Feb 17th VC investor-related events, news and articles
Hello friends,
I hope you are enjoying the week.
We are curating the best VC news, articles, events, and VNTR community news and deliver to you every Thursday.
VNTR COMMUNITY
VNTR community is growing rapidly, 20 new investors joined us this week and 25 approved. The community allows active VC investors to connect via Telegram groups, share insights, learn from others, attend VNTR online expert sessions, network at offline events and join syndicated deals.
UPCOMING EVENTS
You can check VNTR upcoming events at https://www.vntr.vc/events
February 28 - March 3 - MWC Barcelona
March 3, 2022 - VNTR Breakfast New Delhi, India (hosted by Gaurav Sharma)
March 10, 2022 - VNTR Breakfast Istanbul Turkey
March 13-16, 2022 - Wow Summit Dubai, UAE
March 12-13, 2022 - Startup Grind Global Conference 2022, Silicon Valley
April 13, 2022 - Russian Venture Forum, Kazan Russia
April 21, 2022 - Experiential Yachting Forum
April 22, 2022 - VNTR Breakfast Monaco
April 27-29, 2022 - TechChill 2022, Riga, Latvia
May 25-26, 2022 - Startup Village, Moscow, Russia
June 8-10, 2022 - South Summit. Madrid, Spain (30% partner discount)
June 20-23, 2022 - Collision, Toronto, Canada
Want to co-host events or sponsor, respond to this email to discuss opportunities.
VC READS
Thrive, Ribbit lead VCs with the highest unicorn batting average
There are around 1,000 billion-dollar VC-backed companies globally—more than 50 are valued at $10 billion or more—and an entire class of crossover investors almost exclusively targets these pre-IPO companies.
Here’s Which VC-Backed Companies Are Going Public Via SPAC In 2022
Last year was a banner year for special-purpose acquisition companies, but so far it’s unclear if this year will pan out to be nearly as active for the SPAC market. The public markets have been rocky since the beginning of the year, and far fewer companies have made public market debuts. And many of the SPACs that went public last year ended the year trading down, which could impact the pipeline this year. Still, there are a lot of SPACs hunting for targets, so some announcements of mergers are expected.
FinTech deals overview since last week
Geography-wise, most of the deals came from France (7) and the UK (6). Germany, Finland, Estonia, and the Netherlands generated one deal each. Subsector-wise, most deals were in Insurtech (5) followed by Payments (3), Investment Banking (3), Banktech (2), and another sector (2). Crypto and Wealth management generated one deal each.
Which Web 3 protocols are Most Likely to Succeed? A VC Suggests a Common Thread
The current Web 3 stack is an evolving canvas of composable protocols, each totally open source and susceptible to competitive projects forking their code. The ease of building a look-a-like project in the Web 3 space (a version of the internet that incorporates concepts including decentralization and token-based economics) can make it hard to decipher which protocols will become more valuable in the long term. Yet, it is not strictly a protocol’s popularity that increases its long-term value but a combination of its popularity and defensibility. While popularity is easy to measure, defensibility is more complicated, presenting itself in various forms. After evaluating dozens of protocols, I believe the most desirable form of defensibility is usefulness that cannot be easily forked by a competitive project.
IPO mania gets a reality check in India after a series of flops
A boom in technology initial public offerings (IPO) in India risks grinding to a halt after several of the country's highest-profile startups tanked soon after listing. A raft of prominent tech startups, including Oyo Hotels and logistics provider Delhivery, are pushing back their public debuts and preparing to reappraise target valuations, according to people familiar with the situation. The duo, both backed by SoftBank Group, had been among the country's highly anticipated offerings. India's burgeoning startup ecosystem faces a reckoning just weeks after it closed out a record year for IPOs. Investors have soured on new tech offerings after the calamitous public debut of fintech firm Paytm, as well as the battering received by newly listed e-commerce operators Zomato and Nykaa. Regulators have stepped up scrutiny of IPO candidates after investors got burned, contributing to the delays.
Why More VCs May Want To Back Your Bootstrapped Company
MicroAcquire founder Andrew Gazdecki grew his first company to $10 million in revenue before selling it to a private equity firm for a “small eight-figure exit.” Venture capitalists wouldn’t have been happy with an exit like that, Gazdecki said, but he was satisfied.
“The benefits of bootstrapping is like being at the blackjack table where you have a lot of chips and you can cash in whenever you want,” Gazdecki said. “You don’t need board approval. You can sell for $30 million. That’s a fire sale for a venture firm.”
How Roelof Botha became one of the most powerful people in venture capital
Roelof Botha used to write 109 on the corner of his notepad every week when he started at Sequoia 19 years ago. It was a shorthand to keep himself focused on picking exceptional startups to deliver his private goal of $1 billion in total gains. It was also a milestone that he felt would mean he would have had a measurable impact on the venture firm.
Visualizing Countries Grouped by Their Largest Trading Partner (1960-2020)
Amidst supply chain issues and inflated shipping costs, global trade continued to grow last year, reaching an estimated $28 trillion in 2021—a 23% increase compared to the year prior.
Which countries are the central nodes of the global trade network? While China is currently the world’s largest trading partner, this hasn’t always been the case.
This series of graphics by Anders Sundell outlines the history of the world’s biggest trade hubs, showing how the landscape has evolved since 1960. Using netgraphs, each visual connects countries to their primary trading partner, using data that includes both imports and exports.
Family offices ride the venture capital wave
Family offices with venture portfolios have an average of 27 investments, according to a new report. And these investments – on average 17 of them direct and 10 of their funds – are helping family offices reap the rewards of a worldwide rise in venture capital investing. A January report by Campden Wealth in London and SVB Capital in California found the average internal rate of return, or IRR, for venture capital portfolios at family offices was 24% in the 12 months before they were surveyed, up from only 14% a year before. Also, venture equity investments met or exceeded expectations of 75%-90% of the 139 representatives of wealthy families surveyed around the globe.
Irish Tech Start-Ups And SMEs Raise Record €1.3bn Venture Capital In 2021
Venture capital investment into Irish tech start-ups and SMEs reached a record €1.3 billion in 2021, up 44% from €925m the previous year, according to Irish Venture Capital Association VenturePulse survey, published in association with William Fry.
The momentum is reflected also in a record fourth quarter in which funding more than trebled to €458m from €139m.
The Productization of Venture Capital
Americans were able to dominate the whaling industry overtime for a few reasons, but one of them was a unique financing mechanism. Financiers incentivized whalers by giving them equity in the upside and by backing a variety of whaling expeditions they were able to distribute risk across a portfolio of bets. Now we've just traded whales for unicorns and dragons.
While the mechanism for venture investing has stayed pretty similar (exchanging equity ownership in upside for taking on the risk of downside) we can fast-forward to the 70's to find the current model for "general partnerships" in the venture.
The Market Minute: When There Are No IPOs, All Eyes Are On The Secondary Markets
The public markets have been on a rollercoaster ride over the past few weeks, which means companies have put their initial public offering plans on pause. We’re almost halfway through the first quarter of the year, and it’s still more or less crickets from the IPO pipeline. As a result, many employees seeking liquidity are instead looking toward the secondary market, where employees and investors can buy and sell their shares.
Global Trends in Battery Innovation & Funding
Creating efficient and more environmentally friendly energy storage is a key component in the fight against climate change. Particularly in the rapidly expanding electric vehicle (EV) space, there is a need to develop an alternative to lithium-ion batteries, which are reliant on cobalt and nickel mining. Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, which limits their energy storage and power output, and impacts the related performance, cost, and life span of the EV. Further, GlobalData reports that the metals used to create lithium-ion batteries are not only difficult to mine, but their global reserves are quickly depleting as the EV market expands.
New investors community brings in scout and angel model in the Nordics and Baltics
Catering to the rise of the startup ecosystem in the Baltics, Estonia’s angel investors community Fund Fellow Founders (FFF) has been launched to source, challenge, and invest smartly in founders from the Nordics and the Baltics. Bringing a new scout and angel community model into the Nordic and Baltic region, FFF will invest in startups at the seed stage along with promising Series A rounds. The typical size of the investment is expected to be between €300K-500K.
Accel And Index Ventures Are Still The Most Active Investors In European Unicorns
Accel and Index Ventures are by far the most active investors in European unicorns over time. And their lead persists when it comes to investments in the new crop of 86 companies to join The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in 2021. Europe has 166 current companies on the unicorn board and 34 companies that have exited. Palo Alto-based Accel tops the list with 60 investments in European unicorns that have not yet exited. Not far behind, San Francisco-based Index Ventures counts 45 investments.