VNTR Newsletter August 18, 2024 – Venture Capital News, Events, VC Reads
Venture Capital, Web3, and Private Equity – News, Events, and VC Reads
Hello friends,
Happy Sunday!
VNTR Newsletter is delivered to 100k+ investors and subscribers weekly to share the latest news, events, and articles from the global VC and startup ecosystem.
Scroll down for VNTR Community News, Upcoming Events, and VC News/Reads.
VNTR COMMUNITY NEWS
Spotlight
Bali Blockchain Week: We are hosting two events in Bali in partnership with Internet Computer and Coinfest Asia (20% Discount using CA24VNTR):
VNTR Summit: Join us at the VNTR Summit in Lisbon on Nov 13, 2024, coinciding with the Web Summit. We're inviting Tier 1 VCs, super angels, family offices, and CVCs to participate as speakers, panelists, and moderators. If you're interested in joining us, please get in touch with Irina at irina@vntr.vc. You can create your free account on VNTR and reserve your spot. Apply to sponsor or contact Lukas to discuss sponsorship opportunities.
Angel & Accelerator Online Conf: Join us & 1,000+ angels, VCs, family offices, & startup founders on Aug 28 on Zoom. Register
VNTR Podcast: We’re excited to celebrate our 10th podcast episode this week! 🎉 In this episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Diane Fraiman, Managing Director at Voyager Capital, where we delved into her remarkable journey from operator to venture capitalist in the Pacific Northwest. Thank you to Niko Leon for joining us as a host and for producing our episodes!
You can now watch it on YouTube, Spotify and Apple. Don’t miss out—catch up on all our latest episodes and subscribe on your favorite platform.Token2049 Week: We are hosting multiple events in Singapore to connect investors during Token2049 (15% Discount using VNTR15):
Sep 18 VNTR LP Roundtable Singapore (capital allocators and family offices)
Sep 18 Ripple Accelerator day
Sep 19 VNTR Investors Roundtable Singapore in partnership with Stellar, ICP, and Ripple Accelerator. We have 2 sponsor slots available.
Coming 4 Weeks:
Bali: Aug 20 Golden Hour VC Sunset Reception Bali co-hosted by Internet Computer ICP and VNTR.
Cologne: Aug 22 VNTR Investors Roundtable Cologne inside event at Gamescom.
Bali: Aug 24 VNTR Investors Roundtable Bali side event to Coinfest Asia. Thank you, ICP, for hosting.
Online: Aug 27 VNTR Speed Networking powered by Airmeet
Tokyo: Aug 29 VNTR Investors Roundtable Tokyo side event to WebX Asia (20% Discount using discount_vntr).
Miami: Aug 29 VNTR Investors Roundtable Miami side event to Miami International Auto Show.
Gurgaon: Aug 31 VNTR Investors Roundtable Gurgaon India (New Delhi Chapter gathering). Thank you StartupNews.fyi.
Seoul: Sep 4 VNTR Investors Roundtable Seoul side event to Korean Blockchain Week.
Online: Sep 5 VNTR Expert Session with VNTR Club Member Christian Sauer, CEO at soonami
Online: Sep 10 VNTR Club AI Mastermind
Copenhagen: Sep 12 VNTR Investors Roundtable Copenhagen during Tech BBQ.
Miami: Sep 12 VNTR Investors Roundtable Miami during WebCongress
Dubai: Sep 12 VNTR Investors Roundtable Dubai during Dubai AI & Web3 Festival
Thank you to our Partners:
ICP is a general-purpose blockchain that hosts canister smart contracts. It is designed to provide a World Computer that can replace traditional IT and host a new generation of Web 3.0 services and applications that run solely from the blockchain, without the need for traditional IT.
The Stellar Enterprise Fund is a venture-style fund that expands the open-source Stellar network. We at the Stellar Development Foundation invest in companies transforming the future of everyday financial services through Web3 innovation. We are fierce advocates of blockchain technology potential.
Perfect is a Personal Lifestyle app that helps you Book your flights and hotels and manage your 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.
Upcoming VNTR Events:
Sep 26 VNTR Investors Roundtable Barcelona (European Blockchain Convention)
Oct 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable San Francisco (San Francisco Tech Week)
More events available on the VNTR Platform
Reach out to Lukas to sponsor VNTR events or join VNTR Corporate Partnership.
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and X.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
Aug 21-25 Gamescom, Cologne, Germany (Complimentary passes for VNTR members)
Aug 22-24 Coinfest, Bali, Indonesia (20% Discount using CA24VNTR)
Aug 28-29 WebX, Tokyo, Japan (20% Discount using discount_vntr)
Sep 9-11 IPEM Paris, France
Sep 11-12 Dubai AI & Web3 Festival, Dubai, UAE
Sep 11-12 TechBBQ, Copenhagen, Denmark
Sep 17-18 Asia PE-VC Summit, Singapore
Sep 17-19 Dreamforce, San Francisco, USA
Sep 18-19 Token2049, Singapore (15% Discount using VNTR15)
Sep 18-19 Principled Business New York Summit, NY, USA (30% Discount)
Sep 24-27 Super Return Asia, Singapore
Sep 25-27 South Summit, Seoul, Korea
Sep 29 - Oct 1 Bitz & Pretzels, Munich, Germany
Oct 1-3 CV Summit, Zug, Switzerland
Oct 2-3 Sifted Summit, London, UK
Oct 2-3 How to Web, Bucharest, Romania
Oct 4-5 Dext Force Festival, Barcelona, Spain (30% Discount)
Oct 7-13 San Francisco Tech Week, USA
Oct 8-12 Merge Madrid, Spain
Oct 13-16 Expand North Star, Dubai, UAE (Complimentary investor passes)
Oct 14-18 GITEX Global, Dubai, UAE (Complimentary investor passes)
Oct 14-20 Los Angeles Tech Week, USA
Oct 15-17 Meridian by Stellar, London, UK
Oct 21-27 Mexico Tech Week, Mexico City, Mexico
Oct 22-23 Blockchain Life, Dubai, UAE (10% Discount using VNTR)
Oct 28-29 SWITCH, Singapore
Oct 28-Nov 1 Hong Kong FinTech Week, Hong Kong
Nov 11-14 Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal
Nov 20-21 Slush, Helsinki, Finland
Dec 9-12 Abu Dhabi Finance Week, UAE
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
From Lauri Moore to Vic Singh, venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs
When Keith Rabois announced he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures in January, it came as a shock to many in the venture capital ecosystem — and not just because Rabois is a big name in the industry.
It was surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move around very much — especially those who reach the partner or general partner level as Rabois had.
VC funds have 10-year life cycles and partners have good reason to stay that course. In some instances, they may be a “key man” on a firm’s fund, meaning that if they leave, the fund’s LPs have the right to pull their capital out if they choose. Many partners and GPs also have some of their own money invested in their firms’ funds, which gives them further reason to stick around.
Most-Active US Investors In July: Andreessen Horowitz Led Cool Month
July was hot over most of the country, but apparently not at many venture firms. Only one firm — Andreessen Horowitz — hit double digits in the number of funding rounds for U.S.-based startups in the month. Big-named firms such as Khosla Ventures and New Enterprise Associates made only a couple of deals each, as no firm rolled up big numbers.
Is the AI frenzy over? Not so fast, but VCs predict a ‘tough’ consolidation period
The AI frenzy — which has seen VCs pour tens of billions into AI startups at often nosebleed valuations in the last couple of years — has seemingly created a bubble. And for some investors, seeing global chipmaker Nvidia’s stock — which soared well over 100% in the last year as its chips continue to be vital to the AI boom — plummet recently by more than 20% was vindicating.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Cybersecurity Leads With Kiteworks’ Nearly Half-Billion-Dollar Deal
This week definitely saw a slowdown in big rounds, with only three deals breaking the $100 million mark. However, healthcare and medical device makers did well. Perhaps announcements are slowing as summer is coming to a close, but the week certainly seemed to lack the big money of so many this year.
AI Unicorns Are Running Amok
A growing number of skeptics— including many on Wall Street — are getting increasingly nervous about the “AI” bubble. But that hasn’t stopped money from flowing into AI startups, according to a new State of the Markets report by Silicon Valley Bank. The report points out that “More AI companies are becoming unicorns,” and it is happening at earlier stages than non-AI companies, despite the downturn in venture capital investing.
The Most-Active US Series A And B Investors Made More Bets In H1 2024
Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures were the most-active U.S. investors leading Series A and B rounds globally in the first half of 2024. The three topped a list of 13 investors that made seven or more early-stage investments.
The Case For The Uncapped SAFE
Earlier this week, Peter Walker of Carta shared data on the use of different mechanisms in SAFEs issued for U.S. startups in 2024: 61% used a cap, 30% used a cap and a discount, 8% used only a discount, and 1% used neither. In response to the number of uncapped SAFEs, or a Simple Agreement for Future Equity, one investor replied, “That tells me at least 1/12 VC funds has no idea what it’s doing.” Such is the legacy of the uncapped SAFE, now synonymous with price bubbles, reckless fundraising and investors getting burned.
Private equity fund performance turns a corner
Private equity fund performance ended 2023 with positive momentum, a trajectory that is expected to continue into 2024 results as they become available. After a year of muted exit and M&A activity stifling private equity fund performance, global PE funds saw an uptick in return projections at the tail end of the year. Global PE funds’ one-year IRR—which estimates the profitability of unrealized investments—ended 2023 at 10.5%, up from 8.5% in Q3 2023, according to PitchBook’s Q4 2023 Global Fund Performance Report.
More Early-Stage Startups Are Getting Minted As Unicorns
Just as it looks like the pace of creating new unicorns is once again picking up, so is minting them in earlier stages of funding. Through July, 70 new unicorns — private companies valued at $1 billion or more — had been minted. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, 28 of those companies were granted their unicorn horn after an early-stage funding round — defined as seed, Series A or Series B — an analysis of Crunchbase data shows.
Private equity’s unlikely fundraising window
Alex Russ, head of North America for Evercore‘s private funds group, thinks now is an optimal time for GPs to be on the market with open funds because he’s noticed slightly fewer vehicles in competition for institutional capital. “We saw fewer new fundraise launches in 2024 than we did in, for example, 2022 and 2023, so you ended up with a slight easing, and we think it will continue into the second half of this year,” Russ said.
The state of startup creation in Europe
I recently came across a story in the Economist which described a startup boom happening in the US. Across the pond, people’s vim for entrepreneurship is on the up, with many new startups being created than half a decade ago. The average number of applications to form new businesses each month is also 80% higher than it was in the decade before Covid, the piece said.
AI Startup Deal-Making Gaining Momentum — Is That Good?
This has not been the year many in the deal-making industry were hoping for when it came to M&A activity, as deal flow remains tepid at best and investors search for liquidity. However, tech’s current darling — AI — may be offering hope with notable deals (as well as some “non-deals”) being made and more big-name startups being bandied about as targets for the warming acquisitive nature of Big Tech.
State of Private Markets: Q2 2024
In Q2 2024, the venture ecosystem showed modest signs of improvement, but not a drastic break, from Q1.
Based on current data, companies on Carta completed 1,287 new funding rounds in the second quarter of 2024, up 4% from Q1 2024. VCs invested a total of $20.9 billion in Q2, up 12% from Q1. Both of these figures will increase as more Q2 data is reported.
While Q1 experienced a record-high frequency of bridge rounds, there were fewer bridge rounds in Q2 at the Series A, B, and C stages. At the seed stage, the rate of bridge financings remained flat from Q1 at 41%.
Median pre-money valuations rose at all stages in Q2 except for Series A, where they held steady. The rate of down rounds across stages fell from 24.2% to 17.4%. These findings indicate that founders were in better positions to negotiate higher valuations for their companies this quarter.
The year got off to a slow start in Q1, but Q2’s positive movement along multiple metrics could mean that better days are coming for U.S.-based startups.
UK neobank Revolut valued at $45B after secondary market sale
Revolut has confirmed a new valuation of $45 billion via a secondary market share sale, shortly after the U.K.-based neobank secured its own banking license in the U.K. and Mexico.
The news positions Revolut as one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.
AI eats up 41% of US VC deal value, with help from Big Tech bucks
The VC market is increasingly defined by deals for AI companies, which captured a remarkable 41% of US VC deal value in the first half of 2024, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Driving much of the investment, though, are larger deals involving actors that aren’t traditional VC firms. AI and machine learning companies collected $38.6 billion of the $93.4 billion invested in US VC deals during that period, and the sector’s share of total US VC deal count increased to 26.8%.
Winning a gold medal is a lot like being a VC, according to Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner
Kristen Faulkner’s astonishing Olympic success of two gold medals stems from lessons learned from her former career as a venture capitalist. Faulkner was an associate investor at Threshold Ventures, and at Bessemer Venture Partners before that, leaving the VC world in 2021 to pursue cycling. She wasn’t initially scheduled to ride in the 158-kilometer (98-mile) road cycling race but took her teammate Taylor Knibb’s spot at the last minute. Faulkner passed the favorites to win gold that day. She won a second medal as part of the gold-winning U.S. women’s velodrome track cycling team.
Lucky 13: A Baker’s Dozen Join Unicorn List In July
New unicorn counts jumped in July, as 13 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board.
Nine of the new herd came from the U.S., while two healthcare companies joined from the U.K., a green energy company from China, and a bike taxi startup from India.
Four of the new unicorns this past month were under 3 years old at the time they were valued at or above $1 billion with one — a foundation model developer for robotics — launching out of stealth.
Healthcare/biotech companies took the lead with three companies that joined the board from this sector. Other industries each counted a single newly minted unicorn in July.
Appetite wanes for VC defense-tech deals
Venture capital investors are flocking to larger defense-tech deals while overall dealmaking for the year slows. Last week, Anduril—a California-based defense startup that supplies drone-related technology to the US military—closed one of 2024’s biggest defense-tech rounds, pulling in $1.5 billion from backers including Founders Fund and Sands Capital. The deal is the latest in a slew of defense-tech mega-rounds to have closed in recent months, but investor appetite for the sector, in general, appears to be waning.
Every PE connection to Europe’s top football clubs
More than a third—33 of 96—of European football clubs in the “Big Five” leagues this season have financial backing from private equity, venture capital or private debt firms. These investors, whose assets under management have ballooned in recent years, have pushed into the niche asset class at a time when many clubs are in financial straits due to lost revenues during the pandemic. Last year, dealmakers invested €4.9 billion (about $5.3 billion) in Europe’s five largest football leagues, up from just €66.7 million in 2018.
Ghost Chains to Goldmines: How to Create Web3 Products That People Want
The Web3 industry is currently stagnating when it comes to delivering products that people will actually use, rather than just another gambling tool. This is a point of agreement among many in the space. For months, the conversation has revolved around when funding will arrive for consumer applications. However, there’s no consensus on who is to blame. The finger-pointing has been directed at venture capitalists (VCs), project founders, other ecosystems, or the very infrastructure concept.
The Top Unicorns Are Still Raising at 23x ARR
So there’s a curious thing anyone close to venture capital fundraising and rounds is seeing today:
Valuations for Hot VC Deals remain far higher than pre-March 2020 … even though growth for the overall public SaaS and Cloud companies has slowed to … all time lows.
For the best of the best in SaaS and Cloud, yes ARR multiples in VC rounds are down 31% from their 2021 peak. But … they are still double where they were in 2018-2019. And just as high as 2020.
Stablecoins Can Make the World a Safer Place. Regulators Should Encourage Them
In 1974, German regulators liquidated Herstatt Bank because it was unable to settle its foreign exchange obligations. Time zone differences and a lack of global settlement technology led to its demise. In the aftermath of this and other bank failures, central bankers formed the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision that same year to set standards for bank capital, liquidity and funding.