Sheel Mohnot

Kettleborough VC has been active for ~6 years, invested in ~30 companies, gone through ~80 funding rounds, witnessed ~12 exits including ~4 instances of partial principal erosion, seen ~4 seed to $100M journeys, tracking ~29% XIRR across the portfolio. A couple of IPOs from the portfolio surely seem very much in line ahead.

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We (Climate VC) need to stop making excuses for the growth trajectories of our companies There’s a reason why Matthew Stotts and I chose the venture capital asset class to focus on - it has to GROW fast. And there are a lot of fast-growing, money-making opportunity areas with huge problems that could benefit from highly motivated well-funded and skilled teams looking to build a large company. If you need to make an excuse or caveat for any of the statements in the previous paragraph, you’re in the wrong asset class The good thing about VC is it grows fast and BIG. The clock is ticking on our biggest problem areas - let’s get to work!

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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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I recently saw this metric from Carta’s 1Q24 VC Fund Report, which is very concerning. DPI... is nowhere to be found in earlier vintages that probably should start showing DPI. Funding early-stage projects is great, but ultimately, these venture dollars need to exit their investments and pay back their limited partners. That’s where the metric Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) comes in. While managing a fund, we get interim measures during the life of the fund (e.g. IRR, MOIC), but ultimately, “you can’t eat IRR.” If you want to build a lasting venture capital organization, you need to start showing DPI for your fund. Keep in mind that this is traditional VC data from Carta, and is not strictly crypto venture. Crypto venture tends to get liquidity earlier (tokens) and things tend to go parabolic sooner (faster, more unicorns) - but I’d wager that the data here is somewhat similar for Crypto VCs… Not as much DPI as there should be from these earlier vintages. Read the full article, as well as a recap of all the crypto fundraising rounds for August, here: https://lnkd.in/g3eVJ-iF

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Excited to announce our investment in Alta Resource Technologies alongside Leonardo Banchik (Voyager Ventures) with participation from Orion Resource Partners, Overture Ventures, and WovenEarth Ventures. Rare earths are critical in products from magnets to ceramics and it's important for the US to develop its own supply chain. While the US has some of the best rare earth resources, separating them has historically proven expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Alta through it's computationally designed and optimized proteins allows the US to bring back rare earth production with a cleaner, lower capex, and lower opex solution - and that's just the beginning. Congrats to Nathan Ratledge and the entire Alta team. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gbGnAJn3

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I'm excited to announce that Canapi Ventures has led OpenYield's seed round. OpenYield is redefining how bonds are traded and who gets to trade them. Despite being one of the largest global asset classes, fixed income has long lagged behind equities in terms of innovation. Outdated systems, fragmented liquidity, and barriers to access have made bond trading inefficient, opaque, and inaccessible to many, particularly retail investors.   OpenYield is changing that. By delivering an equity-like trading experience for bonds, the platform transforms the fixed income market into a space defined by transparency, efficiency, and access. With real-time pricing, seamless execution, and intuitive workflows, OpenYield is making bond trading easier and more effective for institutional players, market makers, and retail investors alike. This progress wouldn’t be possible without the exceptional leadership of Jonathan Birnbaum and Hilton Lipschitz, whose decades of experience in capital markets and fintech have earned them the right to build a category leader in this market. Also hard to believe that meeting Jonathan over 20 years ago led to this partnership today!   For Canapi’s network of financial institution LPs, OpenYield represents an exciting opportunity to enhance wealth platforms, attract new client assets, and deepen advisor relationships. As the competition for wealth clients intensifies, access to efficient fixed income trading will be a critical differentiator, delivering real value for customers and strengthening client loyalty. Thrilled to be partnering with Ben Savage and Ned Daoro at Clocktower Ventures. Shoutout to Harrison Kioko. More thoughts on our investment thesis here:

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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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Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

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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

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What Dave McClure is building resonates well what we are doing with our Siena Secondary Fund. Although one focuses on fund stakes and the other company positions, the journey is the same - need to educate the market about what is #VC #secondary and how to benefit from it...

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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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Excellent blog post on the realities of Climate & VC. While these are "tough times for the transition," there are also many opportunities. Significant capital will continue to flow, with Corporate VCs playing a larger role in financing this transition. Through this process, they will strengthen their LP positions in funds tackling climate challenges. I receive weekly calls from large Holding & Corporate VCs seeking introductions to Climate / Energy / Infra VC Funds. When I ask about their target sub-verticals within Climate / Energy, they often mention that they default to focusing on specific regions due to limited resources and coverage. In other words, rather than evaluating whether a DACH VC is better positioned for solar or grid-tech compared to a Nordic or US VC, they simply pursue whichever regions they can access—a haphazard approach at best. I always advise LPs to evaluate VCs within their operating market context. Since sourcing is crucial in venture capital, Holding Cos. and Family Offices should carefully assess a VC's location, regulatory context, and market environment before investing and building a portfolio of Funds. I've heard "I wish I had discovered this VC / region sooner" far too many times... * At ComposeVC's Built World Fund, we do not invest in Climatetech or Energytech directly, only as it relates to our Built World thesis.

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I really enjoyed recording this episode of The Digital Industrial Podcast with Ty Findley. We talked about common misconceptions for deep tech, the "Why Now" for the category, and differences between investor diligence for deep tech and traditional tech. https://lnkd.in/eKtwjauu

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Despite the headwinds many software companies (even public ones) are facing today, there are still those that are delivering great results. Check out how the top decile companies in our Beyond Benchmarks survey are performing. And don't forget to review the full report for many more insights on the state of private software businesses.

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From Crypto Ice Age to AI Inferno- Gartner Curves or Extreme Weather Conditions Precipitated by VC? A few thoughts I've been reflecting on recently on learnings from being through many crypto cycles I can apply to this moment in AI investing... https://lnkd.in/d6KSM3EN

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Indoor farming has attracted over $6 billion in investments since 2019: It's a year-round method of crop production that optimizes space through its use of vertically stacked layers. It’s projected to grow (10% by 2032, reaching $96 billion*), yet many are struggling to deliver returns. Notably, AppHarvest recently filed for bankruptcy after reporting a net loss of $177 million, highlighting the challenges in achieving profitability in this sector. ⬆️On the up - Plenty® is one to watch - they are flush with funding from SoftBank and have formed a JV with Abu Dhabi-based Mawarid Holding Investment .They are building a network of indoor farms, likely starting with an indoor strawberry farm in Abu Dhabi. If successful, it would help elevate indoor farming as a more marketable proposition - particularly in locations that are too dry for traditional farms. Indoor farming has appeal for sure..but they an infrastructure-heavy, pricey endeavor that has proven incompatible with venture exit time frames. This begs the question around the sustainability of funding models in industries focused on longer-term growth. #VentureCapital #IndoorFarming #Investment #Sustainability #Agriculture *Statista

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Summary: Trucks Venture Capital has announced a new $70 million fund to support early-stage startups in the transportation industry. Led by co-founder Reilly Brennan, the firm plans to invest in a diverse range of companies, including those working on autonomous vehicle tech, electric air taxis, and mobility data platforms. This is the firm's largest fund to date and its investment strategy has evolved to focus on great founders rather than specific sectors or ideas. Key takeaways: Trucks VC has a new $70 million fund to invest in early-stage transportation startups. The firm's investment strategy has shifted to focus on great founders rather than specific sectors or ideas. Previous investments from the new fund include charger installation-as-a-service startup Treehouse and zero-emissions jet aircraft company JetZero. Counter arguments: Some may argue that focusing on great founders rather than specific sectors or ideas may limit the firm's potential for success. The transportation industry is constantly changing and evolving, making it a risky investment for any venture capital firm. #startups #venturecapital #transportation

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