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It turns out it actually takes time to build a high-growth business with differentiated intellectual property and roll out large, enterprise-class marketing solutions. I remember a few years ago people (LPs mostly) used to ask me why I didn’t have any realized returns to show. 5 years ago. The monkey on my back.
In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. You may have an opinion on your market-entry strategy for Europe. Growth like this, this early in a company’s lifecycle rarely happens.
At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. LPs See The Over-Valuations and Don’t Like It. All isn’t completely rosy in the LP views of the venture industry.
15 years ago we were at the peak of Internet hype with the launch of many over-capitalized businesses with a market size & opportunity was limited. The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). But markets value high growth over short-term profitability. Where are we today?
The famed business strategist Michael Porter described a set of successful general strategies which firms employ to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage: differentiation strategy and cost leadership strategy for those firms with a broad market scope, and a segmentation strategy for those with a narrow market scope.
New funds have formed, old market leaders are gone or walking dead. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. Patience is a virtue.
I counsel first-time VCs (as well as founders) to have mid-funnel strategies to get from first LP meeting to close and to put a disproportionate amount of time into this area (I say more about this on the podcast starting at timecode 27:41). that’s your target market. Why buy me? Why buy now? Why Buy Anything? Why Buy Me?
Deal aggregation websites Increasing in popularity, trying to increase market efficiency. Flow is a function of reputation and share of mind in target market. Signature and messaging will vary by market and audience, but must be internally consistent. Benchmark yourself to overall market activity. Intermediaries.
New funds have formed, old market leaders are gone or walking dead. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. Patience is a virtue.
New funds have formed, old market leaders are gone or walking dead. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. But the reality is that the more interesting the market, the more likely there is to be rapid and unpredictable change. Patience is a virtue.
In 2018, the 8,000 active private equity funds globally had a 15 to 16 percent annual performance differential between top and bottom quartile funds. Thus, many LPs have outsourced their investment management processes to professional investment consultants (ICs). Two degrees of separation. .
.” I hear, read, see examples every day of investors espousing differentiated theses with regards to why they exist. And why a LP should give them theirs. Sometimes there’s substance behind these statements; others are rickety content marketing or breathless trend hopping. Why a founder should take their dollars.
I hypothesized that, “Perhaps a contrarian statement in this environment: but even though there’s been a dip in fund size due to broad economic factors and LP appetite, it wouldn’t surprise me if the truly top firms raise even larger funds over the coming decade.” More brewers = more sources of capital.
This leads to the second non-obvious thing about the profession: one has to have long-term faith in our ideas and approach to the market way in advance of real success. To the outside, all VC firms pitch founders on essentially the same product—there’s a range of check and fund sizes, wrapped in some kind of marketing.
Obvious caveats to my POV here, most specifically: exposure is limited to largely the US/SiliconValley ecosystem, driven by our own portfolio, my friends and co-investors, the funds I’m a LP in, and our institutional LP relationships. Soft Acquisition Market. And that’s what’s happening here.
The secret is to find your Niche – that is, the initial customer segmentation / product differentiation combo that enables you to beat your more established, mature competition with a much crappier product. This strategy is called “Niche to Win”. I think this is a really important point and one that is not widely understood.
Areas of interest: crypto, climate, deep tech, India (& any truly unique/differentiated strategy) Must focus on pre-seed/seed, ideally < $20m fund size. — Boris Wertz (@bwertz) January 11, 2024 While I was aware of many emerging GPs raising right now, I didn’t realize just how many were in the market. DM's open.
These managers sit in our Privates bucket and are therefore expected to beat the public markets by at least 4.5%. We have a preference for strong local teams in certain geographic regions or those focused on underserved sectors and inefficient markets. An investor needs much more than patient capital and an appetite for illiquidity.
The other most common focus areas for platform teams are to employ talent and PR/marketing experts who give advice to portfolio companies on strategy in these areas and have relationships and discounts with pre-vetted agencies who can deliver the work. Competition is increasing as more capital flows into the market and transparency improves.
I’ve raised in boom markets and when everybody thought the Internet was a fraud. These include building products, recruiting, managing your finances, marketing, selling, getting feedback from customers and … fund raising. You’re meeting people who can give you market insights and information. REAL information.
One of the first things I did when I joined the venture asset class as a lowly institutional LP analyst in 2001 was to build the VC fund cashflow model. If you could return investors nearly triple their money and mid 20's returns consistently, compared to the 8% long term return in the public equities market, they'd more than accept that.
Startups are lucky that they can’t afford research, so they test in market and land upon on ideas that would never fly based on what we think or what focus groups would respond with. Given technology is becoming the major form of market access – it should now be viewed in the same realm as access to medicine and education.
So LPs are looking for a combination of “established top tier” and “new managers with differentiation.” This is key because in a permanently low-interest-rate environment parking large pools of capital in assets that benefit from interest is not possible so LPs seek “higher yield.”
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