMF. Don’t ghost us—RSVP in the comments 👻 https://lnkd.in/emCJcn4w #emergingmanager #venturecapital #productmarketfit

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PE - PE Acceleration Toolkit (i.e. not Playbook) What commercial, GTM and growth areas do you cover in your "PE Portfolio Company Toolkit" (i.e. some funds like Vista Equity Partners call it a Playbook but I refer to it as toolkit with the aim of it being a participatory, not a prescriptive playbook)? Some ideas* come to mind - what else? (* i.e. Commercial/GTM/Revenue Growth - not including Product, Engineering, R&D and other functions) 1. Sales Optimization   - Sales Org Structure   - Sales Management Process   - Sales Prospecting & Outbound   - Sales Process Engineering - Pipeline Management - Forecasting & Commit Process - Forecasting Rollups - CEO & Board   - Sales performance metrics and KPIs   - Channel Sales, Partner and alliance programs   - Rev Ops & Sales Enablement   - Sales Quota, Compensation & Incentives   - Sales Tech & Automation 2. Marketing Optimization   - B2B Demand Generation strategy   - Marketing Management - Marketing Process Engineering - Defining Lead Nomenclature - Campaign Management - Strategic Messaging Architecture   - PLG - Product Led Growth   - Digital & Inbound marketing    - Account-based marketing (ABM) - Customer Marketing - Product Marketing - Marketing/Sales Alignment & SLAs   - Marketing Metrics / KPIs   - Marketing Tech & Automation 3. Customer Management, Success and Retention   - Customer onboarding processes   - VOC - collecting and analyzing customer feedback   - Customer Segmentation   - Customer Management Processes   - Proactive customer Engagement   - AM & Expansion Sales   - Renewal strategies   - Customer loyalty strategies   - Customer support optimization   - Customer metrics and KPIs 4. Pricing and Packaging   - Pricing strategies   - Value-based pricing   - Discounting strategies & pricing transparency   - Subscription and usage-based models   - Pricing experimentation and A/B testing   - Competitive pricing analysis 5. Operational Efficiency   - SaaS metrics (CAC, LTV, churn rate, etc.)   - Process automation and workflow optimization 6. Talent & Culture   - Leadership & Management    - Attracting and retaining top talent   - Building a high-performance culture   - Performance Management   - Remote work best practices   - Continuous learning and development 7. Community Building   - Community creation & engagement   - Building an ecosystem around the product   - Customer Advocacy Programs 8. Data and Analytics   - Data-driven decision-making   - Business intelligence (BI) tools and dashboards   - Data governance, security and privacy   - AI applications Other: 9. Product (& GTM Alignment) 10. M&A (Commercial/GTM integration) 11. Finance (Supporting the GTM org) 12. GTM Board Updates & KPIs 13. Etc. ------------------ #pe #privateequity #business

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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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If you enjoyed our first blog on the metrics that matter for Verticalized SaaS then don't miss on the Part II of the series where my colleagues Devraj Hom Roy and Matt Schaar discuss the strategic and operational choices to improve these operational indicators. https://lnkd.in/g5QkCrcH

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PE - How to Use AI to Unlock Growth in Portfolio Companies All PE firms and portfolio companies should be thinking about unlocking GTM and growth via AI (i.e. not merely ChatGPT or other LLMs but actually implementing apps that are "AI Agents"). 1. What are "AI Agents"? - AI agents are autonomous systems powered by ML and natural language processing, designed to perform tasks with minimal human intervention - They can interpret data, determine the workflow & direction (i.e. make decisions), and execute actions across various functions, continuously improving through self-learning 2. Examples of using AI Agents in PE portfolio companies: - For Sales: AI agents handle lead qualification, respond to inquiries, book meetings, and provide personalized product recommendations, ensuring no opportunities are missed - For Marketing: Generate campaign briefs, segment audiences, create tailored content, and analyze performance to optimize outreach efforts - For Customer Success & Support: Provide 24/7 support, resolve customer issues autonomously, escalate complex cases to human agents with full context, and ensure consistent, brand-aligned responses 3. How PE portfolio companies benefit: - Efficiency: Automate repetitive tasks, enabling teams to focus on high-value activities - Scalability: Handle growing customer volumes without increasing headcount - Personalization: Deliver tailored experiences using real-time data insights - $ Cost Savings: Reduce operational costs by streamlining workflows 4. Business Impact for PE Portfolio Companies: - Accelerate GTM Execution: Faster lead conversion, better customer retention, and enhanced marketing ROI - Improve Metrics: Boost Customer NPS, CSAT, and efficiency - Enable Growth: Scale operations seamlessly while improving team productivity. 5. How PE Firms Must Think About Adoption - Define clear portfolio objectives to use AI agents (not just LLMs) - Ensure integration with existing CRM and data systems - Prioritize high-quality data and ongoing performance monitoring - Use AI agents to complement existing GTM teams, focusing them on automation ------------------ #pe #privateequity #investing #ai

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🌱 For pre-seed/seed founders 🌱 The early stage vc markets have changed drastically -- but many founders don't truly understand how or how much things have shifted until its too late or they are deep into the fundraising process already. This recent Allocate pod lifts the veil on the pre-seed/seed 2024 markets. SO MANY GEMS are packed 💎 into the first 20 min, I had to listen twice. Key takeaways from pre-seed VCs I'm a big fan of Jenny Fielding of Everywhere Ventures, Kirby Winfield at Ascend (PNW represent!) & Nate Williams. 💎 The market in one word: 'turbulent' 💎 Fundraising bi-furcation; 2X founder building in AI (rounds take weeks) vs All Others (rounds take up to 6 months). 💎 "Leading VCs" (ie. first check in) are putting in a TON of work - building conviction & then helping founders fill the round. 💎 Up to 5 rounds pre-A; need lower early valuations to enable step ups 💎 Pre-seed entry valuations have corrected to $5-8M 💎 Round sizes have increased at pre-seed & seed for extended runway Many more insights in the full pod here: https://lnkd.in/gYf-DMr6 #venturecapital #preseed

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We've invested in some really compelling teams with awesome products. As they transition from startup to scale-up, you reach a strategic inflection point where the company begins considering its options. The Power Law is a mathematical nicety (copium), but the cold reality is that not all exits are ideal. For a winning startup, an acquisition or an IPO can accelerate growth, provide access to greater resources, and create opportunities for expanded market reach and innovation. But, for a struggling company, an acquisition is a responsible consideration to safeguard employees’ jobs, preserve the company’s mission, and provide stability by integrating with a financially stronger organization. A lot has been written about how startups are acquired, but not much about *why* startups are acquired. I penned some thoughts on how to be more 'acquirable' and build with the end in mind. https://lnkd.in/dHdbXpPt

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How much money have you raised? At what valuation have you raised it at? How many rounds of funding have you had? Who are the "tier 1" venture capitalists on your cap table? These are the things that generate all the headlines and create a lot of the celebrity buzz that you see on social media. But remember, a huge part of success is: having high customer satisfaction and net promoter scores employing great people in a loyal, committed culture controlling your own destiny maintaining optionality doing it your way One of the main reasons people get into entrepreneurship is the independence that it creates. Don't lose that as you scale!

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WE DID IT! After 2 years of pushing through the biggest downturn in VC in decades, Matthew Stotts 🌐 and I made it to the finish line with Fund I! We couldn't have done this without One Small Planet (Will Peterffy and Jack Wielebinski 🙏), Regen Network and Regen Foundation (Austin Wade Smith Gregory Landua and Will Szal), and a dozen other family offices and angels who believed that we can build a nature-positive economy utilizing our eye for software and our history as founders from day 1 A shout out goes to all of our founders (only four announced today, but watch this space - there are multitudes!) who trusted us enough to give us a spot on their cap table for this 10-15 year journey. This is the best job in the world, and it's because we get to work with people like you who have weird ideas in the best possible way. Using Bitcoin as anchor base load to decarbonize residential housing in America's most expensive energy market? Make every complex supply chain legible to machines so we can find and eliminate deforestation in commodity supply chains? Build deeply liquid environmental asset markets to price ecosystem services, on a blockchain, that no one needs to know is a blockchain? I'm so excited to get to work on this stuff for the next 10-15 years minimum, and to see what we can accelerate with our tiny fund in the next 5-6 years as we approach 2030 Onward! https://lnkd.in/gy3B-DFe

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