VNTR Capital News March 17, 2024 – News, Events, VC Reads
Venture Capital, Web3, and Private Equity – March 17 News, Events, and VC Reads
Hello friends,
Happy Sunday!
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Scroll down for VNTR Capital Community News, Upcoming Events, and VC News/Reads.
VNTR CAPITAL COMMUNITY NEWS
Spotlight
VNTR Supercars Rally UAE — We are 1 month away from VNTR Rally in Dubai on April 19-21 in Dubai for a road 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.
VNTR Syndicate — We offer deal-by-deal investment opportunities into startups and VC funds as LP via the VNTR Platform. We onboarded 500+ small check investors to VNTR Syndicate, who can join deals with checks from $10k+. We are hosting the VNTR Syndicate Online Investment Committee on March 21 to present how the syndicate works and the current syndicated deals.
VNTR Media and Podcast — Introducing the VNTR Podcast, where we delve into the world of investments through insightful interviews and thought-provoking editorial articles. Join us as we bring together industry experts, including VNTR members, GPs, Fund of Funds, LPs, Corporate VCs, and Sovereign Funds. They will share their wisdom on investments, emerging trends, and best practices. Our mission is to empower you with the knowledge and insights you need to thrive and succeed as an investor. The content will be shared on the VNTR YouTube channel and various podcasting platforms. Reach out to Yuri to join our future episodes.
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 interested in investing in VC funds can reach out to Julie to get access to 300+ active General Partners in the VNTR Community who are raising their new funds. We curate their performance and connect GPs and LPs via VNTR Platform.
This week
New York — March 19 VNTR Investor Workshop "Success and Failure in Venture Capital" with VNTR GP Member Igor Ryabekiy, Founder and Managing Partner at AltaIR Capital. Having invested in over 300 companies, including domain-defining leaders like Deel, Miro, and PandaDoc, Dr. Ryabenkiy has led early-stage fundraising efforts, showcasing his keen eye for promising ventures.
Online — March 19 VNTR PRO Expert Session "Your Network is your NetWorth: Building the Power of Networking for Investor Relations" with VNTR PRO Member, Gil Petersil, a global thought leader on business strategy, effective networking, and mastermind methodology.
VNTR PRO — March 20 VNTR PRO AI Mastermind for members who focus on AI startups and March 21 VNTR PRO Roundtable to connect our global VNTR PRO Members through roundtable introductions.
London — March 21 VNTR Investors Luncheon London as a side event to the Digital Assets Summit.
Porto Alegre — March 21 VNTR Investors Roundtable Porto Alegre Brazil as a side event to South Summit Brazil (30% Discount using VNTR_30OFF_ATT)
Cascais — March 22 VNTR Investors Breakfast Cascias will gather investors from VNTR Portugal chapter in Cascais Marina.
Thank you to our Partners:
Stellar is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable network for financial products and services. It is both a cross-currency transaction system and a platform for digital asset issuance, designed to connect the world’s financial infrastructure. Financial institutions worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has grown to over 7 million accounts. The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is a non-profit organization that supports the development and growth of Stellar, an open-source network that connects the world’s financial infrastructure.
Perfect is a Personal Lifestyle app that helps you Book your flights, hotels, and supercars for the VNTR Rally. Empower your routine with integrated GPT technology for seamless access to luxury services and an effortless lifestyle. Enjoy personalized assistance with tasks, errands, and reservations, freeing time for what truly matters. Join Perfect using "VNTR" code to get special discounts and VNTR experiences. Use Perfect via iOS, Android, WhatsApp or Telegram.
Upcoming VNTR Events:
March 26 VNTR Investor Workshop San Francisco
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 (Global Startup Summit)
April 5 VNTR Investors Roundtable New York (NY NFT)
April 10 VNTR Investors Roundtable Paris (Paris Blockchain Week)
April 11 VNTR PRO Expert Session with Gillian Muessig: "Moneyball: The Evolution of Venture Capital"
April 12 VNTR Investors Breakfast Munich
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)
April 28 VNTR Investors Roundtable Bali (Uncoference Bali)
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
Reach out to Lukas to sponsor VNTR events our join VNTR Corporate Membership.
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
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 26-27 CIX Forum, Toronto, Canada
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 (20% Discount using VNTRxTechChill24)
April 18-19 Token2049, Dubai, UAE (10% Discount using VNTR10)
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, 20% Discount using VNTR)
April 27-28 Unconference Bali, Indonesia
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 (Free for VNTR investors)
June 5-7 South Summit, Madrid, Spain
June 5-11 WEB3FEST, Zurich/Zug, Switzerland
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
Most-Active US Investors: Andreessen Horowitz, GV And Alumni Have Big February
It may be the year’s shortest month, but that didn’t mean Andreessen Horowitz didn’t have time for a big month.
For the second straight month, the Menlo Park, California-based investing giant led the way among all investors, sealing 15 funding deals with U.S.-based startups, per Crunchbase data.
In fact, Andreessen Horowitz more than doubled the number of deals the two second-place firms — GV and Alumni Ventures — consummated last month.
Let’s dive into the busiest firms from February.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Applied Intuition And Luminary Cloud Rise Above
This week was a story of the haves and have-nots. Of course there were more big AI-related rounds (the haves) but also a couple of big raises from some sectors that had been eschewed by investors not that long ago — autonomous vehicles and industrial security (the have-nots).
All in all, it was another strong week for big rounds. The top 10 list also includes three new unicorns.
VCs will get liquidity in 2024 from the secondary market, not IPOs
If you asked a bunch of VCs at the end of 2023 if the IPO market would finally open again in 2024, most of them would have said yes. We know because TechCrunch surveyed more than 40 of them in December and that’s what they said. Yet, there are two weeks left in Q1, still no completed major IPOs, and very few in the works. Reddit is the only big-time IPO far enough along to be priced. Otherwise, there is just speculation on who might go public, with very few public SEC documents. For instance, there’s Shein, which reportedly filed a confidential S-1 last fall, or car rental marketplace Turo, which is still waiting on the sidelines after filing its initial S-1 in 2022.
UK 2023 LP Stats
There were 1059 LPs in UK-domiciled VC funds in 2023, with an average of c.22 LPs per fund.*
+186 compared to 2022 when there were 873 LPs, with the average number of LPs per fund dropping by c.10.
In 2023, 39 LPs made investments in more than one UK-domiciled VC fund manager.
Binance cuts ties with venture capital arm
Binance Labs has become an independent venture capital arm, after severing ties with Binance exchange. The independent VC fund’s portfolio is now worth over $10 billion, covering over 250 projects from over 25 countries, with an over 14x return on investment rate, according to a March 12 blog post by Binance Labs. The arm seeks to invest in early-stage Web3 projects and offer support including one-to-one mentorship and access to resources in the wider Binance ecosystem. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, quietly created the independent fund earlier this year. Binance Labs staff have separate contracts from Binance exchange employees.
How-to guide: Getting your startup acquisition ready
After a slow year for startup acquisitions in 2023, dealmaking is expected to pick up as private equity firms and corporates find themselves sitting on growing piles of cash to use for acquisitions. With VC funding still hard to come by, many cash-strapped startups will be looking for acquirers as they struggle to raise capital. Muted valuations due to the more challenging VC environment have also made startups more attractive targets than in previous years.
How to develop promising talent in VC
Shared narratives are powerful. Narratives can be tailwinds for careers — but they can also close doors, sometimes to an entire gender. That’s why I uncharacteristically took to social media last week to react to the idea, expressed by one male VC partner, that training up someone in venture is a “tax”. His firm has no female partners, and when asked why, he said: “It's really hard; there are not that many.” I disagree: there are legions of future female Midas investors in our ranks today — and all they need is mentorship and support from today’s men and women leaders to get there.
49% of founders say they’re considering quitting their startup this year
Startup founders are “overworked”, “exhausted” and “broken” — and dozens of them are considering leaving their businesses in the next year.
The past 12 months have been quite brutal on VC-backed tech companies. Valuations have fallen, investors have been reluctant to part with their capital, layoffs have swept the industry and there’s been more scrutiny of the bottom line than most founders have ever experienced.
More Funding Goes To Startups Fighting Disinformation
Going online to find accurate information these days can seem like a futile effort. From inaccuracy-laden AI-generated verbiage to deliberate deepfakes and disinformation, conducting research isn’t what it used to be. Even keeping up with the news now usually entails wading through reams of misleading or outright false content. We’re fed up. And increasingly, our frustrations are inspiring startup investors to back businesses aimed at weeding out misinformation. It’s not a new phenomenon. A year ago, we wrote about funded startups working on ways to combat disinformation and misinformation, some of which had raised quite a bit of capital. Since then, however, money has continued to pour into the space.
Early-stage startups seeking venture debt find investor prestige isn’t enough
A term sheet from Sequoia or Khosla Ventures opens a lot of doors for a founder. But increasingly, it’s no guarantee of venture debt funding. One year on from the Silicon Valley Bank crisis and the widespread disruption to the venture lending market, more lenders have moved upmarket. This has had knock-on effects on startups. Securing a debt facility is significantly more challenging for seed and early-stage founders, especially those building in industries like fintech and consumer tech that have seen valuations drop dramatically.
Cybersecurity Dealmaking Shows Signs Of Life
For the second day in row, a cybersecurity startup with Israeli roots has been bought by a big fish in the security pond. Zscaler announced Thursday it has acquired Israel-based AI-driven security insights and threat prevention startup Avalor reportedly for $310 million in a cash-and-stock deal. That deal follows cloud cybersecurity firm Wiz reportedly buying cloud threat prevention startup Gem Security — which has offices in both New York and Tel Aviv — for $350 million in a cash deal. The deals could help spark more activity in a slow-to-stagnant M&A market in cybersecurity. Last year saw only 66 deals consummated that involved VC-backed cybersecurity startups, per Crunchbase data. That was a 26% drop from 2022, which saw 89 such deals.
Secondaries defy fundraising slump amid hunt for liquidity
In a generally challenging year for private capital fundraising in 2023, a couple of market strategies stood out for their ability to defy the downturn. Total private fundraising fell about 20% compared with the previous year, but vehicles dedicated to secondaries hauled in 65% more capital, according to PitchBook’s 2023 Global Private Market Fundraising Report, powered by a few mammoth fund closings. That performance underscored investors’ ongoing emphasis on ways to ride out the market’s liquidity crunch. At the same time, the decline in fundraising for private equity managers was relatively slight, with a dip of 1.1% year-over-year and a strong rebound in the second half.
14 deeptech soonicorns in Europe
On the cusp of a clean energy and automation revolution, Europe’s deeptech startups are blossoming — with plenty of them set to hit the coveted billion-dollar valuation soon.
Many — especially those building satellites and semiconductors — are being nurtured by European policymakers who see them as vital to secure the continent’s tech sovereignty in an increasingly polarised world.
Of the estimated $15bn invested in European deeptech companies in 2023, $3.4bn went to British businesses, while France and Sweden secured $3.2bn each. Semiconductor and energy startups saw the biggest uptick of interest from VCs.
To get a place on this list of Europe’s deeptech soonicorns, companies had to be founded since 2005, have a valuation of at least $500m and have raised a round since 2020. Sifted’s analysis and valuation estimates are based on Dealroom data.
Screening for Maniacs
Below are some traits that show up in our most productive and successful founders. Each section has a brief explanation, example, and set of questions, along with the intention behind what we’re trying to observe from the answers. Keep in mind, our diligence on execution comes during the residency, so interviews are primarily for underwriting character.
We should obsess over this topic endlessly, and develop pattern recognition by doing it over and over again. In doing so, we will calibrate founder interviews more effectively, and optimize our learning toward a person’s character, values, and potential to accomplish something undeniably hard.
Why LatAm Startup Founders Should Take A Practical, Pessimistic Approach In 2024
With renewed optimism in the venture market after several tough years, ecosystems like Latin America are expecting an influx of funds. Startups may be tempted to ride the high expectations into 2024, and I can’t blame anybody for hoping that the worst is over. But entrepreneurs — especially those in emerging markets like LatAm — would probably get more out of adopting a pragmatic, positive pessimistic approach to building a company. We’ve seen what happens when founders get clouded by too much security when fundraising. They raise more than they need, overvalue their company, and get distracted by spending cash on new hires or resources when they haven’t yet laid the groundwork to support that growth.
Spring thaws venture debt market, but not everyone is feeling the warmth
A year after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank—the venture banking icon—market participants have noticed a gradual recovery of the lending market dedicated to serving startup borrowers. But the positive effects have been disproportionately felt by borrowers. Lenders who were hoping to gain a foothold in the venture debt market have encountered more competition than they anticipated, leading them to loosen debt covenants and lower deal prices.
New AI, Robotics, Spacetech And Fintech Unicorns Trot Onto Leaderboard In February
Ten new unicorns globally added more than $18 billion in value to The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in February, but in a sign that the long-term status of many companies on the board are in flux, one startup fell off completely after its valuation was slashed to less than a third of a unicorn valuation.
Two companies from China joined the board after raising around a billion dollars in funding each: a year-old foundation model company and a 6-year-old satellite network company.
Will the Bitcoin halving bring more institutional investors into crypto?
Much remains unknown about Bitcoin’s quadrennial halving event, which reduces the block rewards earned by Bitcoin miners by 50%, who play a critical role in validating BTC transactions and securing the system. Will miners go bankrupt or flee the network? Will the hash rate collapse? Will the price of Bitcoin rise and then fall? Will the halving spur further crypto adoption? And so on. But this much is certain: Every four years, miners’ block rewards are cut in half — this is pre-coded into the network — and at some point in April 2024, once the 210,000th block is validated, miners’ rewards will fall from 6.25 BTC per block to 3.125.
Enterprise SaaS investment makes a comeback — but not where you’d expect
The global market for software is growing quickly. Gartner data indicates that software spend is the fastest-expanding segment of IT spend and that its pace of growth has accelerated in recent years. If Gartner’s forecasts bear out, the software portion of global IT spend could crest $1 trillion in 2024. Startups mostly build software. And with the subscription business model shift now historical fact more than emerging trend, many startups today approach the market with the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Thus, SaaS startups are not category-specific, instead sharing a business model approach more than any particular industry focus. Among myriad SaaS startups, those focused on selling to business clients — a group often called enterprise SaaS — are a magnet for venture capital.
Europe needs to do more for its female founders
European female founders have come a long way over the past decade in their ability to raise funding, but the region’s venture capital market is still heavily biased against women—a fact that attendees at PitchBook’s All In event in London this morning were all too aware of. Notable progress has been made by female-led startups, which last year raised more than 10 times the amount they did in 2013. But funding levels remain depressingly low when looking at female founders’ overall share of deal-making.
We’re officially in the era of the solopreneur, marking the next evolution of early-stage businesses. These solopreneurs are a one-person show, operating and managing a business independently, handling all aspects from product development to marketing to sales. And, solopreneurship is skyrocketing globally, thanks to tech advancements that make running a business smoother and more cost-effective. This new type of entrepreneurship is a game-changer in today’s innovation-driven yet financially tight market, opening doors for early ventures to flourish.
With Bitcoin Hitting New Highs, Will VCs Take Notice?
It’s been a tough go for venture investors in the field of crypto in recent years. Funding took a tumble after highly-publicized events such as Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX debacle and the collapse of several other lenders. The overall general downturn in the venture market also did not help the still-maturing market. In fact, venture funding to crypto-related startups fell to only $3.6 billion in 821 deals last year — a 78% drop from the $16.2 billion in 1,544 deals realized in 2022 — per Crunchbase data.
Meet the 10 busiest dealmakers for Europe’s early-stage startups
Early-stage dealmaking has been comparatively resilient in recent years, despite increased pressure from the ongoing venture capital downturn. Investors poured €17.3 billion (about $18.9 billion) into 3,646 early-stage deals last year, according to PitchBook data. While this is significantly below 2022’s annual total of 4,739 rounds worth €26 billion, it still represents less of a decline than that of late-stage and venture growth activity. So far in 2024, 402 early-stage deals have closed, totaling €2.2 billion.
Investors tighten control over portfolio companies amid downturn
When times are good, investors can be pretty hands off with portfolio companies. When times are tough, they like to take much more control. In a new report, law firm Orrick has analysed 350 equity deals completed in Europe last year. It found that more than 95% of them included consent rights for investors — meaning the company is not able to undertake certain actions without their investors’ permission. In 2022, just under 95% of deals included consent rights for investors.
The venture capital market in the Central Asia and Caucasus (CCA) region is undergoing rapid expansion. Research involving RISE Research, EA Group Holding, BGlobal Ventures, Crunchbase, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry, and KPMG Central Asia and Caucasus shows that venture financing in the CCA region has increased 5.5 times, surpassing the pace of growth in the Nordics.
The report highlights a significant surge in venture capital investments in the region over the past six years, growing by 5.5 times. In 2023, this amount surpassed $110 million. Venture capital financing in the CCA region is expanding at a quicker pace compared to the Nordics, Europe (excluding CEE region), and the global venture capital market. Despite its rapid growth, in the medium term, the sector remains a small ecosystem with significant potential for expanding investment opportunities.
Funding Winter shuts over 35,000 startups in 2023. Will VCs fund tech platforms this year?
Indian startup ecosystem faced multifaceted challenges in 2023 with more than 35,000 ventures shutting down during the year as funding winter intensified, according to a report by Bain & Company in collaboration with the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA).
LLMs have special intelligence, not general, and that's plenty.
We finally have a Large Language Model that beats the average human IQ. Claude-3, released last week by Anthropic, has been received extremely well, and it good enough that it beats all others including GPT-4.