Vasily S.

Every VC claims they have an edge, but from where I sit as an LP, it’s clear: the next generation of fund managers will need stronger arguments than 'working very hard' or 'being helpful for founders' to raise money. The best fund managers will set themselves apart with these three non-obvious skills: 1. Cultural fluency - Some of the best startups come from immigrant founders, but they’re navigating a system that isn’t always built for them. VCs who know how to build trust, understand their challenges, and support them where it matters will unlock incredible opportunities. 2. Downstream sales: There’s more money than ever chasing top founders, and the best deals are going to the VCs who founders actively want to work with. It’s not just about pitching; it’s about being the one they call first because they know you’ll add real value. 3. Value-add 2.0: Founders don’t need more generic advice. The best VCs create real pull by building opportunities—whether that’s connecting the right dots in their portfolio or unlocking new markets—that founders actually want and can’t find anywhere else. This is what LPs should focus on when backing funds—it’s what separates good from great. ---- Interested in investing in VCs & startups? let's connect.

381

99 Comments

WAYMO -- WAYCOOL or GHOST RIDER? If you preside in San Francisco, Santa Monica or Phoenix you are now seeing driverless Waymo taxies making their way through town on an ever-increasing basis. The network is expanding, and I can honestly say that in the Santa Monica / West Los Angeles area I have not driven anywhere in the last two months without seeing one of them on the road every time. In fact, sometimes they are so prevalent that there might be three in a row waiting at a stop light. It still is kind of spooky seeing cars moving around with no driver, or anyone for that matter, in the front seat. It's not exactly the same as the Headless Horseman but it does conjure up that image in my imagination. I have not taken a ride in one, but several family members have and report their satisfaction. Waymo is a division of Alphabet (GOOGL). I have not seen any visible evidence of General Motors (GM) Cruise vehicles which I understand are still being road tested, while Tesla (TSLA) has been projecting their autonomous vehicle vision for some time. For now, Tesla seems to be behind but that could change quickly. GM is likely to use their own branded vehicles, and it would seem that Tesla will likely do the same. However, Waymo technology could be outfitted on any cars. That seems like a big advantage, staying out of the car business and just being like the "Intel/Microsoft" inside personal computers which is a much higher margin business. There has been a lot of noise in the business journals and chat rooms about a Waymo initial public offering but nothing from Alphabet itself. They recently concluded a $5.6 billion investment round; see TechCrunch post below. The autonomous race is on, and it will be expanding rapidly from here on out. I just wonder if we will ever see an autonomous police vehicle stop a wayward autonomous taxi and write it up for some violation as yet unknown. Will traffic school be an option? #waymo, #autonomousvehicles, #selfdrivingcars, #GM, #Generalmotors, #tesla, #Investing, #business,

3

1 Comment

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.

131

33 Comments

Early stage founders often conflate the ability to pay people with recruiting good people. Money does not solve motivation. You cannot turn a mercenary into a missionary with money; they simply become bigger mercenaries. Early employees need to be missionaries.

39

3 Comments

Carta’s new QSBS offering for investors is one of the most exciting launches of the year. How it works 1. Investors can refer their portfolio companies. 2. Carta will prompt companies to get a QSBS Attestation to determine qualification. 3. If a company qualifies and receives QSBS Attestation, investors will receive an Attestation letter highlighting which securities held are QSBS-eligible. It’s that easy. With QSBS, investors can save millions and have peace of mind knowing they can provide an attestation letter in the event of an audit. More here: https://lnkd.in/eyX4BU-7 #investors #portcos #investment #captable #QSBS #carta

64

2 Comments

Trigger warning. UK founders to VCs: "you (generally) suck". I was taken aback by the intensity of comments made during an exit fireside chat organised by our friends at ARGO, Jeff and Aneesh. Room full of founders, we're talking about the importance of starting exit planning very early (say 3 years+ prior to exit) and the message is: "I would never feel comfortable bringing this topic up to my board, I just would not trust them to handle any of it well". Ensued a discussion about Tier II board vs. Tier III boards, how much VC boards suck, how VC's just do not know how to interact with founders and how a number of key topics are best actively avoided. Nods across the room. The Tier I Board, the kind of place where you could actually bring up strategic topics like, you know, "who might actually want to buy us some day and how do we start building the right kind of relationships today" seemed to be a sort of faraway land, as if sitting with the Knights of the Round Table or the Jedi High Council would actually be easier to achieve. Damn. So we can say all we want about founder-friendly blah blah but if this is still the prevalent reality for UK and European founders, what the heck are we doing and when do we start the topic of "being a great board member" seriously? We need to collectively get out shit together and start training investors to be better board members.

624

125 Comments

A clear articulation of Elon’s clearly stated direction at Tesla re/ working in the presence of one’s teammates in the office, on the factory floor, etc. It’s simply a matter of optimizing productivity, creativity and results, in my experience. That’s doesn’t mean there aren’t workable exceptions for some companies. It’s a choice. His choice is clear. My point? “choose carefully and wisely”. It’s really hard to push on this ime. It’s way harder to have the market put us out of business because someone else slept on the factory floor to drive results and we chose not to. 🙏🏼🇺🇸🚀 https://lnkd.in/gK8Xaven

9

ex Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at Stanford this week. Lots of nuggets here, but most interesting for the near term, Schmidt believes in the next year AI is set to make a big leap forward. He predicts AI will combine three important features: 1. Vast knowledge retention (1 million token models) 2. Text-to-action capability 3. Personal AI agent fleets While the full impact is unknown, everyone may soon command their own AI teams. Here's an example: Imagine you're developing new quantum computing algorithms. Your AI assistants could: - Continuously scan and synthesize global quantum research papers - Generate novel algorithm ideas based on this knowledge - Simulate and test these algorithms across various quantum architectures - Automatically document findings and prepare draft papers - Identify potential collaborators and draft outreach emails All initiated by a command like "Advance our quantum algorithm research." This could dramatically accelerate R&D cycles and scientific breakthroughs.. https://lnkd.in/eJbg6cnD #frontiertech #AI #futurefrontier

22

9 Comments

🔥 For founders, now’s a good time to consider hardware or infrastructure solutions that cut costs or improve AI performance. Why? Masayoshi Son (Softbank Vision Fund) promises to invest $100 billion in the US as part of a sweeping redemption plan and; ⚡️ Opportunities may emerge in supporting tech (like specialized materials or energy solutions) that can feed SoftBank’s new chip ecosystem. 🤖 Son is bullish on hardware and robots. Startups that combine AI with physical devices (everything from factory robots to household gadgets) stand to find new customers if they can deliver dependable products. 💪 AI hardware is becoming a bigger focus. Companies like SoftBank, Amazon, and AMD see huge demand for chips that can handle massive workloads. 👨🏻‍🎨 Energy efficiency in chip design will matter as AI models get larger and more power-hungry. 🚅 There’s a big gap in the market for chips that run at lower power without losing speed. If you can offer a fresh design or a new manufacturing process, you’ll catch attention. 🔋 AI systems need massive power. This opens the door for founders working on new battery tech, cooling methods, or other ways to keep servers from overheating. ⛓️ With more players designing chips, supply chains get complicated. Businesses that make production smoother (through testing, packaging, or logistics) might see a surge in demand. More 👉 https://lnkd.in/gbHumnZN #AI #Chips #CleanEnergy #GreenTech #Robotics #Hardware

9

Doing a mini-series on some fintech predictions I believe might come true in the space over the next 1-3 years. Starting off with lending tech; What's gonna do great: 1. Seed stage would see a rise in product specialised lending in segments like online retail, education. EV, energy, clean tech, etc. - where underwriting expertise remains limited and where data needs to be studied 2. Expansion into tier 2/3 cities, the next billion will come under lending especially as AA framework and OCEN allows them to be lent easily & high capita income and rising middle class raises ability to pay 3. Medical based lending will rise, so will lending based on different collaterals like leaves, insurance policies 4. Financing geared towards women and other PSL related lending What's gonna see consolidation / reduced interest: Consolidation across personal loans, MSME, micro finance, direct lending - plays that will focus on lending to a “gap” in credit / based on need will move towards growth stage, not seed stage Enablers / what has changed: 1. Offline data being digitised and alternative data being used in underwriting 2. DPI frameworks developing fully - AA + OCEN + ONDC 3. Rising per-capita income and tech-savvy folks entering workforce and earning who have a spending mindset Key Risks of unemployment and sudden shocks to economy leading to higher NPAs & defaults esp in unsecured products and change in regulations still remain the major risks overall, seems like would continue being the leader in deals and funding within fintech, large market. Writing this primarily on twitter (X): https://lnkd.in/dpUDVpHV Disc: personal views #fintech

41

9 Comments

Every VC knows 2 things to be true: 1. You must be in a winner. 2. You must own enough for it to matter. I don't think most pre-seed / seed investors make enough investments to solve for 1.

45

5 Comments

Klarna firing their SaaS providers is just the beginning. Executives have been weighing the build v. buy decision for software and IT infrastructure for years. Now, no-code and low-code, better AI and accountability mechanisms like economic bonding and restaking make it possible to build something better than what one can buy. Interested to see where this goes. What do you think of Klarna ripping out Salesforce and Workday in favor of internal tools? #ITinfrastructure #techstack #buildvbuy #saas

10

3 Comments

Key takeaways from VC Goat - Vinod Khosla podcast. - The firm cares more about working on interesting problems with large technical solutions rather than just maximizing IRR. The team is there because they believe in the mission. - Khosla assumes they've lost the money the day they invest, and then maximizes for the upside opportunity. He calls it "option value investing" rather than IRR investing. - Khosla has contrarian bets in AI (neuro-symbolic computing, probabilistic approaches), biotech, robotics, crypto, and more. - He believes aviation fuels, fusion energy, new transit systems, and other contrarian areas ignored by most investors will be huge opportunities. - Most large innovations come from outsiders, not industry insiders. Khosla looks for founders who can learn a business rapidly rather than have deep domain expertise. The Future Impact of AI - AI will be deflationary and increase productivity growth to 4% annually vs the typical 2% forecast. This will cause great abundance but also increasing income inequality. - Bipedal robots will take over most manufacturing and manual labor jobs within 20-25 years. This will free humans to be more creative and pursue their passions. - Education will shift from job training to creativity. Uniquely human elements like taste and curation will be most valued in an AI-enabled world. https://lnkd.in/gqBsmbks

66

5 Comments

Venture Capital Contact Compilation. Explore a detailed list of 1,250+ VC firms, 7,400+ professionals in the VC space (including partners and principals), and 6,400 email contacts. https://payhip.com/b/cs7UQ #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

1

1 Comment

A couple of years ago, I published a post On YC batch quality at scale that showed the upward trend in Y Combinator startup outcomes despite a massive increase in YC batch sizes over time. While it’s counter-intuitive to many investors, YC has managed to only maintain but improve the quality of startups it admits into the program even as batch sizes have increased from a dozen or so companies in the early years to 200+ today. My previous post measured YC batch quality simply by the percentage of startups from each batch that made it onto YC’s Top Companies list ($150M+ valuations) or became unicorns ($1B+ valuations). While these are great measures of YC startup success, they are retrospective in nature, since it takes several years for YC startup valuations to mature. Since Rebel Fund maintains the most comprehensive database that exists of YC startups, founders, and outcomes outside of YC itself, we’re in an excellent position to not only look at retrospective measures of YC startup quality like valuation growth, but also prospective measures like overall company and founder quality…

64

5 Comments

A definite worthwhile short read that succinctly explains the current profile of VC investing in a historical context. Nurturing innovation should matter to all of us, wherever we operate, so it is important that the investing community does so as well.

7

4 Comments

My roommate, Nile Phillips just bought a brand new 59’’ flat-screen TV for $50 on Temu. How is this possible? But first, what's Temu? Temu is a Chinese e-commerce company owned by PDD Holdings. Despite being founded in 2022, Temu dominates 17% of the U.S. discount retail market, posing significant competition to Amazon, Dollar Tree, and Five Below. Temu is one of the most downloaded iPhone apps in the country, with 50 million monthly active users. Temu ships upward of a million packages a day into the U.S. Temu's meteoric rise has been catalyzed by two factors, 1) utilizing just-in-time production, and 2) taking advantage of an important legal loophole. Instead of exporting large shipments into U.S. warehouses in bulk, Temu ships small, individual orders directly to Americans from China. By doing so, Temu takes on no inventory risk, or rather, the risk that manufactured products will not be sold for a long time, or ever. Temu’s manufacturers don’t ship their products to warehouses in the U.S. until after customers place their orders. They wait until enough customers have purchased a single item before manufacturing the product in quantity. Just-in-time production limits warehousing costs with the trade-off of wait times that can last as long as two weeks. Given Temu’s recent growth, convincing the American consumer to be slightly more patient has not been a problem. Temu's growth and profitability have also been enabled by a legal workaround called the de minimis loophole. The de minimis loophole permits firms and individuals to ship goods under $800 directly to American consumers from abroad. These exports are untaxed and unregulated. This allows Temu to have some of the most highly discounted goods in the retail market. This year, the U.S. is on track to receive over a billion packages that skirt taxes and U.S. Customs oversight through the de minimis loophole. Sixty percent of those are from China. Have you heard of Temu before and what do you think of their strategy? Let me know in the comments below If you’ve learned something from my posts, you may consider subscribing to my substack where I post articles just like this: sumanje.substack.com

65

6 Comments

🔑 The Power of a Written Exercise in Interviewing Revenue Leaders 📝 Hiring the right revenue leader can make or break an organization. As we search for smart folks to drive our revenue growth at Vanta, one approach has consistently proven to be a game-changer: the written exercise. 🔍 Why a Written Exercise? Clarity of Thought: A well designed exercise reveals a candidate's ability to articulate complex ideas clearly and concisely. This skill is vital for revenue leaders who must communicate strategies across diverse teams and stakeholders. Strategic Insight: Through real-world scenarios, candidates demonstrate their strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities. This helps us gauge their approach to challenges and opportunities unique to our business. Analytical Prowess: Written exercises allow candidates to showcase their analytical skills. By dissecting data and presenting actionable insights, we can see how they drive decisions that lead to growth. Cultural Fit: How a candidate approaches a written task can also give us a glimpse into their work ethic, attention to detail, and alignment with our company values and culture. Elliot Goldwater has really nailed this practice, and it's incredible how much the exercise can swing a process towards or away from a candidate. 👥 Have you implemented written exercises in your hiring process? What has been your experience? #RevenueGrowth #Leadership #HiringTrends #Interviewing #TalentAcquisition #Strategy

92

24 Comments