Howard Ko
Los Angeles, California, United States
2K followers
500 connections
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What a great week, thank you to everyone who supported our first Deep Tech Week Demo Day yesterday! Jay V., Ron Leshem and I are indebted to…
What a great week, thank you to everyone who supported our first Deep Tech Week Demo Day yesterday! Jay V., Ron Leshem and I are indebted to…
Liked by Howard Ko
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What happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay in Vegas—especially if it happened at Blueprint: The Future of Real Estate! What a way to reconnect with…
What happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay in Vegas—especially if it happened at Blueprint: The Future of Real Estate! What a way to reconnect with…
Liked by Howard Ko
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🚀 I’m excited to be speaking at SoCal Deep Tech Week! It’s an incredible opportunity to join top minds in deep tech and share insights on…
🚀 I’m excited to be speaking at SoCal Deep Tech Week! It’s an incredible opportunity to join top minds in deep tech and share insights on…
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Hadley Harris
As a VC, there are times when you have to choose between prioritizing returns and supporting the founders you work with. It’s not easy because we have a fiduciary duty to our LPs, which, in our case, are primarily non-profits, to maximize returns. At Eniac, we play the long game: if we do what’s best for our founders, it will ultimately benefit our brand, reputation, and relationships, which will be best for our LPs in the long run.
532 Comments -
Susan Lyne
RETHINKING RETIREMENT We've been investing in the Future of Work since we launched BBG Ventures, targeting underserved segments like deskless workers (Anthill, OX) and solopreneurs (Topline Pro). Over the summer we spent time digging into another deeply underserved segment of the workforce: Boomers. By the end of this decade, the entire generation will have hit retirement age and, for the first time, Americans 65 will outnumber those under 18. This has huge implications for every aspect of society, and it mandates that we start thinking differently about retirement. The question for all of us is this: Can we re-focus healthy Americans 60 on a new phase of productivity, a “third act” that enables them to keep learning, keep earning, keep socially-engaged and contributing to the nation’s economic growth? And what role can AI play in helping every senior identify their unique skill set and personal priorities — and connect them with the right opportunities? We have some thoughts on how to make this happen, and we'd love you to give it a read, add your feedback, forward it to a founder who's working in this arena (or who you think might be intrigued), and share it! AgeTech has been too focused on death and decay; it's time we embrace longevity and give older Americans a way to keep working -- on their terms. cc: Carol Magalhães Isaacs, CFA Nisha Dua, Claire Biernacki, Drew Silverman Fennessy
11311 Comments -
Amber Illig
Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.
13133 Comments -
Jeremy Utley
What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!
42 Comments -
Michael Tolo
Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas
1144 Comments -
Mike Krenn
An interesting article below, that demonstrates out how San Diego is punching above its weight. And how Connect's strategy and execution over time, contintues to be central to that success. The article describes the current state of the market in Seattle. (And i love Seattle.) It's a market that we tend to track with relative to venture fundings. They used to kick our butts, we outraised them each of the last three years. This despite the fact they have 3x as many funds there, and 9x the amount of resident capital there. (per pitchbook) Some key takeaways: * They continue to compare themselves to SIlicon Valley. Instead, we leverage our proximity. *They whine there's not enough local investors (see note above - they have more than us). We bring over 200 VCs to SD annually! * They say founders are not connected with one another. We bring CEOs together regularly, in a variety of ways - private dinners and through our Springboard program. * They say they need to elevate their image on a national & international stage. Why we created and continue to build Five.Ten.Thirty (aka Inno Day). * And the last paragraph - they need to concentrate on making their region a great place to live. Our mantra: "It's about Better, not Bigger." (See XEO, TL Fund). THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT. WE ARE ON A MISSION TOGETHER!!! (Comments, whining, suggestions on SD always welcome.) https://lnkd.in/g6Rq_f2Y
10910 Comments -
Arpan Ajmera
Non-Engineering Roles at Early-Stage Startups Offering $120K Base Salary with Meaningful Bonus and Equity: Chief of Staff @ Milo (Consumer), Remote Biz Ops Lead @ Fractal Agriculture (FinTech), Remote; Backed by Virta Ventures Chief of Staff @ CakeAI (AI SaaS), NY; Backed by Primary Venture Partners Demand Generation Specialist @ Rootly (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, 8VC, Gradient Ventures Account Executive @ CommandBar (Enterprise SaaS), Remote; Backed by Soma Capital, YC, Insight Partners Product Marketing @ Slope (Enterprise), Remote; Backed by YC, Union Square Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures Supply Planning Manager @ PROVEN Skincare (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, FJ Labs, Soma Capital, Social Capital Account Executive @ Accrue Savings (Consumer), NY; Backed by Ground Up Ventures, Tiger Global Chief of Staff @ UNIGRID Battery (Climate), CA; Backed by Union Square Ventures, LiquidMetal Ventures Job details and the full list (40 opportunities) are in the comments below. If you're interested in non-tech jobs focused on specific industries like HardTech, HealthTech, Climate, etc., then DM me or let me know in the comments.
232 Comments -
Santi Subotovsky
Thrilled to announce the launch of our inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks at Emergence Capital. This comprehensive report dives deep into the metrics and trends shaping the early-stage enterprise cloud market. A huge thank you to our VC partners and contributors for making this possible! Here's a sneak peek of our findings: --> 60% of companies have already integrated GenAI into their service offerings, with another 20% planning to do so this year. --> While most companies use OpenAI as their primary LLM, many are experimenting with multiple models. We’re seeing a trend toward intelligently routing GenAI inference requests based on cost, performance, and security. --> Companies that have implemented GenAI are showing promising results, with a 7% higher NDR compared to those that haven’t. Beyond Benchmarks goes further with more GenAI trends, insights on the current fundraising environment, and key performance metrics. Our goal is to provide founders and their teams with valuable benchmarks to help them make better-informed decisions. At Emergence Capital, we're committed to helping founders build iconic companies. Dive into the full report here: https://lnkd.in/g6bnvAZM
763 Comments -
Omar Darwazah
In addition to building our own VC practice at AAF Management Ltd., we’ve invested in 37 VCs since 2017. Here is what, I believe, it takes to build a multi-vintage, early-stage, venture franchise: 𝟭- 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀: hyper-focused GPs build longevity and consistency in their businesses. If you pitch LPs saying you will invest in early stage consumer but end up doing late stage consumer that’s a massive red flag. Stay germane to your mandate and strategy. 𝟮- 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: the market is crowded with venture firms, articulate your differentiated value proposition to LPs and founders. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Focus on 1-2 value propositions to your stakeholders and execute them with excellence and defensibility. 𝟯- 𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝘁 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆-𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴: we tell stories everyday. Raising capital for a fund and building your venture firm requires that same story-telling skillset. Tell consistent narratives to the market to help build your own brand as well as your firm’s brand. 𝟰- 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁-𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲: if you possess subject-matter expertise in a certain vertical, domain or industry, you already own a defensible moat. Accentuate that to your advantage when building your firm, raising capital from LPs and winning deals from founders. 𝟱- 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲: early stage venture is a highly collaborate asset class. Keep your ego at the door, you will never be able to do everything it takes to build a firm alone. Leverage LPs, partners and founders for deal flow sourcing, diligence and overall industry best practices. 𝟲- 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁-𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁-𝗙𝗶𝘁: in quintessential startup vernacular, ideally find your product-market-fit by the time you launch your second fund. You need product-market-fit before you scale your AUM, grow your team and carry more fiduciary responsibility. 𝟳- 𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲: early stage VC investing is a marathon. Patience will reward you personally, professionally and financially. Build mental, physical and psychological stamina to endure the inherent ebbs and flows of your entrepreneurial journey. 𝟴- 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗟𝗼𝗻𝗴-𝗧𝗲𝗿𝗺: early stage VC investing is the archetypal long-term financial asset. Think in 10 year increments for your firm’s grand vision, think in 4 years for a given fund’s investment period and think in quarters when reporting material updates on your portfolio to your LPs. 𝟵- 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻: if instant gratification, short feedback loops and a constant need for reaffirmation is what you are looking for in a career then early stage VC investing will not fulfill you. Have fun building, and as Naval Ravikant once said: "𝙗𝙚 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙥𝙩𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣." Finally, and most importantly, be authentic and true to yourself. #firmbuilding #entrepreneurs #VC
21820 Comments -
Christian Ostberg
Fin Capital’s Fintech CEO Pulse Report is out! We surveyed over 50 CEOs and C-suite leaders of private companies from our portfolio and the broader fintech industry during June and July 2024 to get a quick pulse on what’s top of mind for fintech’s leaders. Here are some key takeaways: Optimism in the Air: More than 60% of CEOs reported being bullish or highly bullish on the fintech industry for the second half of 2024. Regulatory Changes on the Horizon: CEOs identified Cryptocurrency, Open Banking, and Buy Now Pay Later as the top three sectors likely to see increased regulation by the end of 2024. CEOs Want Business Development Support: Beyond capital and fundraising, business development support emerged as the top area where CEOs seek investor assistance.For more insights, including comments from my colleagues Ren Riley, Logan Allin, Matthew D. Mann, CFA, and Stephanie Perez, check out the full report here: https://lnkd.in/euHK8-9B
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