VNTR Capital News Dec 17, 2023 – News, Events, VC Reads
Venture Capital, Web3, and Private Equity – Dec 17 News, Events, and VC Reads
Hello friends,
Happy Sunday!
VNTR Capital Newsletter is delivered to 60k+ investors weekly to share the latest news, events, and articles from the global VC and startup ecosystem.
Scroll down for VNTR Capital Community News, Upcoming Events, and VC News/Reads.
VNTR CAPITAL COMMUNITY NEWS
This is the final VNTR Capital Newsletter for 2023. The next edition will be out on Sunday, January 7, 2024. This is #50th edition in 2023.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you all!
Check out Crypto Hunters Christmas Merch (Enjoy a 30% discount with VNTR)
Start your New Year with your Perfect.Live lifestyle assistant and concierge service (Use VNTR to get discount and VNTR partner perks)
Spotlight
Davos WEF — Join us at our Annual Davos gathering during the World Economic Forum 2024 at Venture Capital Investors Roundtable Davos on Jan 17. Companies who want to have a presence at Davos and connect with investors can apply to join us. Learn about sponsorship packages.
VNTR Perfect.Live Super Cars Rally — Join us for a 3-day / 3-night driving experience in UAE, Feb 29 to March 3. We will drive supercars from Dubai with sightseeing stops in all UAE states. Only 30 spots are available! Contact us to secure your spot.
VNTR GP LP Summits — We are hosting 4 VNTR GP LP Summits in 2024 to connect GPs and LPs at scale:
Lisbon - April 3-5 (updated)
New York / Hamptons - July (TBD)
Singapore - Oct 24-27
UAE - Oct/Nov (TBD)
Contact us to secure your spot at the VNTR GP LP summits.
Corporate Sponsorship — Join us as a partner on an annual corporate sponsorship program to leverage VNTR events, newsletters, and the VNTR platform to forge connections with investors and premium clientele in 2024. Companies are invited to Apply or respond to schedule a call.
We are actively recruiting Chapter Directors in Riyadh, Madrid, Cape Town, Doha, Shanghai, Chicago, and Los Angeles to expand the VNTR Capital community. As Chapter Directors, you will play a crucial role as super connectors, fostering growth and establishing strong ties with the global Venture Capital community. Apply to join
This week
The final two in-person gatherings this year:
Thank you to our Partners who supported us in 2023:
Perfect.live (use VNTR code to activate your membership)
VNTR Capital 2024 Events:
Jan 9 VNTR Speed Networking (Online)
Jan 17 Venture Capital Investors Roundtable Davos (World Economic Forum 2024 side event)
Jan 18 VNTR Investors Roundtable New Delhi (Fintech India Expo side event)
Jan 25 VNTR Investors Roundtable Melbourne (Australian Open 2024 side event)
Jan 25 VNTR Investors Roundtable Tartu (sTARTUp Day side event)
Feb 7 VNTR Investors Roundtable London (ICE London side event)
Feb 8 VNTR Investors Roundtable Mexico City (Zonamaco side event)
Feb 27 VNTR Investors Roundtable Barcelona (Mobile World Congress side event)
March 5 VNTR Investors Roundtable Riyadh (LEAP side event)
April 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable Paris (Paris Blockchain Week side event)
50+ side events for 2024 will be released on VNTR Platform by the end of 2023.
RSVP to Upcoming VNTR Capital Events
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
Dec 21-22 Web3 Beyond Borders, Tokyo, Japan
Jan 9-12 CES, Las Vegas, USA
Jan 10-12 CFC, St. Moritz, Switzerland
Jan 10-11 MetaVSummit, Dubai, UAE
Jan 15-19 DavosWeek, Davos, Switzerland
Jan 15-19 unDavos, Davos, Switzerland
Jan 15-19 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, Switzerland
Jan 16-18 iFX Expo, Dubai, UAE
Jan 17-19 FinTech India Expo, New Delhi, India
Jan 24-26 sTARTUp Day 2024, Tartu, Estonia
Jan 24-25 Asian Financial Forum, Hong Kong
Feb 6-8 ICE London, UK
Feb 20-21 Crypto360, Dubai, UAE
Feb 21-22 Step Conference, Dubai, UAE
Feb 21-22 Catalyst, Lisbon, Portugal
Feb 23-Mar 3 ETH Denver, Denver, USA
Feb 25-28 AIBC, Dubai, UAE
Feb 26-29 Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Spain
Feb 26-29 4YFN, Barcelona, Spain
Feb 29-Mar 3 VNTR Perfect.Live Supercars Rally, Dubai, UAE (registrations will open soon)
Mar 4-7 LEAP, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Mar 8-16 SXSW, Austin, USA
Mar 26-27 Wow Summit, Hong Kong
April 3-5 VNTR GP LP Summit Lisbon, Portugal (registrations will open in a few weeks)
April 8-12 Paris Blockchain Week, Paris, France
April 18-19 Token2049, Dubai, UAE
April 18-19 EmergeAmericas, Miami, USA
April 23-25 Money 20/20 Asia, Bangkok, Thailand
May 6-7 Dubai FinTech Summit, Dubai, UAE
May 15-16 Next Block Expo
May 22-25 Viva Technology, Paris, France
May 29-31 Consensus, Austin, UAE
May 29 -31 Gitex Africa, Morocco
June 5-7 South Summit, Madrid, Spain
If you would like to submit VC-related events, please respond to this email or Telegram @byuric
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
Check out VNTR Capital upcoming events
VC Reads
View curated VC news and articles on the VNTR Platform
Take-privates on display in 2023's top mega-buyouts
As lenders yanked the reins on new leveraged loans this year and borrowing became more expensive, deal multiples fell and mega-deal buyers found some enticing targets. The median enterprise value-over-revenue multiple for buyouts north of $2.5 billion was 3.2x in the 12 months that ended in Q3, according to PitchBook's latest US PE Breakdown. That's down 60% from 2022, when the median purchase price multiple for mega-deals was 4.8x.
Want to raise from family offices? Ask these questions
It’s often quipped that once you meet one family office… you’ve met one family office. These investment firms, which manage the wealth of affluent individuals and families, come in all shapes and sizes. While not all invest in startups or venture capital, they are an important source of capital for founders and VCs. Nearly all VCs who responded to a recent Sifted survey said they have family office and high-net-worth individual LPs. Founders say they can also have advantages over VCs, including being willing to wait longer for returns.
Hot or not: Where European VC funding went in 2023
Almost every European country saw a drop in venture capital investment this year when compared to 2022. Startups in Europe and Israel secured €53.4 billion (about $58.7 billion) across 8,760 rounds as of Dec. 5, according to PitchBook data. Compared to last year, deal value fell 48.9%. Only two countries, Iceland and Romania, registered an increase from 2022—albeit a very low bar. Russia and the Czech Republic were among the countries that saw the worst declines relative to last year's total.
Tiger Global Bit Off A Lot Less In 2023
Tiger Global, quite possibly the poster child for the go-go venture days of 2020 and 2021, is on pace to slash its deal flow more than 90% from 2022, as the one-time growth-round leader significantly pulled back in the venture market. Last year, Tiger took part in 288 deals, with those deals totaling a mind-blowing $23.2 billion, per Crunchbase data
99 brutally honest takeaways from working in venture capital
1. There are not enough good companies out there to justify the amount of venture funds in existence.
2. It used to be a requirement for VCs to have company building experience, but that has gone away as more funds have popped up. The advice you get from most VCs today is based on something they read and not personal anecdotes. Do not take this advice as gospel.
3. The best founders spend the least time fundraising. If you make your diligence process a burden on the founder, you’ll have to settle for bottom-tier deals.
read more
Step-Ups & Duration : The Shape of Things to Come to the Series A in 2024
The typical software startup raised their Series A 15 months after raising their seed at 2x their seed valuation.
A year ago, that Series A would have been raised three months earlier at 3.5x the valuation.
The investors cutting the most checks for supply chain startups
Supply chain startups reached a high-water mark for VC fundraising in 2021, bringing in $62.2 billion. At the time, pandemic-induced lockdowns and port closures motivated investors to seek out and invest in founders with grand ideas to disrupt an industry with a reputation for being static, inflexible and inefficient. But two years later, the flood has slowed to a trickle as founders are challenged by legacy systems and an erosion in shipping demand.
Share Of Funding To App Startups Hit Lowest Point In A Decade
The phrase “app economy” gained popularity about a decade ago, when smartphones completed their evolution from cool gadget to essential device of modern living. Since then, of course, apps, and mobile apps in particular, haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve only become more entrenched as the go-to channels for everything from banking to shopping to gaming. Startup investment, however, has not followed a similar pattern. Per Crunchbase data, seed through growth-stage funding for U.S. companies tied to the app economy peaked as a percentage of total investment back in 2016. That year, app-focused companies pulled in nearly 14% of all funding.
Ringing in big changes: PE firms weigh IPOs in 2024
This week it was reported that General Atlantic made its first step toward going public by filing its intention with the SEC. It is a preliminary step, but it is understood that an IPO could happen as soon as early next year. The New York-based growth equity investor joins a handful of PE fund managers that have been mulling over stock market debuts during the past two years. Among them: Luxembourg-headquartered CVC, French asset manager Ardian, and LVMH-backed luxury goods investor L Catterton.
Top 10 AI Co-Pilots for VC Investors
In the absence of a GPT Store, I created BrowseGPTs to search for specific GPTs and regularly checked the top-ranking 1k+ GPTs here. Moreover, I asked you all for input to assemble the most comprehensive library of AI agents and Customized GPTs for VC investors and founders.
The resulting list comprises 100+ GPTs and after spending nights & weekends testing them, I found that only a few provide actual value. The majority is still useless and no more than an experiment. Today, I share my selection of the Top 10 Most Useful Customized GPTs for VC investors.
It's Time To Build... But Build What?
COVID created a real time warp. It might shock you to hear that in a few months, it will have been four years since lockdowns started in the US. There is someone out there who was just starting high school when we went remote, and now they're gearing up to graduate.
So that same time warp may make it feel funky that I'm spending a lot of my time this week thinking about and responding to a four year old essay. But in the (paraphrased) words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "never read a book that's less than a year old." In the early days of COVID, Marc Andreessen put out an essay called "It's Time To Build." In it, he criticized the seriously lacking building capabilities "throughout Western life, and specifically throughout American life."
Crypto-Friendly Does Not Mean Crypto-Easy
A major theme of 2023 was Asia’s continued rise as a critically important region in the crypto world. This is largely thanks to well-known digital asset hubs like Singapore, as well as the re-emergence of Hong Kong and Japan. While these jurisdictions indeed welcome digital assets, the hype around them can be somewhat misleading. Places that are commonly referred to as “crypto-friendly” or “pro-crypto,” actually have some of the toughest rules in the world. Crypto-friendly does not mean crypto-easy.
For the startup world, 2023 was an action-packed year, particularly in the first half when AI adoption exploded following ChatGPT’s launch, the biggest bank to startups failed, and layoffs piled up even as venture funding toppled. Perhaps not surprisingly, readers flocked to our coverage of these topics, particularly when we could apply our unique data lens to make sense of the biggest stories affecting tech and private companies.
Seed-stage investors react to higher hurdles for Series A funding
The hurdle for Series A funding is a lot higher than it was a year ago — and investors in seed-stage companies are having to respond. They don’t have much choice if they want their startups to survive. When the market abruptly turned in the spring of 2022, late-stage companies were the first to feel the pain. But that downward financial pressure has more recently made its way to much newer outfits, which are getting lower valuations in their next round — 1.6x in the second quarter, the lowest value since the third quarter of 2013, per PitchBook data — and facing choosier Series A investors with plenty of options.
From Longevity To Ageing In Place, These Are The Top Areas For Senior-Focused Startups
Anyone who follows demographic trends is probably aware that the population of older adults in the U.S. and other advanced economies is growing at an unprecedented rate. Today, roughly one in six Americans is 65 or older, and their share continues to rise. It’s a trend that hasn’t gone unnoticed in the startup world. Longevity-focused founders and investors have long been working to replace the notion of chronological age with biological age. Who cares about the year on your birth certificate, the thinking goes, if you’re healthy, productive and still enjoying what life has to offer?
Eye On AI: Big Tech Continues To Invest In AI Startups, But For How Long?
Although there continues to be a lot of talk about investors pulling back in the AI market, the big news of the week thus far has been the massive $487 million investment Mistral AI received at a reported valuation of $2 billion. The round also reminded us of who is investing — big corporates. While Andreessen Horowitz — which is expected to invest more than $200 million — did lead the round, both Nvidia and Salesforce agreed to contribute about $130 million in convertible debt to the deal.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Another Big Week For Biotech As Tome Raises $213M
Just a couple of weeks until the end of the year and companies are still raising big rounds. The week was especially good for biotech, which led the way with two big raises. A space and defense startup also hit it big.
Which world leaders have made big promises on crypto?
Few world leaders have been openly supportive of digital assets while in office or while they were campaigning. Though the technology is relatively young and untested as a political issue, many candidates have staked their reputations on crypto and blockchain. Now the former president of El Salvador as he campaigns for his next term in office, Nayib Bukele is arguably the most outspoken head of state in the world on cryptocurrency.
Binance, crypto firms optimistic about UAE amid potential US regulatory shift
Binance and other cryptocurrency firms based in the United Arab Emirates are optimistic that the country will remain a hotspot for virtual assets despite a potential shift to the United States should the Western superpower become a more crypto-friendly jurisdiction. The “regulation by enforcement” regime in the U.S. has pushed global crypto firms to move to locations such as the UAE, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Singapore.
Take the time to brush up those pitch decks
The holidays are in full swing, which means you might start getting automatic-reply emails as people take off on vacation. But don’t let the relative calmness of the holidays stop you from fundraising. According to a DocSend report on fundraising trends, young startups aren’t looking so hot. That means that however they’ve been trying to grab investors’ attention isn’t working. For example, there’s been a dip in how much time investors spend on the “product” and “business model” slides and a significant increase in how long they’re spending on the “competition” slide.
Europe’s AI Funding Tallies Are Rising
Following the numbers, it’s clear Europe has not been ground central for the AI startup investment boom. Nonetheless, European tech hubs are still seeing a not-insignificant slice of the funding pie. Investment totals got a big boost this week with Paris-based Mistral AI — an OpenAI and Anthropic competitor — putting the final touches on a massive round of approximately $487 million. The Andreessen Horowitz-led financing would reportedly value the company at $2 billion.
Timeline: Generative AI's explosive 2023
Generative AI has captivated the venture world, defying slowdowns and netting huge investments from Big Tech players and firms alike. Next year, AI is poised to be even more disruptive, with its eye on SaaS next. Unprecedented investments were made, Big Tech soared in value, and chaos erupted at one of the fastest-growing startups ever. Here's a timeline of the year that was.
Why 2023 Is Like 2020 and Bitcoin Is Set to Head Towards $50k
Bitcoin has recently achieved new highs in 2023, but there's a question lingering: Is the market over-extended, and have we reached the pinnacle of enthusiasm? We can gain insight into these inquiries by examining the positioning of the crypto options market. The most apt comparison to Q4 2023 is the rally we saw in Q4 2020. In fact, by superimposing BTC returns for both years, we can discern a strikingly similar narrative unfolding. At present, the implied volatility of options (which represents an investor's bet on BTC's future realized volatility) is hovering near its 2023 peak, primarily driven by the buying of call options.
Private capital fundraising timelines are getting longer and longer
Private capital fundraising is taking longer than it has in a decade. By the end of September, the average period between a private capital fund's open and close reached 15.8 months, the highest that figure has been since 2012, according to PitchBook's Q3 2023 Global Private Market Fundraising Report. This report analyzes fundraising across seven private market strategies. Total private capital fundraising activity is down 27.4% year-over-year, the product of a suppressed deal environment that has inhibited distributions and limited LP capital for additional allocations.
Indian startup funding shrinks by 73% in 2023. What model companies can adopt now?
In India, startup funding has declined to a five-year low figure in 2023 — $7 billion as compared to $25 billion received in the previous year, a nearly 73% decline from funding recorded in 2022 amid a worsening global macroeconomic environment tossed by geopolitical tensions. According to research platform Tracxn data, as of December 5, the fourth quarter of 2023 saw the lowest equity investment received by new-age ventures since the terrible performance in the third quarter of 2016.
Tech startups are dropping like flies
3,200 private venture-backed US startups that have collectively raised $27.2 billion have gone out of business this year.
The AI Bubble Will Burst: Here’s How To Limit Your Exposure
With every new wave of technology, there is a corresponding bubble in private markets. Entrepreneurs join the gold rush, chasing the edge offered by innovation, and investors lend out picks and shovels to anyone who promises to deliver outsized returns. Most will fail. This is the normal for venture investing and a natural product of the high failure rate at early stages.
Meet Europe’s YC for first-time VC managers
As European tech has matured, the number of first-time VC funds being raised has grown. But it’s tough raising Fund I — especially in today’s funding environment. A new “YC for first-time managers” wants to solve this cold start problem. Vienna-based Allocator One is announcing its first cohort and plans to run two cohorts a year, with a total of 12-15 people a year. It will give all VCs standardised deal terms: a €1m anchor investment per general partner (GP), a 1% management fee on that commitment and 10% interest to the manager. That’s not as good as the standard 2% and 20% deals that most VCs take, but Allocator One handles regulatory and admin work and also supports investors with their fundraising readiness. Applying is as easy as clicking a button on the website.
I’m an angel investor — how do I get my money out?
As an angel investor, founders will likely be queuing outside your door to persuade you to put money into their companies, but what about when you want to get it out? Most investments in private companies are illiquid, meaning you can’t simply sell the shares on the stock exchange. The three ways to get liquidity as an angel investor are secondaries, acquisition or an initial public offering (IPO).