mozaic.io’s Post

Our friends at the Weekend Fund wrote a piece on VC brand and positioning featuring 15 VC firms, including Hustle Fund. Branding has never been more important in the venture ecosystem. With thousands of firms for founders to choose from, we must answer the question “Why you?” every single day. This applies to both venture firms and angel investors. If you’re still trying to answer the question “Why me?,” take a look at this article for some inspiration as to how some of the best firms position themselves.

Delighted with the positive traction that this report by Diana Melencio and my amazing colleagues at XRC Ventures is getting. Many founders are looking for clarity on what it really takes to get early funding. There are always exceptions to every benchmark, of course, but this gives a sense of what is needed. It also highlights a growing funding gap in the market for early-stage companies as generalist firms rotate out of CPG in search of more frothy returns in AI. Specialist consumer firms and creative strategics can help fill that gap, with experience of what it takes to build a healthy business and expectations on timing that are more aligned with founders. Recent research has highlighted that this alignment is also much better for LPs too in terms of return performance.

It's time to dust off those pitch decks! Fernando Fabre, CEO of Kauffman Fellows, recently shared some exciting insights from the organization's first venture sentiment survey. According to the survey, 53% of investors predict that 2024 will see an increase in investment pace compared to 2023. In contrast, only 6% expect to do fewer deals. Stay ahead of the game and start preparing your pitch now! #VentureSentimentSurvey #InvestmentTrends #PitchDeck

THE FINANCIAL TIMES MOVE The Financial Times has a new venture fund. 👉 There are legacy Media that invest in the future of Media (FT, Bloomberg) with the purpose of expand their subscription in the near future, and legacy Media (The New York Times) that buy establihed niche Media Companies to increase rapidly their subscription base. 👉 A different approach for a #growth strategy #media #socialmedia #VC #strategy #journalism #mediacompany

Steph Mui (Riverside Ventures portfolio founder ex-VC) wrote an interesting blog last week titled “Is it really the ‘worst time to fundraise in history’?” The answer is… IMO, Yes! well… actually, I’m just referring to my history in venture capital. So yes, the worst time in 5 years, but likely many more. But, it’s more complex. It depends what stage you are at and what type of business you are building (there are exceptions like generative AI). I’ve been investing in startups for about 5 years, so I have zero experience before 2018 in the private fundraising market. Full post below. https://lnkd.in/eejQ_NSk Despite capital raising challenges in this current environment, Riverside Ventures has continued to back founders at the earliest stages. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind the LinkedIn community who we are & how we operate. Riverside Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund & syndicate founded by high-level and experienced operators with an untraditional path into venture. A few things to know about Riverside Ventures: - We were operators/entrepreneurs (with exits to Live Nation & Private Equity) prior to investors - We invest in technology companies from pre-seed to series A (and occasionally later stage via SPVs) - We do not lead rounds or set terms but rather invest alongside a lead - We love to help in securing a lead and do this frequently   - We get to a yes/no quickly and try to always be respectful of the founders' time - We are passionate about supporting founders from anything small to large as we think everything is impactful in the early innings.

Venture investors are now being much more discerning with their dry powder. This has taken a heavy toll on the US venture market. Deal volume dropped to the lowest quarterly levels since 2013. What does this mean for founders? M&A is the new Series A.

A company raised $500k from Y Combinator and angel investors only to buy out those investors two years later Now, the company is scaling and in full control. Here’s the story of Tremendous 👇🏾 A few weeks ago, we were trying to purchase gift cards for members of our product advisory board when I came across Tremendous. It’s a service that allows businesses to send gift cards and rewards to customers and prospects. I clicked on the About page to learn more about the company, where I discovered that Tremendous is ‘VC-free.’ Here’s the company’s timeline: 2011: raised $500k from YC and angel investors 2012: launched unsuccessfully as a gifting platform for individual consumers but iterated until they found a group of users. Eventually, Tremendous hit profitability 2013: bought out investors for 2x their investment to take 100% ownership of the company 2014 - Now: found PMF with businesses instead of consumers and chasing fast growth with 30 employees I LOVE this story for a few reasons: - It’s yet another testimony that you don’t need a bunch VC to build a successful, high-growth company - It illustrates just how long this startup thing can take. Tremendous launched in 2011 and only started to find its footing 5 years later - It highlights the importance of control. If you own your company, you make your own decisions and move as you see fit. When investors are in the mix, there’s always a chance that what they want differs from what you want Shoutout to the team at Tremendous for building a sustainable company and doing it their way. I’d encourage all underrepresented founders to do the same!

Ok I'll admit, I have not read this whole article. And their articles may be available on various media aggregates, but I do not subscribe to anything that includes their platform and I am not prepared to pay their membership fee, just yet. That said, I was quite intrigued by the title and the first couple paragraphs. Because I couldn't agree more. VC term sheets often include a Right of Registration clause that essentially means the VC can require the company to go public if it seems most advantageous. I humbly think this is something that should be utilized much more than it has been in the past. Furthermore, some of you have noticed the term Venture Index in my bio and might be curious about what it means. Quite frankly a Venture Index is very much like an Index Fund, but whereas an index fund is a fund that invests in a collection of businesses, a Venture Index is a parent company that has a collection of subsidiaries, all working to benefit the parent company's bottom line. The reason it correlates with this particular article is because lately I've been making a case for companies to go public earlier, because it gives them the opportunity to impress investors with incremental growth rather than be required to show some kind of exponential growth strategy after exhausting other options. As such, I plan to take Venture Indexes public as soon as possible. In fact, I am using NASDAQ benchmarks as projections. When our parent companies reach $110 million in revenue and a minimum $550 million market cap with an aggregate net operating income of $30 million over the last three years, we will take them public. I'm a Venture Capitalist and I have taken some steps to truly innovate how capital is deployed, how companies are scaled and how returns are generated. Looking forward to good things. Thanks for reading. https://lnkd.in/gW4R7P33

Some good macro here. #vcfunding #venturecapital #earlystageinvesting #seedfunding #seriesa #seriesb #techstartups Weld Capital Partners