VNTR Capital News Dec 11, 2022 - News, Events, VC Reads
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VC READS
The war in Ukraine, Europe’s energy crisis, a frozen IPO market, and a sell-off in public tech stocks herald a hard winter for Europe’s tech ecosystem. Investment in the continent’s startups dropped 15% from a record $100 billion in 2021, but the 25 investors from the sixth annual Midas List Europe are still picking out future winners.
Produced in partnership with TrueBridge Capital Partners, the Midas List Europe is the definitive ranking of the top 25 tech investors in Europe, Israel, and the Middle East. This year, Jan Hammer’s four-year run at the top of the Midas List Europe has been broken by his Index Ventures colleague Danny Rimer. Hammer’s star investment Robinhood has seen its share price slip 72% since going public in July 2021, along with many other pandemic-era shooting stars, while Rimer’s seed investment in design startup Figma blossomed with a $20 billion takeover offer from Adobe in September.
Value Vaporized From The Unicorn Board With FTX Collapse
Four newly minted unicorn companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in November 2022, while three companies were removed.
This is the lowest count on record for new unicorns since the beginning of 2020. (The next lowest count is five newly minted billion-dollar valued companies in March 2020.)
Web3 Weekly: Apologies Won’t Keep Layoffs And Crypto Prices From Dropping
Apologies, layoffs and crypto prices dominated this week as the FTX-induced contagion continued to spread across the industry. Late last week, Sam Bankman-Fried’s apology tour began, with the former head of FTX saying he was sorry, but adding he was not aware of some of the accounting issues at the exchange, such as the $8 billion hole on the balance sheet and blaming other companies for its downfall. His apologies have not impressed everyone or likely anyone. Of course, apologies are necessary because Bankman-Fried’s actions or inactions (it really doesn’t matter which) have caused real-world harm. Not only have FTX’s customers perhaps lost all their investments but even those outside of FTX are feeling the effects. One needs to go no further than looking at the layoffs in crypto through the last week. Crypto exchanges Kraken, Bybit, and Swyftx all announced they would be laying off 30% or more of their staff. In a letter to employees, Swyftx’s CEO cited the possibility of more “black swan-type events” and trading volumes likely falling in the first half of 2023 as reasons for the cuts, according to Bloomberg. Also this week, Boston-based Circle Internet Financial called off its proposed merger agreement with special-purpose acquisition company Concord Acquisition Corp. ending a year-and-a-half-long SPAC saga that would have valued the company at $9 billion.
Israel's VC funds bring in more cash as European hubs struggle
Israel-based funds have secured an increase in capital commitments for 2022, even as Europe's biggest venture capital markets struggle to maintain momentum. As of Dec. 1, €23.3 billion has been invested across 186 funds in Europe, according to PitchBook data. The regions that typically attract the most capital saw a dip in capital raised compared to 2021, but Israel—along with Southern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe—bucked the trend. As Europe's venture ecosystem continues to mature, capital is increasingly spread out as limited partners seek opportunities outside the continent's largest hubs. Despite the downturn, fund sizes are still growing larger, helping to boost capital raised in Europe. The UK and Ireland raised the most capital for VC funds this year with €5.8 billion—a 22.7% decrease from 2021. France and Benelux came in second place, having secured €5.4 billion, just over 5% less than last year. Israel, by contrast, raised 70.6% more for its vehicles than in 2021, landing on €2.9 billion. It is also the only region to maintain fund count, with 28 vehicles as of the beginning of December.
Elon Musk gives up top spot on Forbes list of world's richest people to Louis Vuitton chief
Elon Musk gave up the top spot on Forbes' Billionaires List to Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the French company that owns Louis Vuitton, on Wednesday.
The net worth of both men continued to be in flux, but Forbes estimated that Arnault was worth $185.8 billion on Wednesday afternoon, with Musk at $185.7 billion.
Musk's fortune has fallen by more than $100 billion this year following a sharp slide in Tesla shares, which accounts for the bulk of his fortune.
Investors seek to profit from groundbreaking ‘generative AI’ start-ups
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is part of a rise in sophisticated computer programs that have driven a surge of venture capital interest
Venture capitalists are rushing to invest in artificial intelligence start-ups as growing hype around “generative AI” fills the void left by failing cryptocurrency and blockchain ventures.
The recent leap in developments of sophisticated computer programs that can write scripts and create art in seconds has driven a surge of investor interest, creating a rare bright spot in a start-up landscape dominated by tumbling valuations and job cuts.
OpenAI, a San Francisco-based company in which Microsoft is the largest funder, released the newest form of its GPT-3.5 software to the public last week, which can converse with users through text: answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes and reject inappropriate requests.
Over $400 billion has been erased from the value of Europe’s tech industry this year
Europe’s tech industry has lost more than $400 billion in value this year, according to venture capital firm Atomico.
The combined value of all public and private European tech firms has fallen to $2.7 trillion from a peak of $3.1 trillion in late 2021, Atomico said in its annual “State of European Tech” report Wednesday.
The figures underscore what has been a rough year for tech. Once richly-valued technology companies have seen their shares come under pressure from global factors, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tighter monetary policy.
The state of European tech 2022: 19 things you need to know
It’s that time of year again. Christmas jumpers are back in fashion, daylight hours are at a premium and Atomico’s State of European Tech report has dropped.
This year it’s bigger than ever, with a whopping 450 charts to digest, covering one of the bumpiest years we’ve seen in European tech. Funding has dipped, the IPO market has completely dried up and underrepresented founders are still receiving a fraction of investor cash. But the situation is far from dire, and despite VC caution there are record amounts of dry powder to play with.
The report features data from a number of deal counting platforms across Europe and a survey of more than 4,000 VCs, founders and startup operators carried out by Atomico, startup law firm Orrick and Silicon Valley Bank.
Fintech's up, sustainability's up, transport's down - key themes from Atomico's 'State of European Tech' data
As described in our main findings, European VC investors began to adjust to a new reality from July onwards, as market imbalances began to pull investment levels below yr/yr benchmarks, though there were plenty of bright spots across the ecosystem, in specific countries, in 2020 growth terms and the continuing GDP-to-VC engine that is the UK/France/Germany.
Atomico's thematic trends analysis chapter zooms in still further to tackle themes and sectors within the VC figures, using a classification model containing more than 17,000 unique European tech companies.
Market Map: Tech investors do their part to untangle the supply chain
While issues with the supply chain have eased somewhat from previous quarters, lingering effects from the pandemic and other geopolitical issues, such as China's recently relaxed zero-COVID policy and the war in Ukraine, have prevented a complete return to pre-pandemic normal. Recent policy by the United States, shifting away from unrestricted free trade, has introduced complications in the supply chain as businesses look to comply with the new restrictions and take advantage of incentives for domestic manufacturing. American investment in China has plummeted, raising questions as to how the supply chain will adapt going forward, given previous reliance on Chinese manufacturing and labor. As the supply chain continues to unsnarl and with the new policy by the United States, where are VCs investing? The market map below outlines the global supply chain VC ecosystem. Explore the enterprise supply-chain management segment by clicking on the green tile.
Secretive Gulf Family’s $300 Billion Fortune Is About More Than Oil
In a region where opulence is on full display, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan keeps a low profile belying his importance.
That doesn’t stop the whispers about the Abu Dhabi royal, who’s also the top spymaster for the United Arab Emirates: that he’s effectively in charge of large swathes of a family fortune that’s bigger than any other in the world.
With the UAE home to about 6% of the world’s proven oil reserves and known for the concentration of money within royal families, it’s no secret that the Al Nahyans are rich. But investments in everything from Rihanna’s lingerie line and big data to fast food and Elon Musk’s SpaceX have propelled the wealth of the family to new heights.
Atomico report: European startups on track to raise $85B this year, down from $100B+ in 2021
Startups across Europe are on track to raise $85 billion in funding this year — a drop of $15 billion on 2021 when funding passed $100 billion, according to a new report published today. The figures come from London VC firm Atomico’s annual State of European Tech, which has become a bellwether for the tech industry in the region, and they underscore the pressure bearing down on it as the region grapples with an ongoing war in Ukraine, a sagging economy and specifically tech industry, and a population wobbling to get back on its feet and productive again after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Masayoshi Son quietly ups SoftBank stake to 34%, edging toward buyout
Masayoshi Son has quietly tightened his grip on SoftBank Group Corp. during a tumultuous market downturn, edging closer to the point where he could bid to take the world’s largest technology investor private. The billionaire now owns more than a third of the company he founded, after aggressive buybacks in the last two months reduced SoftBank’s outstanding stock by almost 90 million. Son’s stake in the company rose to 34.2% from 32.2% as of end-September, according to Bloomberg calculations based on company filings. That’s up from 26.7% as recently as March 2019. SoftBank shares rose as much as 1.9% on Thursday after the news. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average was down 0.7%. Under Japanese law, Son gains additional rights after breaching one-third ownership. The 65-year-old wields more control over asset sales, some buybacks, mergers and corporate bylaws by having the power to veto any special resolution put before shareholders by activist investors.
How VCs Invest In Crypto Will Be Changed By FTX’s Spectacular Fall
As Sam Bankman-Fried’s apology tour continues and investors and regulators sift through the rubble of FTX, those in the industry say some significant investing trends should emerge in crypto and beyond due to the exchanges’s dramatic collapse as 2023 dawns. Due diligence, asset sell-offs, and increased scrutiny, especially on lenders and exchanges in the sector, are likely. “I was pretty shocked to see the scope of what happened at FTX and some of the impacts it had across the broader ecosystem how intertwined it was,” said Christian Lopez, head of blockchain and digital assets at Cohen & Co. Capital Markets. FTX’s fall also impacted its venture arm — FTX Ventures — Bankman-Fried’s other trading firm Alameda Research, and countless other lenders and exchanges, sending reverberations throughout the industry and likely causing most investors significant reflection. Some of the largest investors in both crypto and blockchain, in terms of total amounts of the rounds they participated in, are some of the biggest names in the venture and growth capital game, according to Crunchbase data.
Strong investment continues for FinTechs as 2022 winds to a close
This week in FinTech proved to be a strong week for credit and financial technology-focused companies, with 36 investments being recorded.
As 2022 winds to a close, it has been a mixed year for the industry. While more eyes are on the FinTech sector than ever before, performances are proving to be poorer in certain markets.
For example, research by FinTech Global this week found that South African deal activity reached four deals in total during the third quarter of 2022, a 55% reduction from Q2 2022.
PE secondaries market set to boom in 2023
The private equity secondaries market is primed to boom next year. LP demand for liquidity, driven by the denominator effect and a dry exit market, is expected to push record levels of deal flow in the private equity secondary market, according to secondaries-focused consultants, advisers, and managers. The flow of secondaries will swell to those levels despite sellers' reluctance to accept the discounts imposed on them by buyers as the price of liquidity mounts.
"Expectations are high that the secondary market will hit a record year in 2023," said Cari Lodge, managing director and head of secondaries at Commonfund Capital. Secondary transactions reached new highs in 2022, hitting $57 billion in total volume in the first half of the year and surpassing the previous record of $48 billion in the first half of 2021, according to Jefferies' global secondary market review. But in the second half of 2022, when the public markets took a nosedive, institutional investors found themselves over-allocated to private equity because of the denominator effect. Over-allocated investors needed to free capital locked up in longer-term PE investments, but in recent months, traditional exit routes proved challenging for PE firms.
Why a Divided Congress Is Bullish for Crypto
The midterm elections are over. Control of the U.S. Congress is divided. The crypto industry is under new scrutiny after recent company failures and broader market turmoil. In this environment, how should our elected representatives approach the outstanding crypto policy questions when they return to a new session in January? While the sensational headlines of the past several weeks have led some officials to call for quick action to rein in the industry, the level-headed and judicious path is to proceed deliberately and build on the work, education and advocacy that’s already happened. While many on both sides of the aisle bemoan the fact that they do not have full control of Congress, a divided government may in fact be a boon to the crypto economy. Of the most advanced crypto regulatory bills under consideration by the current Congress, all are bipartisan. While the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act needs major changes before moving forward, the nature of its bipartisan creation bodes well for Washington, D.C.’s approach to regulation.
Secondary trading picks up as the market settles into a discount mentality
After months of quiet, the market for secondhand stakes in startups is starting to show signs of life. 2021 was a banner year for secondary deals. Investors of all types were willing to pay premium prices for shares of late-stage, high-growth companies. This year, however, trading of private stock between new investors and existing owners, such as founders and employees, came to a near-standstill when tech shares tanked. Through Q2 and Q3, buyers and sellers had divergent expectations on pricing late-stage venture-backed companies. Prospective bidders waited to see how far prices would eventually fall. Meanwhile, many existing shareholders were poised to sell their stakes but were holding out to avoid steep discounts to the companies' last valuation. Now, secondary trading has finally started to rebound as sellers accept that valuations seen in 2021 are unlikely to return any time soon. "I'm starting to see investors come back to the market because the bid and ask are meeting," said Barrett Cohn, CEO, and founder of Scenic Advisement. "Some of those investors are willing to trade at 40% to 60% discounts relative to 2021."
Remote work triggers move to DAOs in the post-pandemic world
A survey sample of working Americans suggests that millennial and Generation Z workers are far more in favor of joining decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and working remotely in the post-Covid-19 world. Over 1,100 Americans took part in a survey conducted by MetisDAO Foundation, which explores trends in remote working preferences and the emergence of DAOs in recent years. A key consideration is an effect that Covid-19 has had on worker sentiment and the growth of DAOs in corporate governance. Citing a research report on DAOs published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, the results of the survey highlight how DAOs saw their treasuries swell from $400 million to $16 billion in 2021.
This coincided with growing participant figures, up from 13,000 to 1.6 million people during the same period. Drawing comparisons to some of the largest multinational corporations, global DAO workforce numbers are equal to one Amazon, 18 Facebooks, seven Microsofts, or 11 Google.
Revealed: the Alameda venture capital portfolio
As well as running a crypto exchange that didn’t exchange crypto and owning a hedge fund that didn’t hedge, Sam Bankman-Fried had a venture capital fund that didn’t venture its own capital. The VC division, in contrast to the rest of the FTX group, can now provide some insight into where some of the money went. Here’s where it went. The screenshot above and all those below are taken from an Excel spreadsheet dated early November when SBF was seeking rescue funding amid a run on FTX customer deposits. According to a person familiar with the rescue effort, the document shows an Alameda Research private equity portfolio, with some FTX bets mixed in, that was being offered as collateral in an attempt to secure a new credit line for the stricken group.
Recessions, Resilience, And Returns: Here Are 8 Tech Sectors Primed For Growth
The global economy will fall into a recession in the first quarter of 2023 (if it’s not already). Recessions typically last 15 months (2008 was 18), followed by 48 months of expansion, so what are the best resilient sectors primed for investment and growth? Today, we’re used to remote everything (work, health care, staffing, freelancing) without compromising productivity. We’ve also seen a rise in volatility, food shortages, energy transitions, and security issues, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange‘s CBOE Volatility Index, which measures general market sentiment, is now trading 25% higher, signaling an increased level of overall risk in the market. Lastly, we can’t ignore inflation, the cost of goods rising, incomes shrinking, and layoffs will make investing a challenge.
Start-ups still attractive albeit with a new start
Most Indian start-ups which got listed on exchanges in the last couple of years are trading at a discount ranging between 5.0% to 75.0% to their offer price. This market performance of the listed new-age digital companies is a true reflection of how investor sentiments in the public market perceive the negative bottom lines and higher valuations of start-ups. These factors, coupled with macroeconomic headwinds, including liquidity tightening, have left start-ups that are still burning cash at a crossroads. So, what is different about the public market investor sentiments from the private investors? Well, while public markets investors want start-ups to be more disciplined in their spending, private investors take a long-term growth perspective of business and are more patient.
The Week In Crunchbase Data: It’s A Sad State For Unicorns, AI Takes Over The World, And More
We love our numbers at Crunchbase News, from huge billion-dollar funding rounds to the price of a crypto token. In this new feature, we’re letting the week’s hottest numbers tell the stories.
This week we learned (sadly, what we already knew), professional writers are just as replaceable — or at least pretty close to replaceable — as anyone else. This, from the launch of ChatGPT. We also saw some companies lose a coveted spot on The Crunchbase Unicorn Board as the FTX fallout continued to wreak havoc on the startup world. But some bright spots prevailed, particularly funding to India-based fitness and wellness e-commerce site HealthKart and cybersecurity startup Drata which each snagged a decent funding round in a dark funding climate.
Tech layoffs at silicon valley offer hiring boon for startups
Thousands of layoffs across the tech sector may end up being a boon for startups that struggled to hire talent during the heady days of sky-high valuations. The big catch is they need to ensure their own survival first after venture-capital investors pulled back sharply this year. The history of Silicon Valley is awash with stories of companies that were founded or gained traction in the ruins of a recession. Amazon.com Inc. and Google, now known as Alphabet Inc., are among the big winners from past economic slumps. Google rose from the ashes of the dot-com bust of 2000 after it picked up a plethora of engineers laid off elsewhere, Margaret O’Mara, a professor of history at the University of Washington, told Bloomberg.
Theranos’ Sunny Balwani Receives 13-Year Prison Sentence
Former Theranos president and COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was sentenced to 155 months, or just under 13 years, in prison for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The news comes weeks after founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years for defrauding investors. While both Holmes and Balwani faced similar charges, Holmes was acquitted of charges related to defrauding patients, whereas Balwani’s wire fraud charges applied to both patients and investors. For risking patient health, Balwani received a longer sentence than Holmes. Balwani was long entrenched in the early years of Silicon Valley, working at Microsoft before building an e-commerce startup called Commercebid.com, which was later acquired before the dot com bubble burst. Using his wealth from the acquisition, Balwani funded the early days of Theranos. The company quickly raised $1.4 billion, per Crunchbase data, and garnered big-name investors like Rupert Murdoch, Walgreens, and Oracle executive Larry Ellison.
SEC calls on firms to disclose exposure to crypto bankruptcies and risks
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued new guidance that could see publicly traded companies disclose their exposure to crypto assets. In a statement released on Dec. 8, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance said that the recent upheaval in the crypto asset market has “caused widespread disruption” and noted that companies may have disclosure obligations under federal securities laws to disclose whether these events could have an impact on their business. The SEC has also included an example letter that would be addressed to companies asking for additional disclosures about the company’s exposure to crypto bankruptcies, crypto asset volatility, and any other significant crypto market development.
The first question asks the company to provide disclosure of any “significant crypto asset market developments” that could impact the company’s financial condition, results, or share price, including the impact of the price volatility of crypto assets. Other questions ask the company to discuss how certain bankruptcies have impacted or may impact the business, including whether one has experienced “excessive redemptions or withdrawals” or the extent that crypto assets are being used as collateral for loans.
Most Underreported Trend in 2022: Crypto Is Embracing Mobile
While 2022 will likely most be remembered as the year of “The Merge” as well as the fall from grace of industry stalwarts such as FTX, Three Arrows Capital, and Terra, another less-appreciated but influential trend emerged in 2022: Crypto finally woke up to the importance of mobile. Almost every investor and founder in crypto says their focus is onboarding the next billion users to crypto. Most estimates put the total number of crypto users at 300 million or so. Which means we need to get to the first billion before we can get to the next. We will never do this without really embracing mobile tech. Estimates suggest that more than 90% of the world have mobile phones, and 83% (i.e., 6.6 billion people) have smartphones. Meanwhile, less than half of the world’s population have computers in their homes. Metaverse projects also emerged on the global stage this year as well as a seminal book on the field: “The Metaverse,” by Matthew Ball. Yet, despite all the buzz around virtual worlds, my bet is 10 years from now, most of the world will not own VR goggles but will be leveraging mobile tech and still engaging in the real world, albeit increasingly enhanced with AR, more than virtual worlds with goggles on.