VNTR Newsletter September 8, 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
VNTR Summit Speakers: We are excited to welcome our latest speakers at the upcoming VNTR Summit in Lisbon:
Stephan de Moraes, Co-Founder and Managing General Partner at Indico Capital Partners. Unicorn Investments: Farfetch,Talkdesk, OutSystems, Feedzai, Remote, Unbabel, Sensei
Daniel A. Casanas, Head of Investments at Stellar Development Foundation Fund. Notable Investments: Abra, Bitt, NetXD, Trace Finance, Airtm, Afriex.
Gaurav Dubey, CEO at TDeFi, founder at ITH Technologies. Notable Investments: Coti, Biconomy, Vulcan Forged, Gari.
Apply to speak. We invite top-tier VCs and capital allocators to share their valuable knowledge and insights with hundreds of attending investors.
VNTR Summit Passes: Join us at VNTR Summit in Lisbon on November 13, 2024. 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. Interested in enhancing your brand's visibility? You can also apply to sponsor or contact Lukas to discuss sponsorship opportunities.VNTR Podcast: We are interviewing top-tier VCs and capital allocators for the VNTR Podcast, and we invite you to be part of the show! To schedule your interview, please get in touch with Elise to arrange the recording. Stay updated with our latest episodes, and don’t forget to subscribe on your preferred platform to never miss insightful discussions.
SportsTech Report: Check out Pulsar's The European Sportstech & Esports Report 2024, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the European sports tech ecosystem. It explores key trends in sports technology, investment landscapes, and rapidly advancing technologies. Use the VNTR Promo code to get a 30% discount for the full report.
Coming 4 Weeks:
Online: Sep 10 VNTR Deals introduction session showcases 3 startups in FoodTech, Logistics, and PropTech.
Online: Sep 10 VNTR Club AI Mastermind led by Neville Teagarden, Managing Partner at AI Capital, VNTR Club member.
London: Sep 10 VNTR LP Roundtable with CV VC where capital allocators meet to learn about new trends.
Copenhagen: Sep 12 VNTR Investors Roundtable Copenhagen during Tech BBQ (25% discount for VNTR)
Dubai: Sep 12 VNTR Investors Roundtable Dubai during Dubai AI & Web3 Festival (complimentary investor passes). Thank you, In5 Tech, for hosting us. Keynote Speaker Zulfiquar Ghadiyali, Managing Director at Private office of Sheikh Tahnoon bin Saeed bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan.
Singapore: We are hosting multiple events during Token2049 (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, XRPL Accelerator, ICP, Cointelegraph Accelerator and Token2049.
Sep 20 VNTR LP Roundtable Singapore (Capital allocators and family offices)
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.
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.
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:
Oct 9 VNTR Investors Roundtable San Francisco (San Francisco Tech Week)
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)
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 9-11 IPEM Paris, France
Sep 11-12 Dubai AI & Web3 Festival, Dubai, UAE (complimentary investor passes)
Sep 11-12 TechBBQ, Copenhagen, Denmark (25% Discount)
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
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 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 IPO Market Will End 2024 On A Low Note
In busier years for tech IPOs, the week after Labor Day is a brisk period for roadshows by companies looking to make an autumn market debut. This year, however, isn’t playing out that way. None of the hot venture-backed tech companies seen as likely IPO prospects filed to go public in August. And while there’s still time to file and go public before the end of the year, there’s little indication of an appetite to do so.
Venture Firms Take A Break In August With Lowest Monthly Funding In 2024
Global venture funding slowed last month, reaching $18 billion — the lowest monthly funding so far in 2024, Crunchbase data shows. Funding was down month over month by 36% and year over year by 23% from $23.7 billion in August 2023. Through July this year, monthly funding totals were each above $20 billion. However, in 2023 global funding dipped below that amount in February, July and December. In this market, funding dips have been cyclical and not an indication of a slower market slowing further. In fact, Q2 was up year over year driven by mega rounds of $100 million and more, with some active investors increasing their pace.
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: Safe Superintelligence Leads With Massive $1B Raise
Investors seemed to be still hungover from the long holiday weekend, as big rounds rolled in slow for the week. Only three topped $100 million. However, the week did see a massive $1 billion raise for — what else? — an AI company.
How to Invest in Crypto and Build Wealth
Discover the secrets to building wealth with crypto with Cyrus Fazel, CEO and Co-founder at SwissBorg, a crypto wealth management platform.
AI craze is distorting VC market, as tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon pour in billions of dollars
Almost three years into a largely dormant IPO cycle, venture capitalists are in a tough spot.
The private market is dotted with richly valued artificial intelligence startups, including some that are described as generational companies. But venture firms in need of exits aren’t going to get relief from AI anytime soon.
That’s because, unlike prior tech booms, VCs aren’t at the center of this one. Rather, the biggest companies in the industry — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Nvidia — have been pouring in billions of dollars to fuel the growth of capital-intensive companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI and CoreWeave.
How YC Was Created With Jessica Livingston
Familiar with the lore of Y Combinator? Then you'll know Jessica Livingston - one of the original co-founders who started YC back in 2005. On a recent visit to our SF headquarters she shared with the Lightcone hosts the stories and decisions of the early days that would form the foundations of YC as we know it today.
What’s behind the rise in secondaries — and how could it affect founders?
Secondaries have been around for a long time — but we’ve recently seen the market take off. “In the last couple of years, we saw a secondary component to almost every mid to late stage fundraise,” says Mike Turner, London partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, adding that more recently, the financing form has even snuck its way into the negotiations of early-stage startups and VCs in search of some liquidity.
The 10 Biggest Rounds Of August: Anduril And Groq Lead Hot Month
It was another big month for megadeals. You had to raise more than $150 million to make the top 10 list this month — as investors put money into everything from defense tech to semiconductors to biotech.
Startup M&A activity is holding firm in 2024
For the past two years, the rate of mergers and acquisitions targeting startups on Carta has mostly held steady. In each of the past eight quarters, total M&A deal count has landed somewhere between 127 and 158. Within the past year, the overall trend has been a slight rise: M&A deal activity on Carta increased by 10% in Q4 2023 compared to the prior quarter, by another 5% in Q1 2024, and then by another 4% in Q2, which saw 158 M&A transactions—the fourth-highest quarterly count since the start of 2019.
AI’s Big Day — Startup Safe Superintelligence Raises $1B At Reported $5B Valuation
Artificial intelligence research lab Safe Superintelligence raised $1 billion from a litany of big-name investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. The round valued the Palo Alto, California-based company at $5 billion, per Reuters, which first reported the round. SSI, co-founded by OpenAI‘s former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, is looking to develop safe artificial intelligence systems — something that has been in the news a lot recently as fears increase of AI tech being harmful to humans and society.
Here’s who’s investing the most in deeptech so far in 2024
Investors are being wooed by the promise of cutting-edge technology and science — and they’ve put billions behind so-called deeptech startups this year, working on everything from robots and drones to new materials and quantum computing. Investors wrote €6.5bn worth of cheques for 488 deeptech deals so far in 2024, according to Sifted data (which excludes climate and healthtech startups).
How to index venture capital
It is often said that the private markets are an access class, not an asset class. The power law dynamics ensure that venture is the most “clubby” of all the private markets. You’re either an early stage investor in Databricks / Uber / Rippling or you’re not. The top decile of VCs deliver IRRs of 35%+ (see Figure 1). But most do not. And you can’t eat IRR. 50% of VCs deliver DPI of <1.0x.
Paul Graham is right: Startups in ‘founder mode’ do have a competitive edge
Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham set the venture world abuzz this week with a blog post about the virtues of running a startup in “founder mode” instead of in “manager mode.” Operating in founder mode means hewing to a startup founder’s mindset and management style. It’s about bypassing rigid organizational structures and encouraging close collaboration across department levels. By contrast, startups in “manager mode” bring in competent, experienced managers to run teams with minimal interference.
Despite a slow start, investors are optimistic about recent VC fund vintages
New fund vintages rarely perform well in their first years of existence. But funds from 2021 and 2022 are trailing behind other recent vintages at the same point.
Carta analyzed more than 1,800 venture capital funds that closed from 2017 to 2022 for the inaugural version of our Q1 2024 VC Fund Performance report, offering industry benchmarks for three of the most closely watched performance metrics: IRR, TVPI, and DPI. Among this sample, there’s a clear age-related trend. The older the vintage, the higher the median IRR.
AI Gobbled A Record Share Of Startup Funding This Year
Venture funding today is way down from the record heights reached three years ago. But the comparison would be far starker, of course, were it not for artificial intelligence. So far this year, 35% of U.S. startup investment has gone to AI-related companies, per Crunchbase data. That appears to be the highest percentage on record, besting even 2023, when OpenAI secured its $10 billion Microsoft-backed financing.
Crypto venture capital funding surges to $633M in August rebound
Crypto venture capitalist (VC) funding had a resurgence in August despite the summer illiquidity in the wider crypto markets.
Crypto VC funding rose to $633 million in August, up over 15% from $550 million in July, according to DefiLlama data.
Andreessen Horowitz shutters its Miami office after two years
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has closed a satellite office in Miami Beach just two years into a five-year lease it signed for an 8,300-square-foot space. The reason? Disuse, reports Bloomberg. Miami — once a hotspot for crypto, an area of interest for a16z — has struggled to retain venture cash and entrepreneurial talent in recent years, Bloomberg notes, with venture investments dwindling to $400 million in Q2 2024 from $5.5 billion in all of 2022, per Pitchbook.
Private equity’s enduring fee structure
In an industry that endures constant change, private equity managers are unwavering when it comes to their fee structures. Over the past seven vintage years, the fees they charge their LPs to cover operational expenses at the portfolio company level have seen minimal change, unlike the reductions that some industry participants expected.
OpenAI wants to join the $100B club. History shows it’s not a smooth road.
OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Thrive Capital to raise billions at a valuation few companies have ever come close to: $103 billion. If the valuation comes to fruition, it will be the fifth VC deal ever, and second for any US company, to break the $100 billion post-money valuation threshold, according to a PitchBook analysis. But history has shown that such ambitious price tags can be hard to defend.
Biotech’s top 10 most active VC investors
The nascent application of AI in biotech and drug discovery is helping fuel a surge in valuations of venture-backed biopharma startups. AI could streamline the cumbersome process of shepherding new drugs to market through clinical trials and FDA approval. Hefty new fund launches aim to ensure capital will support top startups, and operators are paying attention to up-and-coming AI applications. VC firms have been signing big checks to companies fusing machine learning with biotech research.
Telegram Is Driving Crypto Adoption, Despite Bad News
Telegram’s long-standing ethos of openness and free speech, hence the paper plane as its logo, has landed the messaging platform and CEO Pavel Durov in legal trouble. Yet, it’s important to remember that the global digital freedom Telegram enables has now also boosted real crypto adoption. Blink if you’ve missed it, but Web3 – the idea that users can have digital ownership powered by cryptography, blockchain and digital assets – is happening on Telegram, and in a major way. Web3 is now available on anyone’s smartphone. It’s a hugely positive development somewhat ignored by all the recent, mostly negative, news surrounding Telegram.
Bitcoin and Gold, Stores of Value
In today’s issue, Ilan Solot from Marex Solutions examines gold and bitcoin’s role as stores of value assets and how this role changes over time. Then, DJ Windle from Windle Wealth explains how bitcoin and gold are both stores of value and the differences between each asset in Ask an Expert.