David Levine

What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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If you're doing small scale bitcoin mining, and want to hitch a ride on a Maserati, this post if for you. It's also for you if you're interested in my research-based assessment of where I see the future of Bitcoin mining going. First, what do big bitcoin mining companies have that smaller ones usually lack? - access to capital markets,  - networks and  - bulk purchasing power and - process/technical innovation. But what do small bitcoin mining companies, that is scarcer for big companies?  - Geographically dispersed sites - local jurisdictional knowledge, - direct relationships with power providers,  - domain knowledge, eg: niche energy-harvesting applications So it makes sense to cooperate, as Marathon and Nodalpower recently discovered when they combined their relative strengths to move each company ahead in a way they could not have easily achieved alone. Each partnership like this also helps the whole Bitcoin ecosystem - get more geographically decentralized - Change its narrative around bitcoin and the environment (these projects are almost always renewable) Outside the bitcoin ecosystem, large companies normally thinks they can do it all themselves. In bitcoin tho, everyone thinks like a startup disrupter As such, larger Bitcoin mining companies cooperate with other large companies that another industry would deem a competitor; small companies that another industry would deem irrelevant. There are already many more of these collaborations in the wings, and its my mission to help more of these types of collaborations get off the ground. If you’re a small mining company, reach out, and I'll see if you could be solving some problems for a bigger player, while gaining access to some of their valuable resources. And well done again to NodalPower and MARA for providing a solid example of how this type of collaboration can work

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It was a real honor to interview Brad Burnham co-founder of Union Square Ventures and partner Placeholder on the history of hype cycles in technology and the value they bring to capital and market formation. Brad has had tremendous success across decades investing at the frontier - when it was the frontier/ before it was obvious. Crypto is still the underdog and his views on the opportunity and its nuances are prescient. Specifically it is both a technical and financial innovation which can lead to excess volatility and a unique muscle as it relates to being a venture manager. But the returns are real. And the innovation is real despite some of the the common narratives. No one debates the breakthrough applications in AI at M13 we have been very active. It is also very clear that incumbents have massive data and distribution advantages which can make it challenging to find the right pockets to invest. AI is on its own hype cycle and as always the best teams (typically with contrarian takes) win. Very exciting times to be a venture investor.

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I have to repost. First because performance metrics of #VC funds are finally gaining the importance they deserve, secondly because they’re quite misunderstood, and thirdly it explains what matters to LPs in a market where liquidity is king. ✖️ #TVPI is very important at the earlier stages of a fund- measuring the total value of an investment relative to the funds committed and compounding both realized and unrealized returns (NAV+distributions/paid-in capital). It is the metric that captures potential upside. ✖️ #DPI is the metric that matters when a fund reaches maturity. Unlike TVPI, DPI focuses on realized gains and cash distributions to LPs (distributions/paid-in capital). In a market like today where liquidity is king, DPI holds more weight.

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Founder-Turned-VC Investor Raised $150 Million for Her New Fund💰 Masha Bucher, ex-entrepreneur and founder of Day One Ventures, has raised $150M for her new VC fund. Founded in 2018, Day One Ventures focuses on early-stage startups, offering initial investments ranging from $1M to $2M. Notable companies in the firm’s portfolio include Worldcoin, legal services company DoNotPay Inc., and AI assistant You.com. 📝Diverse Investments and Real-World Impact Day One Ventures supports startups across various industries, with Bucher particularly drawn to founders tackling real-world challenges. “From profound wealth disparities to the urgent threat of climate change and the growing sense of social isolation, tech founders will be our lifeline toward a more abundant, diverse, and sustainable future,” Bucher stated regarding the new fund. 🏆The firm’s track record is impressive, with six of its investments achieving billion-dollar valuations and 22 companies either being sold or going public. This success highlights Day One's knack for identifying high-potential startups. 🎯PR Expertise and Strategic Growth Before transitioning to VC, Bucher founded a PR firm that managed communications for numerous tech companies. She has leveraged her PR expertise to coach startups on media strategies. “If you look at any business problem you want to solve and any business goal you want to solve, 90% of the business problems are communications problems,” Bucher explained on Bloomberg Television. “I think this is something we train founders on and something that we help them to do.” 📈Growth of Day One Ventures The new fund is Day One’s third and largest to date. Fund I, closed in 2019, was nearly $20 million, while the second fund in 2020 totaled $52.5 million. This latest fundraising effort saw contributions from US and European institutional LPs, as well as 14 of Bucher’s own portfolio company founders.💰 “When you are building a firm with value add and staying close to founders, you can attract a lot of capital from your own network,” Bucher said. Notably, she made a concerted effort to include female investors, securing backing from 9 female LPs. Significant in the male-dominated VC industry, where female founders received just 2% of the total capital invested in US startups in 2023, according to PitchBook.🤷‍♀️ 🤝New Investments and Future Focus Day One has already made 5 investments from its Fund III: Cradle, an AI startup focused on human longevity; Rainmaker, a Los Angeles-based company working on cloud-seeding technology; Affiniti; Astroforge; and Layer N.  🚀🌍 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #VCfund and increase the international pool of your LPs?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments (Series A/Series B)?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #VentureCapital #TechInvesting #FemaleFounders #StartupFunding #Innovation

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OpenSky is actively funding founders who want to build for a strategic exit in the $50-$250M range by raising a few million dollars of equity and then scaling with profitability in mind. Not every startup needs a > $1B outcome to be a "win." Here's a real example of what that looks like. Levanta is one of my favorite deals we've made at OpenSky Ventures since we started. Their founders Ian Brodie and Rob Schab think differently than 99% of founders I've met looking for funding– it reminds me of my personal investment strategy. When founders and investors are aligned on a specific vision for building a company, everything falls into place. That’s exactly what happened when we invested in Levanta. So first, what's the product? Levanta focuses on promoting your listings on Amazon by connecting creators, publishers, and influencers to promote products from brands on Amazon in a way that is very straightforward and monetizes well. And the product is exploding. We invested in Q1 2023 at a ~$3m valuation. At the time, they were pre-product. Just 18 months later, they're north of $4 million ARR! One aspect of Lavanta that resonated with us was their thesis about the type of exit they were looking for. Here’s what they came to us with: “We think we have something here that’s going to catch on quickly. We think it's going to be worth at the minimum $50m and the maximum maybe $200m - but here’s the kicker - in the next 3 to 5 years.” If you think about that timeframe, it's quick. Most VC-backed startups are looking to build on a 7-10+ timeline. So many startups taking VC money are trying to become unicorns and land a $1B+ sale. Mostly because their fund structure makes it so they have to chase these outcomes. Levanta's “reasonable” valuation allows for a higher likelihood of acquisition and still substantial returns for them and for investors in a shorter timeframe, creating win-win situations for everyone. Raising less money means: ➝ Buyers can acquire promising tech at a fair price, not $500M+ ➝ Founders see significant rewards from the lucrative exit ➝ Investors see 10-15x returns in a short timeframe So what’s the takeaway here? Raising VC isn't one-size-fits-all. Align with investors early on a reasonable valuation and specific exit timeline. It avoids misalignment while still allowing founders, investors, and buyers to achieve great outcomes together. Have you seen other startups with a similarly ambitious yet practical vision for rapid growth and exit? I'd love to hear about them. Shoutout to Wilson Patton for the inspo on this post!

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リアルテックホールディングスはUntroDに名称変更します。 この社名変更に込めた意味は、未踏の資本主義の実現です。 従来の資本主義では投資対象とならなかった、だが価値があると我々が信じる（情緒的に価値があると皆さんが感じてはいる）領域にまで資金を呼び込む、その呼び水としての開拓者という決意の表明でもあります。 理想の実現に歩みを止めず、進み続けたいと思います。 Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd. has relaunched as "UntroD," a company pioneering uncharted territories in capitalism. As of June 3, 2024, Real Tech Holdings Co., Ltd. has changed its name to "UntroD Capital Japan Co., Ltd.". We are also pleased to announce that we have redesigned our website to embody our company mission. UntroD, which means "未踏 untrodden," will continue to be the first to step into uncharted territories of capitalism, where there is a societal need but no established mechanism for capital flow, such as the deep tech domain. By investing and proving economic viability, UntroD will continue to create a flow of capital and human resources. https://untrod.inc/

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A good case of glass half full or half empty. The $2tn investment is way short of what is needed to be net zero in coming decades. But, some of the categories like battery storage capacity or solar generation have been growing 100% or more annually for the last 10 year or so. Interesting short read. #Cleanteach #Climatecrisis #Energytransition https://lnkd.in/dAy9P3Jn

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When you hear a VC investor say, “VC investing is about the Babe Ruth Effect,” you should laugh and call them a “Silly Goose”. Why? Analogies are powerful tools, but this one doesn’t stick. The misconception is that Babe Ruth swung big at the plate, and a byproduct of this zealous nature, was a lot of home runs with a lot of strike outs. Extrapolation from this false observation is that VC investors should swing big to hit big. “Go big or go home,” they cheer. Unfortunately, this analogy is wrong. You see, of all the players who ever played MLB, there are only 12 with a higher career batting average than Babe Ruth. In fact, the years that he hit most of his home runs, coincided with the years of his highest batting average. Babe Ruth made contact with the ball more than almost anyone. He didn’t strike out a lot (relative). Maybe the better lesson from the Babe Ruth Effect is this: before you can swing big, you need to be confident you’ll hit the ball (not strike out). Historical VC performance data supports this true observation as well. At Ascent Energy Ventures, we do the work. We do the research. We conduct the analysis. And we think differently. At Ascent, we’re experienced investors who intuitively know performance is multidimensional and to hit home runs, you first have to hit the ball. #VC #investing #energy

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Interesting piece from Marc Andreessen on how startups are not getting the regulatory support they need to sustain America's technological leadership. "Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain. Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence." While many investors themselves (both in the US and Europe) are worried how AI will change our lives, our jobs and social interactions, the top VC opinion leader thinks regulation is already too restrictive. #techstartups #techleadership #strategicgrowth

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In this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with notable X personality Trung Phan about the evolving social media landscape, and how to tame the mayhem and pandemonium of X. https://lnkd.in/dVHMzbui

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If you're building a fintech startup, you likely know of this investor, but just in case... This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on Neil Kapur from TTV Capital. He: 🛫 Is based in SF & Atlanta 💲 Has spent time at Google in consumer-facing payments & at two fintech startups  🏔️ Loves alpine mountaineering and has climbed Kilimanjaro, Denali, Rainier, and more!! Amongst founders, Neil and the team at TTV Capital , including Gardiner Garrard, Mark Johnson, Sean Banks, Lizzie Guynn, and Laney Lewis are known for saying “lift, not lean.” They believe that their job as investors is not to create work for founders, but instead ask the right questions and help navigate to the best outcomes. Knowing Neil well personally, he's not only my go-to person for anything related to fintech but I can also highly recommend having him on your cap table - he's the kind of human you want to have in your corner during both good times and bad. Make sure to: ✉️ Pitch him at nkapur@ttvcapital.com ➡️ Follow TTV Capital on LinkedIn For more, check out our funder spotlight card below along with TTV Capital's profile on findfunding.vc (link in comments).

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Here’s a question investors are often asked: When evaluating early stage companies, how much time do you spend on due diligence around future exits? It’s not surprising we hear this question a lot. Also not surprising: it’s got a wide range of answers depending on the firm. Some don’t spend much time here at all. Others make it a point to put meaningful time in as part of their process. Our current thinking: take the time to do the work on public market comps. At Alpaca VC, we spend significant time understanding how public market investors will  realistically value a business based on margin profile, product, business model & TAM. In short, we want to know: how will this company be valued at scale when we get taken out? Yes, we can acknowledge that the journey toward exit is a windy road and that there may be pivots along the way, but there are still public market companies that have a business model similar to the early stage company you're evaluating. And you can always look at gross profit multiples if you think the margin profile will change over time. So we still do the work on the comps. Quantitative metrics we look at when making the comparison to public market comps include EBITDA multiple, revenue multiple, Gross Profit multiple or all of the above. As part of this process, it’s also important to factor in the public market company’s year-over-year revenue growth as this will also significantly impact the multiple it trades at. Simple example: if you have two public market companies with similar business models and similar margin profiles, but one's growing 100% year over year, and one's growing 50% year over year, then obviously the DCF (discounted cash flow) analysis is going to spit out a very different valuation for the one that's growing faster. Why this matters: When you take all of that information into account as you evaluate an early stage business, you can begin to create a realistic picture of how this company will be valued in the public markets at exit - or how an acquirer will value the company for an acquisition. Strategic acquirers may, of course, pay a premium, but we won’t underwrite for that. This allows us, for example, to form conviction around valuation based on revenue and gross profit predictions. If we think they can do $100M of revenue five years from now, we use this diligence process to form a thesis about whether the characteristics above (product, margin, business model, etc.) will cause the company to be valued at $200M vs. $500M vs. $1B at exit. Curious how other early stage investors think about underwriting an exit and how much time they’re spending on public market comps even though these companies are in their infancy.

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Mikal Ventures Annual Wrap-Up This week Mikal Ventures is pleased to bring you our year-long breakdown of the global venture capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. Over the 52-week period ending April 27, over 26,500 new companies were added. The market grew to just under 194,700 companies included in the Health Tech, Med Tech, Fin Tech, AI Tech, and Ed Tech verticals. The non-US market saw the largest percentage of new companies added-- the group is trending at over an impressive 22% annual growth rate, with all of the non-US verticals seeing double digit growth.  The total deal count saw about 93% in North America and Europe and Asia at 6.2%. AI Tech saw the largest projected annual percentage of growth in new companies, weighing in at a notable 21% and 35% in the US and Non-US markets, respectively. A global annualized growth rate topping an estimated 28% shows a striking indication of just how active this vertical has become. The 52-week indicated transactions in AI Tech were impressive as well, with US, Non-US and global rates coming in at 22%, 26% and 24% respectively. The use of AI is ubiquitous--AI Tech saw about 35% of the patents filed globally across all 10 PitchBook verticals. We see horizontal flow and crossover impacts of machine learning technology in every vertical we follow. Fin Tech is seeing a spate of uses including risk assessment and workflow improvement. Med Tech boasts new drugs, drug delivery platforms and disease detection systems as well as significant advances in robotic surgery. Ed Tech companies such as Zhipu AI and Cohere Health have incorporated AI in their business productivity software for healthcare and science tech B2B audiences. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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Players in the VC world have access to tons of tools like what we're building at They Got Acquired Data. How badly does the lower-to-middle market M&A community want insight on private transactions, bootstrapped company sales, and who's buying? We're about to find out.

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There is a never-ending discussion about whether to bootstrap or get Venture capital. Check out the chart. This eye-opening chart reveals that bootstrapped startups have a more consistent path to $1M ARR than their VC-backed counterparts. Top VC-backed companies sprint to $1M in just 20 months But median bootstrappers hit the same milestone in 41 months Bottom quartile bootstrappers are slow but relentless, reaching $1M in 63 months. Bootstrappers show remarkably linear growth across all quartiles. VC rocket fuel isn't always the answer. Sometimes, steady organic growth builds a more resilient business. What's your take? 🤔 #StartupGrowth #Bootstrapping #VCFunding #SaaS

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One of the earliest questions we ask of founders is: what milestones do you hope to achieve with funding? The reason we ask that question is that it's next to impossible to raise your next round of financing without having delivered some level of quantifiable progress. And most importantly, that progress must be sufficient to attract the next round of funding. If you can't get there, you're looking at an extra 50-65% dilution if you have to raise a bridge round. But here's the key, even bridge investors, who are generally already invested in the company, want to see progress that trends to the next round. So, in order to avoid having to raise a bridge, raise enough capital to hit meaningful milestones (with some cushion). That extra 2-5% dilution stings far less than an extra 15% later.

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There is so much that is so damn impressive about Nominal's execution. The team identified a truly needed product in the world. More than that... They serve their customers. Sometimes Nominal is saving days of work for an engineer detangling the performance of new hardware in an autonomous fixed wing drone. Other times, helping implement a transformational change for engineering orgs, delivering iteration speed from simulation to range to unlock an RFP goal and contract win. They are building dual use -- powering the best of commercial and public sector teams. Whether a government contractor delivering on a $12b contract. A scaled public company, integrating AI into your roadmap on to your existing HW platform. A startup which is willing a first product into existence. Nominal is there for all the dual use hardware builders who live real time, live in physical world time. The real world runs real time. The real world runs Nominal and so excited to be on the journey. Also, hiring, https://www.nominal.io/, kind of a lot. If you are awesome, they want to talk to you.

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**Why Every Family Office Should Allocate Capital to Venture Studio Models** Simply put, for family offices, particularly those connected to large established businesses, investing in venture studios is a strategic move that can yield significant benefits. Here’s why: 1. **Early-Stage Diversification**: Venture studios allow family offices to diversify their portfolios with relatively small capital at the early stages of startups. This not only spreads risk but also opens up new growth opportunities. 2. **Leveraging Expertise**: By investing in venture studios, family offices can leverage the expertise and resources of their established companies. This synergy can lead to smarter investments, better support for emerging ventures, and leverageable value in the core business. 3. **Innovation and Digital Transformation**: Venture studios act as an "innovation lab" or a digital transformation arm for the associated businesses. This means driving cutting-edge innovation “on the edge” without disrupting the core operations. 4. **Access to a Broader Network**: Venture studios provide access to a wide network of entrepreneurs, technologists, and investors, enhancing the potential for successful ventures. 5. **Engaging the Younger Generation**: Allocating capital to venture studios offers a unique opportunity to engage the younger generation within the family. Their fresh perspectives, technological savviness, and innovative ideas can drive the family office’s success, ensuring continuity and relevance in the modern market. 6. **Strategic Alignment**: Aligning with venture studios helps family offices stay at the forefront of industry trends and technologies, ensuring long-term relevance and sustainability for the Family Office and the core businesses. Stay tuned to find out how we helped a family office define and structure their own venture studio, tailored to their goals and leveraging their unique assets! #VentureStudios #FamilyOffices #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #InvestSmart #BusinessGrowth #Rokk3r

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