VNTR Capital News March 10, 2024 – News, Events, VC Reads
Venture Capital, Web3, and Private Equity – March 10 News, Events, and VC Reads
Hello friends,
Happy Sunday!
VNTR Capital Newsletter is delivered to 70k+ 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
Spotlight
New Corporate Partner — Perfect joined VNTR Corporate Membership to support VNTR Members globally with travel arrangements, lifestyle planning, and virtual assistance. Enjoy personalized assistance with tasks, errands, and reservations, freeing time for what truly matters. Join Perfect using "VNTR" code to get special discounts and travel planning for VNTR events and experiences. Use Perfect via iOS, Android, WhatsApp or Telegram.
VNTR Syndicate — We offer deal-by-deal investment opportunities into startups and VC funds as LP via the VNTR Platform. Those keen on joining VNTR Syndicate can set up an investor account on VNTR and start co-investing with leading VC funds.
VNTR Supercars Rally UAE — Join us on April 19-21 in Dubai for a 2 day / 2 night supercars trip with VNTR PRO members. We will travel together from Dubai to RAK to Fujairah, enjoy interactive bonding activities, and create strong relationships with VNTR members. Apply to join (limited number of spots available). Learn about VNTR PRO membership.
Investor Relations as a Service — Navigating the challenges of fundraising and investor relations can be both time-consuming and financially taxing for many startups. Even promising startups may struggle to efficiently organize fundraising efforts, connect with relevant investors, and secure deals expediently. To address these challenges, VNTR and Pulsar have joined forces to offer comprehensive support to founders to raise capital more effectively and manage investor relations.
VNTR LP — Limited Partners are invited to attend our upcoming LP-focused events to learn about trends, new VC funds, investment opportunities and meet other LP peers who are investing in funds. Reach out to Julie to join VNTR GP LP Membership.
VNTR Family Office Breakfasts — We invite Family Offices and active Limited Partners to join us in New York and San Francisco to learn about VC investments from pre-seed to Deca Corns with VNTR GP member, Igor Ryabenkiy, Founder and Managing Partner at AltaIR Capital:
This week
Austin — Those who are visiting SXSW can join us tomorrow, March 11, at the VNTR Investors Roundtable Austin to connect with active investment decision-makers.
Online—We are hosting the VNTR Syndicate Deal Overview on March 13 at 2 pm UK time, during which we will present a secondary deal and answer questions.
Thank you to our Partners:
MACA — MACA is creating the first hydrogen-powered flying racing car, made out of eco-friendly and sustainable materials. The company relies on Competitive Racing to drive the technology forward and accelerate the social acceptance and adoption of future flying cars by racing fans and consumers. The full scale demonstrator with Pilot on Board will be ready by Q1 2025 and the final model (Prototype) by early 2026. Contact Christian Pineau to learn more.
GEMBlock — GEMBlock is revolutionizing the way investment-grade gemstones are perceived and traded. By integrating cutting-edge blockchain technology, we aim to commodify these precious stones, making them a standardized and tradable asset class that meets the discerning criteria of investors worldwide. Contact Gordon Kljajic to learn more.
Upcoming VNTR Events:
March 19 VNTR PRO Expert Session with Gil Petersil: "Your Network is your NetWorth: Building the Power of Networking for Investor Relations"
March 21 VNTR Investors Roundtable Porto Alegre (South Summit Brazil)
March 27 VNTR Investors Roundtable Hong Kong (Wow Summit HK)
March 28 VNTR LP Roundtable Hong Kong
March 28 VNTR PRO Expert Session with Eugene Malobrodky: "Founder learning and transition to investing"
March 30 VNTR Investors Roundtable Bengaluru (D2C Conclave)
April 5 VNTR Investors Roundtable New York (NY NFT)
April 10 VNTR Investors Roundtable Paris (Paris Blockchain Week)
April 16 VNTR Investors Roundtable Rio De Janeiro (Web Summit Rio)
April 18 VNTR LP Roundtable Dubai
April 19 VNTR Investors Roundtable Dubai (Token2049 Dubai)
April 19-21 VNTR Supercars Rally Dubai (Token2049 Dubai)
April 19 VNTR Investors Roundtable Miami (eMerge Americas)
April 22 VNTR Investors Roundtable Silicon Valley (Startup Grind Conference)
April 24 VNTR Investors Roundtable Bangkok (Money 20/20 Asia)
May 7 VNTR Investors Roundtable Dubai (Dubai FinTech Summit)
May 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable Hong Kong (Blockshow X Blockdown)
May 21 VNTR Investors Roundtable Auckland (New Zealand Techweek)
May 23 VNTR Investors Roundtable Paris (Viva Technology Paris)
More events available on the VNTR Platform
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
March 8-16 SXSW, Austin, USA
March 18-19 Digital Asset Summit, London, UK
Mar 19-20 CEE VC Summit, Warsaw, Poland
March 20 Investor Day, Paris, France
March 20-22 South Summit Brazil, Porto Alegre, Brazil (30% Discount using VNTR_30OFF_ATT or 10% Discount using VNTR_10OFF_BUS)
March 26-27 Wow Summit, Hong Kong (50% discount on Standard, Business and VIP tickets using WOWHK24VNTR50, Complimentary investor passes for VNTR PRO members)
March 28 Georgia Tech Summit, Atlanta, USA
April 3-5 NY NFT, New York, USA
April 6-9 Web3 Festival, Hong Kong
April 8-12 Paris Blockchain Week, Paris, France (15% Discount using VNTR15, Startup Competition Application)
April 10 Empire Fintech Conference, NY, USA
April 15-16 Blockchain Life, Dubai, UAE
April 15-18 Web Summit Rio, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
April 16-17 Global Blockchain Show, Dubai, UAE
April 16-18 0100 Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands
April 17-19 TechChill, Riga, Latvia
April 18-19 Token2049, Dubai, UAE
April 18-19 EmergeAmericas, Miami, USA
April 19-21 VNTR Supercars Rally Dubai
April 23-25 Money 20/20 Asia, Bangkok, Thailand
April 23-24 Startup Grind Conference, Redwood City, USA (Startups Exhibition)
April 29-30 AIM Summit, London, UK
May 6-7 Dubai FinTech Summit, Dubai, UAE
May 7-9 FinTech Americas, Miami, USA
May 8-9 Blockshow + Blockdown, Hong Kong
May 9-10 EU Startups Summit, Malta
May 13-15 Podim 2024, Maribor, Slovenia
May 15-16 Next Block Expo
May 15-16 Echelon by E27, Singapore
May 20-21 SALT iConnections New York, USA
May 20-26 New Zealand Tech Week, Auckland, NZ
May 22-25 Viva Technology, Paris, France
May 27-31 CC Forum, Paris, France
May 29-31 Consensus, Austin, UAE
May 29 -31 Gitex Africa, Morocco
June 5-7 South Summit, Madrid, Spain
June 17-20 Collision Conf, Toronto, Canada
June 22-23 DeGameFi, Tbilisi, Georgia
July 10-11 World Business Forum, Singapore
If you would like to submit VC-related events, please respond to this email or Telegram @byuric
Check out VNTR Capital upcoming events
VC Reads and News
View curated VC news and articles on the VNTR Platform
Global VC Funding Settles Around $20B In February But AI Share Increases
Global venture capital funding reached $21.5 billion in February 2024 — flat month over month and slightly up from February 2023, Crunchbase data shows. Globally, more than $2 billion was invested in seed-stage companies last month. Close to $10 billion was invested in early-stage companies. And venture investors spent $9.3 billion at late-stage, including technology growth companies. The largest funding round in February went to 32-year-old North Carolina-based Epic Games. That was a $1.5 billion strategic investment in the Fortnite maker from Disney at a valuation of $22.5 billion, which was 30% lower than the $32 billion valuation set in a 2022 funding round for Epic.
Climate tech’s strong performance will be tough act to repeat
Climate-tech startups have quickly gained ground on the broader startup market. But what do they do for an encore? In 2017, climate-tech startups had the worst expected returns relative to nine other emerging tech verticals. The category now has the sixth-best outlook, according to new PitchBook research that uses a novel quantitative method to assess opportunities in emerging technologies. VC investment and valuations held up better in climate tech than in other verticals last year. These companies have grown headcount faster than their tech peers, and they have significantly increased their share of patents filed, the report found.
Startups Are Still Buying Fewer Startups
For venture-backed startups, it’s historically rather common to wind up selling to another startup. Lately, however, the pace of these deals has been slowing down.
In all of 2023, just over 650 funded startups globally were acquired by other funded startups, per Crunchbase data, the lowest total in three years.
The AI Gold Rush: How Startups Can Stake Their Claim In A Competitive Frontier
Following the debut of ChatGPT, it didn’t take long for AI companies to flood the business landscape. But while AI startups successfully raised $50 billion worth of investment in 2023, there was a clear decline in investments by the end of the year, indicating the initial investment buzz was wearing off. Rather than casting wide nets of investments over the space, investors are now seeking stronger market fits. To succeed in this new age of AI maturation, entrepreneurs need to focus on building moats — finding unique ways to build a defense perimeter around their offering to fend off competitors or, at the very least, make it difficult to compete with them.
Early-stage SaaS boasts best expected exit success rate for VCs
SaaS is the bread and butter of venture, offering capital-lite business models with high profit margins. VC’s preoccupation with SaaS isn’t a coincidence. Historically, it has been one of the most lucrative areas for investors. And new research from PitchBook, developed using the machine learning-enabled VC Exit Predictor, shows that the expected future returns for SaaS far outpace other venture tech verticals. PitchBook’s VC Emerging Opportunities report calculated that the annualized expected returns for early-stage SaaS companies was 5.5% higher than the average of 10 VC tech verticals. That advantage has grown in recent years, up from 3.2% in 2017.
Andreessen Horowitz Closes In On Up To $7B In New Funds
Andreessen Horowitz, known for early bets on then-startups such as Facebook, Instagram and Airbnb, is reportedly “weeks away” from closing on as much as $7 billion in new funds. A16z is targeting $6.9 billion for a “master feeder fund,” per the report in Axios. The firm expects a final close in early April on between $6.5 billion and $7 billion. Per the report, half of the raise — as much as $3.5 billion — would go to the firm’s fourth growth fund. A16z announced its last growth fund in early 2022 at $5 billion, so the new growth fund would be significantly less.
Defence tech is all the rage but investors have their guard up
European leaders are heralding a new era for defence tech, rolling out large-scale funding initiatives to grow the ecosystem and boost home-grown defence giants. “Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of battle-winning operational capabilities,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament during a debate in February. “That means turbo-charging our defence industrial capacity in the next five years.” The Commission is also rolling out its first ever defence industrial strategy, setting a goal to procure 40% of its defence equipment among EU member states by 2030, with 50% of equipment being procured within the bloc.
The 10 Biggest Rounds Of February: Epic Games Leads The List Thanks To House Of Mouse Investment
February was a big month for big rounds. Companies needed to raise $170 million or more just to make the tailend of our list of largest U.S. venture funding deals. Of course, the biggest deal was really big — $1.5 billion. But there were a slew of other good size deals too, so let’s get into them.
As mega-rounds become rarer, energy startups are powering up
The largest funding rounds raised by startups are becoming rarer and rarer. For upstart companies working on the future of energy, however, the market is surprisingly strong. The venture deceleration, and its late-stage glaciation, are not stopping the companies that want to reinvent energy from raising huge rounds. Given what we’re seeing around the world, it’s a welcome fact, even if it does feel a decade or more too late. Nine-figure rounds are often called “mega-rounds” due to their massive heft. During the first two months and first days of March last year, some 12 deals met our “energy” criteria, tracking companies that are working in power generation and distribution using Crunchbase data.
New report confirms Europe’s tech investment doldrums, but there are signs of life
Europe is suffering from a big hangover after the tech investment party of the 2020-2021 period. That said, compared to pre-pandemic levels, VC investment in European startups is up, historically speaking, and reached $60 billion, according to a new report. However, the anomaly of the surge in investment over the pandemic stands in marked contrast to that growth and has created significant headwinds, even though there are signs of “green shoots.” Global law firm Orrick analyzed more than 350 VC and growth equity investments its clients completed in Europe last year. The total capital raised in Europe was $61.8 billion. 2023 marked a reset and major correction in investment levels globally. Of the top three global regions for VC — Europe, Asia and North America — Europe is the only one to exceed 2019 levels in 2023.
Are Nordic deals lighting the way for European PE?
Like the aurora borealis, Nordic deal activity seems to be illuminating an otherwise dreary landscape: European private equity. The overall picture of European PE activity was relatively lackluster in 2023. Deal count was marginally up, but deal value was down by more than a quarter from the previous year. The Nordics, however, looked to be slightly more resilient, with our 2024 Nordic Private Capital Breakdown revealing that the region recorded its second-best year on record for deal value, with a 3.7% rise from 2022. Much of the value can be attributed to a handful of larger deals.
Eye On AI: Oh The Humanity — Everybody’s In A Rush To Reassure AI Development Will Help Us
Of course the big AI news this week is Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its executives — including co-founder and CEO Sam Altman. The lawsuit claims the defendants have breached OpenAI’s founding agreement to develop artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity. The suit claimed the AI giant has become nothing more than a subsidiary of Microsoft, working in secrecy and focusing on profit, and that it may have already achieved artificial general intelligence. OpenAI has since fired back, posting a blog that claimed Musk wanted control of the company’s for-profit unit and to merge it with Tesla. In one posted email, Musk agrees that as the company gets closer to building AI, it should “start being less open” and “not share the science.”
Why Blockchain Payments Are Misunderstood
Payments are one of the most promising areas for blockchain technology. But I believe they are not always well understood, and the discussion sometimes gets confused and overly ambitious. Blockchains could face an uphill battle to replace traditional payment systems even though they look relatively competitive at the moment. On the other hand, I think many people are ignoring the biggest opportunity areas because they are not looking at the true transaction costs.
Founders, here's how to deal with exploding term sheets
You are a founder raising funding. You have got to know VCs over the last few years and had increasingly intense conversations with them over the past few weeks. They have asked you lots of due diligence questions and met most of your team. They have emphasised their focus on long-term partnership; how the average VC investment is longer than the average marriage; why you should choose your VC carefully based on their value-add rather than just valuation. Finally, after an expensive dinner, the promised term sheet arrives. But with the dreaded sentence:
Declining fortunes: Mapping Germany’s VC ecosystem
Venture capital investment in German startups picked up in the last quarter of 2023 but failed to return to the levels seen at the beginning of the year. In Q4, German companies raised €1.7 billion (about $1.9 billion) from VC investors, according to PitchBook’s Q4 2023 Germany Market Snapshot, an increase of 21.4% from the previous quarter. On the other hand, deal count continued its descent from Q1, reaching its lowest level since Q3 2020. Germany’s VC ecosystem has been lagging behind peers such as France over the past few years. Berlin—the country’s top VC hub—failed to make the top three European cities in terms of deal value in 2023 for the first time since 2016, according to PitchBook’s 2024 Nordic Private Capital Breakdown.
Which Overlooked Startup Sectors Will Be Powerful Investments In 2024?
AI commanded the attention of VCs last year, but while investors debated whether to bet on image-generation AI or medtech AI, several extremely consequential startup sectors ended up being overshadowed. Some of these verticals, though less popular among traditional VCs, may change the world in the next few years, and investors should take note before missing out. Perhaps the most interesting field in startups right now is space exploration, with uses ranging from making space travel more accessible, to asteroid mining for rare metals — including those needed for clean energy tech.
The Angel Code: How to act like the top 1%
As a founder — and an angel investor in 15+ companies — I’ve seen good, bad and (a few) absolutely brilliant investors. Being bad is easy. Being brilliant — one of the 1% — is harder. When fundraising, I once needed to ask some of my early angel investors to sell their shares to make room for new, strategic investors on the cap table. That was, in many senses, a bad deal for them. The company was doing great, and while they were going to get a good return on their investment, if they held on they could have gotten an even better one.
Market Map: Drones and robots pull VCs back to agtech
Growth-stage agtech companies undoubtedly had a challenging 2023. Buzzy plant biotech company Indigo Ag and indoor farming leader Bowery both swallowed down rounds in the second half of the year, and a flurry of high-profile startups including Infarm and AeroFarms filed for bankruptcy. But one area of agtech has fared remarkably well: Precision agriculture technologies, from drones to farm software, have ballooned as a share of VC activity in agtech. Explore the growing precision ag segment by clicking on the teal tile.
AI tokens are more hype than value right now
While technologists continue to explore artificial intelligence (AI) use cases in all business verticals, a Coinbase research report suggests that AI-related tokens may be over-hyped right now, at least in the short and medium term. The rising popularity of generative AI spurred niche crypto sub-ecosystems over the last couple of years. However, Coinbase research analyst David Han believes that the rapid changes in AI “make us cautious” of the long-term sustainability of most AI tokens.
Capital Raise Or Company Sale? There’s A Third Strategic Option
So, you’ve successfully navigated your startup to a pivotal moment. You’ve secured some $10 million in funding, identified a product-market fit, and achieved an impressive $3 million in annual revenue with consistent year-over-year growth.
The clock is ticking: Projections point to profitability in 12 months, but your runway is drying up in nine. The pressure is on!
This scenario isn’t just hypothetical. Many of you might find it mirrors your own journey closely.
So, what are your options?
VCs hire experts to help with exits as LPs look for returns
One of the major concerns voiced by investors regarding India consistently has been the lack of exit liquidity opportunities. To take on this problem, over the last two years, leading venture capital funds including Lightspeed, Accel and Matrix Partners India have sought out professionals with investment banking expertise.
No One Gushes About Govtech, But It Can Produce Some Nice Returns
When dealing with government entities, consumers and businesses tend to set the bar for success pretty low. No one is expecting fun and delight interacting with the DMV, planning department, or any other agency charged with enforcing rules and collecting payments. If we can complete a task without a giant headache, we’re reasonably satisfied. In recent years, startups have quietly made some major contributions toward meeting this low bar. Whether it’s modernizing parking payment or streamlining permit applications, venture-backed software and app developers are behind an assortment of tools that give us a bit less to complain about when dealing with the government.
5 things UK startups should know about the government’s budget
The UK’s latest budget ahead of the next general election signalled an intention to boost investment in startups — but was short of fresh cash. It also saw a major U-turn from the government on rules around angel investment, which would’ve seen the number of people (especially women) eligible to invest in startups drastically reduced. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that Britain has double the number of AI startups than any other European country as well as a tech economy twice the size of Germany’s and three times the size of France. “We are on track to become the next Silicon Valley,” he declared.
5 Interesting Startup Deals You May Have Missed In February
The new year is now more than two months old and things seem to be moving even faster than last year.
So it’s understandable if some may have missed some of the more unique startups that raised fresh cash in the year’s second month. With that, let’s take a look back and recap some of the most intriguing raises of February.
The One-person Billion-dollar Company
In a recent interview, OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman said:
“We’re going to see 10-person companies with billion-dollar valuations pretty soon…in my little group chat with my tech CEO friends there’s this betting pool for the first year there is a one-person billion-dollar company, which would’ve been unimaginable without AI. And now [it] will happen.”