VNTR Newsletter September 15, 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
Partner Concierge: Book flights, hotels, restaurants, and experiences, and manage your lifestyle with Perfect Mobile Concierge. Use the VNTR access code to unlock your VNTR discounts.
Singapore: We are hosting multiple events in Singapore during Token2049 Week (15% off using VNTR15):
Sep 18 XRLP Accelerator Scale Investors Mixer by VNTR in partnership with XRPL Accelerator
Sep 19 VNTR Investors Roundtable Singapore, powered by Camino. In partnership with Stellar Enterprise Fund, XRPL Accelerator, Internet Computer, Cointelegraph Acceleration, and Jugemu.
Sep 20 VNTR LP Roundtable Singapore in partnership with CV VC (Capital allocators and family offices gathering)
VNTR Club Luncheon will be hosted for Club members only.
VNTR Summit: Thank you to Stellar Enterprise Fund and StartUp Lisboa, who joined us as partners at VNTR Global Investors Summit in Lisbon on November 13. Contact Lukas to join as a sponsor or partner. VNTR Club members receive a complimentary VIP pass as part of their membership benefits. You can purchase an Early Bird investor pass today.
Don't miss out—create your investor account on VNTR today and secure your spot at this exclusive event.VNTR Podcast: Join us for our new episode featuring Asher Siddiqui, General Partner at Sukna Ventures, as we explore his venture capital journey, his leadership in major M&A deals, and his insights into the rapidly evolving startup landscape in emerging markets. Tune in on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple. Stay updated with our latest episodes, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred platform to never miss insightful discussions.
Coming 4 Weeks:
Cape Town: Sep 25 VNTR Investors Roundtable Cape Town.
Barcelona: Sep 25 VNTR Investors Roundtable during European Blockchain Conference.
Munich: Sep 30 VNTR Investors Roundtable during Bits & Pretzels.
Zug: Oct 2 Venture LP Roundtable Zug during CV Summit.
Toronto: Oct 2 VNTR Roundtable Toronto during Elevate Festival.
Online: Oct 8 VNTR Speed Networking powered by Airmeet
Madrid: Oct 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable Madrid during Merge Madrid
San Francisco: Oct 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable San Francisco during SF Tech Week.
Thank you to our Partners:
Camino Network is the Layer 1 blockchain built specifically for the travel industry. Operated by a consortium of industry leaders, Camino transforms the distribution landscape and solves connectivity challenges in the multi-trillion-dollar travel sector.
Stellar Entreprise Fund is 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 finantial services through Web3 Innovation. Stellar advocates for Blockchain Technology potential.
XRPL Accelerator Scale Program helps XRPL-integrated startups who’ve graduated from other funding programs, such as XRPL Accelerator Launch or XRPL Grants, scale their go-to-market efforts and secure venture capital. It provides targeted support for customer acquisition and growth strategies in key geographic markets.
Upcoming VNTR Events:
Oct 16 VNTR Investors Roundtable Los Angeles (Los Angeles Tech Week)
Oct 24 VNTR Investors Roundtable Mexico City (Mexico City Tech Week)
Oct 30 VNTR Investors Roundtable Hong Kong (HK FinTech Week)
Oct 31 VNTR Investors Roundtable Istanbul (Istanbul Tech Week)
Nov 1 VNTR Investors Roundtable Miami (Fort Lauderdale Boat Show)
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
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 25-26 European Blockchain Convention, Barcelona, Spain (15% Discount using 15VNTRCAPITAL)
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 4-7 WCIT 2024, Yerevan, Armenia (Investor Tour)
Oct 7-13 San Francisco Tech Week, USA
Oct 8-12 Merge Madrid, Spain
Oct 10-11 Zebu Live, London, UK (25% discount using VNTRCapital25)
Oct 13-16 Expand North Star, Dubai, UAE (25% discount using VNTRENS25, Complimentary investor passes)
Oct 14-18 GITEX Global, Dubai, UAE (25% discount using VNTRENS25, 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 7 The Venture Revolution, San Francisco, USA (50% discount using VNTR50)
Nov 11-12 WOW Summit Bangkok, Thailand
Nov 11-14 Web Summit, Lisbon, Portugal
Nov 20-21 Slush, Helsinki, Finland
Dec 4-7 CC Forum, Paris, France
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 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
The Unicorn Board Adds 8 New Companies, With One Newly Minted Entry Valued At $16B
Eight companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in August, with six based in the U.S., and two hailing from China and India, respectively. Among them was Huawei Technologies’ smart car subsidiary Yinwang Smart Technology, valued at $16 billion. That dollar amount represents the second-largest value for a newly minted unicorn this year — trailing only xAI, which was valued at $24 billion in May when it joined the board.
Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator to Double Number of Cohorts Per Year
Y Combinator, the startup-building school that has launched businesses ranging from Airbnb Inc. to Stripe Inc., is expanding to four cohorts a year from two — meaning that the accelerator will be in session almost the entire year.
Spring and fall cohorts are joining the traditional winter and summer cohorts, President Garry Tan confirmed in a message. The program lasts about 11 weeks, each capped with an investor “Demo Day” when the startups pitch top venture capital firms.
The Rise Of Fintech Families
In the world of startups, we often hear about startup mafias like the "PayPal Mafia" - the group of PayPal alumni who went on to found and lead some of the most influential companies of our time – think Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and more. Arguably, Silicon Valley was created as a result of another mafia: the “Fairchildren” – the group of founders that came out of Fairchild Semiconductor. According to the Computer History Museum, “Although the firm’s market valuation never exceeded $2.5 billion, its surviving combined progeny have been estimated to be worth over $2 trillion.”
Mega-funds attracted bulk of H1’s commitments
The world’s largest asset managers continue to attract the majority of investor dollars. In H1 2024, over half of total capital raised across private equity funds globally came from only 12 new mega-funds, or those valued over $5 billion, according to PitchBook’s Q2 2024 Global Private Market Fundraising Report. The largest products to close included Vista Equity Partners’ $20-billion-plus eighth flagship fund in April, and Silver Lake‘s $20.5 billion seventh namesake vehicle in May.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Another Big Week For Biotech And AI
Biotech and AI had another strong week, as the sectors saw two big nine-figure rounds each — including one for $370 million in biotech. However, there wasn’t much else that was big. That continues a trend we have seen since before Labor Day.
These Female Founders And CEOs Raised The Biggest Rounds In 2024
When measuring funding to startups with female founders and CEOs, the perennial takeaway is that women remain underrepresented. Last year, for instance, just 3% of U.S. funding went to startups with solely female founders.
Women-led companies appeared similarly underrepresented in the funding tallies, capturing less than 5% of investment, per preliminary Crunchbase tallies. The totals dip a bit further when narrowed to companies with both a female CEO and founder or co-founder.
Nonetheless, there are some prominent startups that fit this criteria. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to rank five of this year’s most heavily funded companies with a female CEO and founder.
A ‘Shark’ Explains Why Pakistan Has An Underfunded Startup Scene
As founder of Pakistani startup investment fund Zayn Venture Capital, Faisal Aftab has spent plenty of time grilling entrepreneurs. Never before, however, has he done it in front of an audience of millions. Aftab, who spoke to Crunchbase News via an oft-spotty hotel Wi-Fi connection, was in Karachi to begin filming the first episodes of “Shark Tank Pakistan.” There, he will join a panel of judges to vet pitches from a selection of camera-ready founders.
Mapping Israel’s Web3 Ecosystem: 100 Startups, $4.5 Billion In Funding
The Web3 ecosystem, a new paradigm for the internet that incorporates blockchain technology and decentralized applications, has seen explosive growth over the past decade. According to Crunchbase, venture capital funding in the Web3 space has reached $100 billion globally over the years, reflecting the immense interest and potential investors see in this emerging technology. The staggering investment figures underscore the promise of Web3 to revolutionize industries ranging from finance to gaming, with decentralization at its core.
India’s unicorns come under pressure as VC deal flow contracts
Venture capital dealmaking for India’s unicorns has slowed significantly, casting doubts over the future health of the country’s herd. The number of VC-backed companies valued at over $1 billion in India swelled significantly over the past decade, with just seven recorded in 2015 compared to 64 this year, according to PitchBook’s Q3 2024 Checking In on India’s Unicorns analyst note. The country now stands only behind the US and China for the total number of unicorns but the growth rate of the herd has plateaued.
The most active early-stage investors in the Nordics
The Nordics is usually thought of as the home of large climate tech scaleups like H2 Green Steel and Northvolt. The two giants combined raised €9bn in January of this year — a huge portion of the €11.5bn in equity and debt funding raised by startups in the region in the first seven months of 2024. But all startups have to start up somewhere. In the same period, early-stage startups in the Nordics raised €446m, according to Sifted data. Climate tech is the most popular vertical at early stage, with more than €270m invested.
Is MENA’s private equity market losing momentum?
The Middle East and North Africa region has seen an influx of private equity investment in recent years as investors seek a foothold in the growing market. However, 2024 is off to a slow start as investors take a cautious approach amid volatile oil prices and geopolitical tension. In the first six months of 2024, there was $5.9 billion of PE investment in MENA, equivalent to around 38% of the total deal value in 2023, according to the H1 2024 MENA Private Capital Breakdown.
VCs Pour More Money Into Self-Pay Healthcare — Consumers Aren’t Celebrating
American consumers are used to products and services getting better. From coffee to car mileage to smartphones, it’s common for the things we consume to get more appealing, efficient and easy to use over time. One area where this has not occurred, however, is health coverage. Every year, we pay more for health insurance, receive more bills we don’t understand, and shoulder a higher burden of out-of-pocket expenses.
Can The Perks Of Early-Stage VC Make A Difference To Founders?
It is widely known that getting the right investors at the right time can be vital to a startup’s success. This truth is always top of mind for founders who are raising venture capital. While it’s somewhat standard practice to get an idea off the ground with friends and family, then angel investors, things get more complex as startups approach their early stages and begin raising successive rounds. Having investors that provide tangible support beyond money — at just the right points along a startup’s trajectory — can be vital to scaling up past even its expectations.
What’s driving PE’s asset growth? These days, it’s credit.
The titans of private equity are gradually looking more like lending entities. These asset managers, most of which were founded on the soil of leveraged buyouts, increasingly tie their asset growth to credit investments. The trend is evident in their recent deployment record, as documented in PitchBook’s latest US Public PE and GP Deal Roundup.
Why is China Experiencing a Decrease in Venture Capital?
For many years, China has been seen as an economic powerhouse with a special emphasis on the country’s suitability for entrepreneurs and young businesses.
China was an excellent location for startups, providing access to a large market, a big pool of skilled employees and governmental regulations that were favourable for new businesses.
However, the situation has changed China was one of the up-and-coming startup capitals of the world.
Hardware companies dominate a list of promising climate tech startups
What will it take for a startup to make a dent in climate change? The most promising candidates tend to be hardware startups that have spent years developing and proving their technologies, according to a new report. Oh, and it helps to specialize in energy or raw materials. The report, published by Congruent Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank, surveyed over 50 experts in academia, finance and private sector businesses to assemble a list that was then whittled down to 50 North American companies in four categories: agriculture and food; energy, buildings, and mobility; manufacturing; and materials.
The year of the small institution
It turns out the competitive edge of smaller institutions is more widespread than I thought when I wrote about a single university endowment that outperformed the Ivy League. In a Commonfund survey of 291 private and community foundations, private foundations with assets over $500 million reported annual average returns of 10% for fiscal year 2023, while smaller private foundations posted higher results.
SoftBank’s 11 European investments since the start of 2023
SoftBank has made no secret about its big bet on AI in recent times. The Japanese investor giant has said it could commit more than $9bn a year to deals in the space globally — and in Europe alone in 2024 has pumped upwards of $1bn into companies developing the tech. SoftBank was an early backer of Yahoo, saw a 3000% return on an investment into Chinese company Alibaba and launched the world’s largest tech fund — its $100bn Vision Fund — in 2017. Seven years on and it’s deployed more than $50bn from its Vision Fund II, which it launched in 2019.
Tokenization of Real World Assets
The creation of a digital representation of assets via blockchain-based tokens is growing. In today’s issue, Herwig Konings from Security Token Market examines the growth of this industry and why tokenization matters. In Ask an Expert, Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, answers questions about why investors are looking at these assets in the current market.
SoftBank reveals the European AI startups it’s got its eyes on
The most scarce resource in tech today is AI talent — and it's one of the key reasons that valuations at Europe’s crop of emerging AI starlets are so high, says SoftBank’s managing partner of Europe, the Middle East and India, Sumer Juneja. “When you find a few people who are real AI scientists who really want to build true AI — that is a scarce resource,” he tells Sifted. “If someone says ‘why are AI valuations so high’, I’m like ‘it’s hype, sure’, but putting together an A+ AI team is very rare.”
Investment, R&D & the US-EU comparison
In Europe this week, everyone is talking about a major report on competitiveness published under the leadership of Mario Draghi the legendary former ECB President and Prime Minister of Italy. The reports - Part A with the general argument and Part B with the more technical sectoral arguments - are fascinating and dense reading. In this newsletter I am excerpting some of the more striking graphs, focusing only on the questions of investment and R&D and specifically in comparison with the USA. There is much more to say about China and the many sectoral analyses in Part B.
Altcoins need ‘substantial bull market’ to avoid VC funding drought
The altcoin market needs to see a significant rally if crypto projects want to continue receiving a healthy amount of venture capital funding, according to a crypto analyst. Unless altcoins see a “substantial bull market,” fewer crypto projects will be funded, leading to lower valuations across the altcoin market, Reflexivity Research co-founder Will Clemente said in a Sept. 12 X post.
Illiquidity is a feature, not a bug
It’s hard not to be romantic about venture capital (to paraphrase Billy Beane from Moneyball). Investors love the image of the wizened VC unearthing two entrepreneurs working on the next big thing in their Palo Alto garage, providing seed capital and sage advice before culminating in the obligatory opening bell photo at the NYSE.
Core to this VC lore is the concept of the power law. It is well understood that most companies fail, and that most returns come from a small number of companies. In fact, the power law itself has taken on mythical status within the industry.
One could go so far as to argue that the whole framing of the VC industry is now based on the power law. The power law’s perceived uniqueness to venture capital is projected onto allocators. VCs hold an idealized view of the industry as a “special” institutional asset class where a small number of winners drive all returns.
The Rise of Venture Capital in Healthcare
Venture capital is playing a big role in the healthcare industry. By giving money and advice to new and promising companies, venture capitalists (VCs) are helping to bring new ideas to life. This support helps improve patient care, speed up research, and make healthcare better overall. With their money and knowledge, VCs are helping healthcare entrepreneurs turn their dreams into real solutions.