VNTR October 20 Newsletter - – 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 Global Investor Summit on Nov 13 in Lisbon: In just 3 weeks, we’ll host our biggest global event of the year in Lisbon, bringing together 200+ investors. The VNTR Summit features keynotes, panels, and roundtables on ClimateTech, AI, Blockchain, Women in VC, Impact Investments, Investments in Portugal, and more. Approved attendees can join GP/LP and CVC roundtables, pre-scheduled meetings, and curated matchmaking. Don’t miss the top investor event of the year! Secure your complimentary General Pass on VNTR or Purchase a VIP Investor Pass, including VNTR Club Retreat Sintra, access to VIP lounge programming, LP Roundtable, CVC Roundtable, VIP matchmaking, and introduction service.
Speak at VNTR Summit: We are recruiting speakers and panelists to join our programming. Apply as a speaker here. We're excited to announce the addition of more speakers to the VNTR Summit:
Nelson Luciano, Key Leader in Startups, Cloud Natives and Venture Capital at Google.
Max Studennikoff, Founder and Chairman at CC Forum in Sustainable Development.
Bryan Talebi, Founder and CEO at Ahura AI.
Sponsor VNTR Summit: Sponsorships are available for companies seeking to engage with investors, portfolio companies, and high-net-worth individuals. Boost your brand and connect with key decision-makers. Apply today or contact Elise for details.
VNTR Summit partner side events:
Nov 11 VNTR Chapter Directors Summit (Chapter Directors and Venture Partners)
Nov 14 VNTR Club Retreat Sintra (VNTR Club members, speakers, and VIP pass holders)
VNTR Podcast: We hosted Neville Teagarden, Managing Partner at AI Capital, a VC firm focused on early growth stage AI enterprise software companies. He shares his journey from data management to investing, insights on raising a VC fund, finding great deals, early AI use cases, and trends in Colorado’s tech ecosystem. Tune in on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Stay updated with our latest episodes, and subscribe on your preferred platform to never miss insightful discussions.
GCC VC Report: Download Mapping of the GCC Investment Landscape report
Global Entrepreneurs Summit and Expo Dubai: we partnered with SVOI to host a VC panel discussion at GESE 2024. Contact Elise to join as a speaker or get a complimentary investor pass.
Coming 4 Weeks:
Mexico City: Oct 22 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Mexico City Tech Week
Toronto: Oct 23 VNTR Investor Breakfast
Hong Kong: Oct 30 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Hong Kong FinTech Week.
Istanbul: Oct 31 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Istanbul Tech Week
Miami: Nov 1 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show
Vienna: Nov 5 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Invest Austria
Singapore: Nov 7 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Singapore Fintech Festival
Madrid: Nov 7 VNTR Investor Roundtable
Bangkok: Nov 14 VNTR Investor Roundtable during Devcon.
Thank you to our Partners:
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.
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.
Upcoming VNTR Events:
Dec 6 VNTR Investor Roundtable Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi F1 Grand Prix)
Dec 11 VNTR Investor Roundtable Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Finance Week)
Jan 22 VENTURE Investor Roundtable Davos (World Economic Forum)
More events available on the VNTR Platform
Contact Elise to sponsor VNTR events or join the VNTR Corporate Partnership.
Follow us on Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and X.
UPCOMING VC EVENTS
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 (10% discount using HKFTW24VNTR, Reach out to Hannah to apply for an Investor Champion Program (to receive a complimentary pass)).
Oct 30-Nov 1 Istanbul Tech Week, Istanbul, Turkey (Use "vntr15" to get a 15% discount on all passes)
Nov 3-4 Global Entrepreneurs Summit and Expo, Dubai, UAE (complimentary for VNTR members)
Nov 6 Invest Austria, Vienna, Austria (30% discount using VNTR-30)
Nov 6-8 Singapore FinTech Festival, Singapore (20% discount using SFFCPVNTR on Delegate Pass)
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 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
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: X-energy And Lightmatter Lead The Way
There may have been fewer nine-figure rounds this week, but the ones we did have were massive. Energy and data centers seem to be on everyone’s mind right now — and this week’s list bears that out.
Three Months To $5B, And More Unicorn News
Nine companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in September, including one that took just three months since its founding to reach a $5 billion valuation.
All told, the Unicorn Board now includes just shy of 1,550 companies and $5.2 trillion in value.
Four of the new unicorns are U.S. based, two are from India, and there is one each from Japan, Germany and Chile.
VCs are rewriting the opportunity fund playbook—or scrapping it entirely
Demand for VC funds that double down on winning investments is shifting as investors see their best companies as overvalued, overcapitalized and without a clear path to go public.
GPs typically run opportunity funds to back standout portfolio companies as they mature. The pitch to LPs is that it increases exposure to growth-mode companies on the verge of profitability or an IPO.
With the IPO slowdown, that pitch has fallen flat. VCs have dialed back their opportunity offerings—or reoriented those strategies to go after secondary stakes in startups or other venture funds.
Is this how AI will transform the world over the next decade?
Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei has just published a radical vision of an AI-accelerated future. It's audacious, compelling, and a must-read for anyone working at the intersection of AI and society.
The next way of IPOs will be almost 14 years old when they IPO — if they do in 2025
Add the 180 day lock-up plus 24 months for VCs to distribute … It may take VCs almost 18 years to get fully liquid post IPO A long time for 10 year funds
Venture Capital Write-Downs Hit College Endowments
Venture capital write-downs continued to weigh on U.S. college and university endowments in the latest fiscal year, tempering their ability to reap rewards from one of the strongest U.S. stock market showings of the last decade.
Harvard University’s endowment said Thursday it had gained 9.6% for the fiscal year ended June 30, citing an absence of gains in private markets. Stanford University's and Dartmouth College’s endowments both gained 8.4%, while Columbia University’s and the University of Pennsylvania’s returned 11.5% and 7.1%, respectively.
Meanwhile, Brown University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology gained 11.3% and 8.9%. The median return was 10.1% for U.S. college and university endowments for the period, according to a preliminary estimate by Cambridge Associates. Universities’ returns may include portions of endowments, plus other long-term investments.
These 10 Charts Show Startup Funding Downturn Continues Despite AI’s Ascent
Despite a strong pull from the AI sector, venture investment in the third quarter of 2024 wasn’t able to overcome its now more than two-year-long slump.
That’s the broad takeaway from our third-quarter venture funding numbers. In every major startup region in the world — North America, Europe and Asia — startup investment fell in Q3, Crunchbase data shows. The only region we track that saw a modest uptick was Latin America, but even there, it’s hard to ignore just how far venture funding has fallen since its 2021 highs.
5 charts: European VC dealmaking drops again, but exits offer hope
Venture capital dealmaking in Europe is pacing below last year’s numbers, but the latest data on exit and fundraising offer signs of recovery for the region’s ecosystem.
Here are five charts from PitchBook’s Q3 2024 European Venture Report highlighting key data points tracking Europe’s recovery.
The most active investors in Europe in Q3
Momentum stalled across Europe in Q3, as equity funding fell by 34% to €10.1bn following a strong Q2 (€15.4bn), according to Sifted’s Q3 report.
Sifted tracked 2,460 investors that made at least one investment into a European startup in Q3; 404 of them made at least two and 40 made at least five.
Eye On AI: As Big Money Rolls Into Data Centers, Startup Investment Gains
It’s been hard to browse tech headlines this week and not read something about billions of dollars being poured into data centers.
The world’s largest asset manager, Blackstone Group, reportedly plans to invest $8.2 billion to develop data centers in Spain. Energy and data center company Crusoe Energy Systems announced it raised $3.4 billion dollars in debt financing — and reportedly will raise an additional equity investment led by Founders Fund — for a data center in Texas that will be used for OpenAI. And pension fund AustralianSuper announced it has committed $1.5 billion to become a minority owner in DataBank, a provider of enterprise-class data centers across North America.
PE fundraising hit a snag in Q3 amid mega-fund drought
The pace of PE fundraising slowed in the third quarter after a brief bounceback in Q2, as fewer mega-sized vehicles crossed the finish line. The lack of successful closures of these exceptionally large funds could mean the hoped-for turnaround is still some time away.
In Q3 2024, PE firms raised about $73.9 billion for US-based funds—a plunge of 38% year-over-year, according to data from PitchBook’s latest US PE Breakdown. The capital was collected across 78 funds.
AI Eating Software
AI is rewriting software - literally and figuratively. The NASDAQ keeps climbing higher, up 38% in the last 12 months and beating new all time highs. Out of the $8.4T of value created in the past year, $5.3T is coming from the six tech titans that are investing tens of billions into AI: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia. As AI is starting to unlock an unprecedented wave of productivity improvements across the enterprise, the development of this new tectonic shift seems unstoppable.
Defense-tech boom spawns wave of new European GPs
Ongoing conflict in Europe and its environs has sparked defense investment, which has in turn generated a wave of new GPs focused on the region’s burgeoning defense-tech market.
Since 2021, there has been a marked activity increase in the sector, with 2024 setting a new record of $531.6 million invested across 16 deals, according to PitchBook data—more than double the amount raised by startups in 2023. This increase in investment has broadly coincided with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and more recently with the Israel-Hamas war.
The Number of Active VCs is Down 62% From Its Peak. And Down Again in 2024.
So it’s truly strange times in Venture Capital. Boom and Quiet Bust … at the same time.
Revenue multiples are way down, even as revenues themselves continue to grow. The average public SaaS company only trades at around 5x ARR. It’s hard for VCs to make money at those multiples. Not impossible, but hard.
All but the top VC funds are struggling to raise new funds. Instead, they are quietly hunkering down.
Web3 Funding Gains 43% Year To Year But Dips From Q2
It was a mixed bag for Web3 funding last quarter, although investors in the rocky sector the past few years will probably take that.
Web3 startups raised $2 billion in just more than 300 deals last quarter, per Crunchbase data. The dollar number represents a 43% increase from the $1.4 billion raised by such startups in Q3 last year, but a 13% decline from Q2 of this year — which represented the third consecutive quarter of upticks in the sector.
AI nabs better deal terms than the rest of VC
AI startups are enjoying a more favorable dealmaking environment—though only select founders are benefiting.
A gap is growing between the kind of deals AI companies are getting compared to the overall startup landscape, according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor. Particularly at the early stage, PitchBook’s dealmaking indicator shows that AI founders face a friendlier fundraising environment.
Europe’s first accelerator for VCs launches
Founders have all manner of support to help them get up and running with their businesses. VCs, less so — until now.
Early next year, advisory firm Mountside Ventures is launching Europe’s first VC fundraising accelerator. It’ll take on 15 emerging managers and “help them become better fundraisers”, says Jonathan Hollis, the firm’s managing partner. “It’s not to help investors become better investors; it’s to identify and connect them with relevant LPs.”
Europe’s Q3 private equity recovery in 4 charts
Private equity investment showed further signs of recovery in Europe over Q3, with a projected 27.5% year-over-year growth, as lower interest rates and a surfeit of dry powder bolstered dealmaking.
PitchBook’s Q3 2024 European PE Breakdown showed a notable increase in corporate divestitures,, while mega-deals—those valued over €1 billion (around $1.1 billion)—also saw a resurgence.
Fundraising also remained relatively strong over the quarter. PE exit activity, on the other hand, has been disappointing.
Big pharma is increasing investment into European startups — here’s where capital's being spent in 2024
Many of the world’s most valuable pharma companies have increased their dealmaking into European startups in 2024.
Six of the ten biggest pharma companies by market capitalisation have completed more deals so far this year than they did in 2023, according to data provided by the companies, Sifted data and comparable data from Dealroom.