Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

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.

Venture Capital 106

Venture Capital LP Cap Table Portfolio 106

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

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.

Portfolio 118

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 118

The Equity Kicker

JULY 16, 2012

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.

LP 105

LP Early Stage Valuation Differentiation 105

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 31, 2024

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.

LP 72

LP Differentiation Deal Flow India 72

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

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?

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Hunter Walker

MAY 18, 2015

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.

LP 48

LP Portfolio Early Stage Institutional Investors 48

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

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.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

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.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2021

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?

LP 375

LP Southern California Los Angeles Differentiation 375

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

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.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

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.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Start Up Blog

APRIL 29, 2013

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.

Uruguay 123

Uruguay Technical Review Vertical Las Vegas 123

Genuine VC

OCTOBER 11, 2011

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.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Seed Stage Entrepreneur LP 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

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.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2015

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.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IRR Valuation 60

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

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.”

LP 286

LP Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup 286