VNTR Newsletter Nov 10, 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 to discover VNTR Community News, Upcoming Events, and the latest VC News and Reads.
VNTR COMMUNITY NEWS
Spotlight
VNTR Sponsors: Thank you, our summit sponsors:
Title Sponsor — Hivello — With just a few clicks on the Hivello app, users can effortlessly participate in multiple DePIN networks. This seamless process empowers users to generate passive income by leveraging their idle computers. For partnership opportunities and to learn more, contact Domenic Carosa directly.
Platinum Sponsor — Stellar Enterprise Fund — a venture-style fund that expands the open-source Stellar Network. At the Stellar Development Fund, investment in companies can transform the future of everyday financial services through Web3 Innovation.
Gold Sponsor — Perfect — Your Personal Lifestyle app that helps you Book 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 access to VNTR experiences.
We have a few last spots to join as a Sponsor. Contact Elise if you would like to join.
VNTR Global Investor Summit on Nov 13 in Lisbon: In just three days, we are hosting the main event of the year: the VNTR Global Investor Summit in Lisbon, bringing together over 200 investors and featuring 30+ speakers. Get your complimentary Investor General Pass on VNTR or upgrade to a VIP Investor Pass, which includes:
Access to VNTR Club Retreat in Sintra on Nov 14
All-day VIP lounge access
VIP-level matchmaking and introduction services
Book your travel and lifestyle experiences in Lisbon using Perfect (active using VNTR code).
VNTR Summit Roundtables on Nov 13: We are hosting six engaging Roundtables, allowing you to share insights, gain valuable knowledge, and connect with industry peers.
VNTR LP Roundtable (for active capital allocators and limited partners in VC funds)
VNTR Fund of Funds: We are seeking a distinguished Managing Partner to join our team and lead our Fund of Funds, which is dedicated to deploying capital into top-tier VC funds within our global network. If you’re interested in joining the VNTR Fund of Funds team, please reach out to Yuri to discuss how you can contribute and get involved.
New Positions at VNTR: We are expanding our global team with the mission to create the world’s largest VC investor community, club, syndicate, and marketplace:
Head of Sponsorships (Europe)
Marketing Manager (Europe)
Intern (Portugal)
Chapter Directors (Top Tech Hubs, our target is 50+ chapters by the end of 2025)
South East Asia Event Manager (located in Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia)
Coming 2 Months:
Cascais: Nov 11 VNTR Chapter Directors Summit (active VNTR Chapter directors and Venture Partners united, 2025 planning sessions)
Lisbon: Nov 13 VNTR Global Investor Summit.
Sintra: Nov 14 VNTR Club Retreat Sintra (VIP passes, VNTR Club members and speakers)
Bangkok: Nov 14 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Devcon (Sponsorship packages)
Houston: Nov 20 VNTR Investor Breakfast
Helsinki: Nov 21 VNTR Investor Roundtable during SLUSH
Tel-Aviv: Nov 25 VNTR Investor Roundtable
London: Nov 28 VNTR investor Luncheon
Munich: Dec 4 VNTR Investor Roundtable during ISPO Munich
Miami: Dec 6 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Art Basel (Sponsorship packages)
Abu Dhabi: Sponsorship packages
Manama: Jan 15 VNTR Investor Roundtable Bahrain (part of VNTR GCC Roadshow)
Davos: during World Economic Forum, Sponsorship packages
Upcoming VNTR Events:
More events available on the VNTR Platform
Contact Elise to sponsor VNTR events or join the VNTR Annual Corporate Partnership.
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and X.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
Nov 11-12 ABC Conclave, Bangkok, Thailand (limited complimentary tickets using VNTR)
Nov 11-12 WOW Summit Bangkok, Thailand (limited complimentary tickets using WOWOWVNTR)
Nov 11-14 Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal
Nov 11-13 SALT iConnections Asia, Singapore
Nov 12-15 Devcon, Bangkok, Thailand
Nov 20-21 Slush, Helsinki, Finland
Dec 3-5 ISPO Munich, Germany
Dec 4-7 CC Forum, Paris, France (VNTR100EXEC complimentary General Admission pass, VNTR20VIP for 20% discount code for a VIP pass)
Dec 9-12 Abu Dhabi Finance Week, UAE
Dec 10-11 World AI Summit, Doha, Qatar
If you would like to submit VC-related events, please get in touch with Yuri or Telegram @byuric
VC Reads and News
View curated VC news and articles on the VNTR Platform
Most-Active US Investors In October: Andreessen Horowitz Takes Top Spot Again
October turned out to be a pretty busy month for many of the big names in venture and was led again by Andreessen Horowitz.
Other investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst followed closely, all investing in 11 or more rounds involving U.S.-based companies.
Interestingly, none of those firms took part in the big round of the month — OpenAI’s massive $6.6 billion raise — but they all clearly found a lot of other deals to their liking.
What Trump’s victory could mean for AI regulation
A grueling election cycle has come to a close. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the U.S., and, with Republicans in control of the Senate — and possibly the House — his allies are poised to bring sea change to the highest levels of government.
The effects will be acutely felt in the AI industry, which has largely rallied against federal policymaking. Trump has repeatedly said he plans to dismantle Biden’s AI policy framework on “day one” and has aligned himself with kingmakers who’ve sharply criticized all but the lightest-touch regulations.
Fewer Small And Midsize Venture Funds Are Closing This Year
By many measures, the current fundraising environment looks challenging for smaller startup investors. That’s reflected in the tally of new funds.
So far in 2024, just 118 small and midsized U.S. startup investors have raised new funds of $500 million or less, per Crunchbase data. That puts this year on pace to deliver by far the fewest new funds in the category in years, as charted below.
Coatue is raising $1B for AI bets
Coatue Management, a hedge fund that invested heavily in tech startups during the pandemic-infused boom, is raising $1 billion to back AI-focused companies, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The funding, which will top up the firm’s flagship fund, will be raised primarily from institutional investors. However, high-net-worth individuals with accounts at the brokerage Raymond James & Associates could also invest in Coatue, per the report.
Crypto Prices Jump, Will Funding Follow?
Crypto enthusiasts rejoiced Wednesday as former President Donald Trump seemed certain to reclaim the White House — and likely bring much more crypto-friendly policies to the federal government.
Prices of the two most popular cryptocurrencies soared, with Bitcoin jumping about 7% and flirting with $75,000 by midday and Ether climbing 9% to about $2,650.
Large public companies specializing in crypto also saw a nice bump, with shares of Coinbase popping 24% in midday trading.
The Week’s Biggest Funding Rounds: Slow Week Produces Small Venture Rounds
Regular readers know this is usually a top 10 list of the biggest rounds of the week. However, this week is a little different — mainly because of the election.
Very few companies announced funding rounds this week, and the ones that did were on the smaller side — obviously aside from Physical Intelligence’s massive one. Many startups clearly didn’t want their funding news overshadowed by a presidential election. So instead of running a list of 10, we’re going with a top five.
Funding for decentralized AI startups triples to $436M
Driven by a demand for faster and more secure computing resources, investors are turning to decentralized AI startups as a novel solution. These companies, which use infrastructure like blockchain and cryptography to handle AI workloads, have seen a rapid rise in VC funding.
Decentralized AI startups have raised more money this year than the previous three years combined, according to PitchBook data. Investors have deployed $436 million this year, a nearly 200% increase from 2023.
M&A Startup Deal Activity Dips Slightly In Q3
Even as more venture capitalists search for liquidity to show their limited partners real returns, M&A dealmaking involving startups dipped slightly quarter to quarter in Q3.
In Q3, there were 479 M&A deals globally for VC-backed startups, per Crunchbase data. That’s a very small drop from the 500 deals consummated in Q2 — but it does break the two-quarter streak of growing M&A startup deals.
European AI enjoys a surge of VC mega-rounds
The number of venture capital rounds involving European startups in the artificial intelligence and machine learning vertical is on track to beat last year’s total, driven by an increase in mega-rounds.
Last year, AI saw its first dip in VC investment in a decade with €11.4 billion ($12 billion) invested compared to 2022’s €16.4 billion peak, according to PitchBook data.
The S&P 500 Makes Up 51% of Global Stock Market Value
As of the end of 2023, companies listed in the U.S. accounted for 59% of global stock market value. Most of this value is in the S&P 500 index, which consists of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the country.
Nearly all of the world’s trillion-dollar companies belong in the S&P 500: Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta (also known as the Magnificent Seven)
Monetary Premium & Investment: Europe & US Divergence
A major area of discrepancy between Europe and the US is the amount and the way investments happen. From the corporate level to households, investment decisions are made differently thanks to several structural reasons.
The amount of money saved is quite similar across the OECD—of course, with richer countries generally saving more. A difference though is that household savings in the US are funneled not towards true savings vehicles, but rather investments, with a heavy bias towards the home market. In contrast, the adage of old ladies saving cash under their mattresses is real in parts of Europe. The economic consequences are palpable for investors.
How Startups Stopped Being Fun
Some of the most famous startup success stories feature companies adept at being both serious and ridiculous.
Take two of the four most-valuable American companies: Apple and Google. The first named itself after a fruit and pioneered personal computing. The second picked the silliest-sounding number and revolutionized online search.
Scores of others have also at some time secured large-cap valuations with offbeat names and branding strategies. Yahoo launched the search engine race with a “Chief Yahoo” as CEO. Lyft drivers once adorned their cars with pink mustaches. And Twitter (now X), embraced silly from the start.
VC funding for European femtech reaches record heights
European startups in the femtech vertical pulled in a record amount of venture capital funding this year as improved awareness around women’s health fuels growth.
Around €339.4 million (around $366.3 million) has been invested across 47 femtech deals so far this year, according to PitchBook data, beating 2021’s previous peak of €325 million with almost two months still left in the year.
Institutions are betting big on RWAs and expecting large returns
The tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) is emerging as a prominent trend, drawing substantial institutional interest and investment.
This movement has fueled forecasts of explosive growth in the RWA sector, with estimates ranging from $4 trillion to $30 trillion in market size by 2030.
As reported by Cointelegraph, research by Tren Finance suggests that the RWA tokenization sector could see 50x growth by 2030.
Major players like BlackRock and Boston Consulting Group are placing serious bets on this market, recognizing its potential to revolutionize how assets are traded, owned and invested.
What Trump’s second presidency could mean for European defence tech startups
Donald Trump has secured his second term as US president. That means a lot of things, for a lot of people — including European defence tech startups, think VCs.
“If Trump comes out far more anti-NATO than he was in his previous term, I think that would be quite impactful because the US is the majority of NATO’s budget,” Michael Jackson, a Paris-based deeptech investor, tells Sifted.
“Hopefully European [ministries of defence] set new procurement regulations to encourage more contracts” to European startups, Jackson says, but a Trump presidency “might also mean fewer contracts to non-US companies in the defence space as US policy becomes more protectionist”. Many European defence tech startups currently have government contracts with the US.
Technology leads the M&A recovery charge
Now that the US election is decided, M&A activity is expected to accelerate—and technology is leading the pack. The sector led a deal recovery in Q3 as interest rates eased and tech stocks rallied.
The total quarterly value of global tech M&A deals rose to $220.6 billion, marking a roughly 60% jump from Q3 last year, according to PitchBook’s Q3 2024 Global M&A Report.
This boosted the three-quarter total—including deals reported late and those with undisclosed values—to an estimated $613.4 billion, a nearly 62% surge from the same period in 2023.
Patterns of successful startups
The last few episodes were centered around a hybrid approach to startup screening where we combine deterministic, rule-based systems with ML-based approaches. While deterministic logic gets infused by human biases and the perceived importance of different selection criteria, the ML-based approach derives the screening criteria weights directly from the data. Combining both approaches is, in short, a two-way street that unifies the benefits (objective, less biased, more inclusive, efficient, effective etc.) of both individual approaches and avoids their respective drawbacks (mirroring the past into the future, limited sample size etc.)
To better understand both concepts and explore the patterns behind successful companies, I will first look at the deterministic approach through a more academic lens (in order to remove my own biases) before then drawing insights from ML-based screening models.
AI, Data Center And Energy Startups Get Large Capital Infusion In October
Global venture capital funding in October reached $32 billion, marking the highest month for startup investment so far in 2024.
The surge was driven by large funds leading supergiant rounds in capital-intensive businesses in areas such as artificial intelligence, data centers and energy.
The Fed Is Set to Cut Rates, Boosting the Outlook for Crypto
The federal funds rate is headed even lower.
Yesterday saw a huge shift for the investing landscape. Donald Trump was elected president of the United States for a second time. Wall Street responded to the news with a broad-based rally in risk assets. The major indexes, like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, and crypto currencies rocketed higher as a result.
Buyout deals pick up in Europe’s consumer goods sector
The total value of private equity buyouts in Europe’s consumer sector goods has reached €15 billion (about $16.1 billion) as of Wednesday, surpassing 2023’s total.
Acquisitions in the sector were buoyed by lower interest rates; however, the market looks increasingly bifurcated, with more capital chasing premium assets at strong multiples.
While deal value has surpassed 2023’s €13.4 billion total, total deal count is lagging, sitting at its lowest level in five years, according to PitchBook data.
Intense Competition — Not Technology — Will Fuel Blockchain's Rise to Dominance
Like the internet itself, decentralized networks aren't always the most efficient tools for some tasks. However, the open, permissionless nature of these networks creates intense competition that often serves customers better than technical efficiency alone, says EY’s Paul Brody.
Finance is full of misconceptions. TradFi isn’t, for example, very centralized. The global banking system is incredibly decentralized, with all different kinds of national and regional authorities and entities tying it together.
Another myth is that old technology is costly and causing people to not have access to banking services. This isn’t true either. Often, high prices or low levels of access can be traced back to cumbersome regulations or a lack of competition. Mainframe transaction processing is cheap and efficient and those “legacy” mainframes are mostly just a few years old, even if the code they’re running contains elements written decades ago.
The Building Blocks of Generative AI
For almost a decade, my deep interest in conversational AI has motivated me to explore its potential in boosting productivity and addressing business challenges. I co-founded Humin, a conversational AI CRM, which was later acquired by Tinder. Additionally, I led technology partnerships at Snaps, a customer service conversational AI platform that got acquired by Quiq.
I've been an advocate for conversational AI interfaces and I’ve written about chatbots, conversational commerce, and the future of conversational search. What excites me now is the remarkable progress of Generative AI. It’s already transformed writing, coding, content creation, and holds great promise in fields like healthcare, science, and law.