Ammar Hanafi

🚀 Ready to take your VC and PE investment strategy to the next level? Our latest blog dives into the top five metrics that every savvy investor should be tracking in quarterly reports. From Revenue Growth Rate to Net Dollar Retention, these insights will help you make smarter decisions and maximize your returns. Don't miss out on these key performance indicators—your portfolio companies will thank you! 📊💼 https://lnkd.in/gNPE6prj #VentureCapital #PrivateEquity #InvestmentStrategy #BusinessGrowth #FinancialMetrics

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I’m thrilled to be announcing that Notion Capital is leading the $15m Series A investment in Cogna today. In the industry, we like to think that software has been eating the world. But when you look at the data a better description would be more of a nibble. Depending on what source you look at the software industry represents between 5-8% of global GDP. Contrast that with the services industry that represents between 60-70% of GDP and worth around $25 trillion on a global basis. Most services have been out of reach for the software industry. They have either been too complex or too specialized for off the shelf software to access in any economically viable way. But that’s beginnning to change with GenAI leading to the emergence of ‘service as a software.’ Cogna is at the forefront of this opportunity - building precision software at scale and delivering huge productivity gains for traditional industries. We know Ben Peters & Lars Mennen well having backed their previous company Five AI that was acquired by Bosch in 2022. And we’re very excited to be backing them again together with Hoxton Ventures & Chalfen Ventures Read my full blog post on why we invested here. Radu Bozga Ben Peters Lars Mennen Bryan G. Mike Chalfen Hussein Kanji Kirsten Connell https://lnkd.in/eh8mhcJb

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Since early 2021, VC quarterly exit values have plummeted to $50B or below, a stark contrast to the six consecutive quarters of $100B+ exits before then. With IPOs dwindling and M&A activity slow, the future of venture industry exits appears uncertain. Will we see a surge in private venture-backed company acquisitions? This could be a crucial and innovative strategy to boost VC exits. Increased private acquisitions might offer a much-needed lifeline, providing a creative solution to the current exit drought in the venture capital market. #venturecapital #inspireglobalventures

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Well-written and sourced article describing what's going in seed-stage venture market. At 9point8 Collective we tend to orbit the seed-stage (both ideating and developing companies to reach seed and helping post-seed companies refactor and scale in anticipation of A) and for many companies it's a critical inflection point which determines their long term success or failure. The main takeaways I was able to gather: 1️⃣ Many startups that raised seed rounds in 2021-2022 are struggling to secure Series A funding due to tighter market conditions and increased investor expectations. 2️⃣ Seed investors are becoming more cautious, leading to longer diligence processes and a preference for startups with strong traction or experienced founders. As a result, valuations have stayed relatively high even as deal flow reduces. 3️⃣ Startups are adopting various strategies to navigate this challenging environment, including cutting costs, raising bridge rounds or convertible notes, and M&A/acqui-hires. 4️⃣ Despite the challenges, there are opportunities for both startups and investors in this new landscape, particularly for those who can adapt to the changing market conditions. Investors are accumulating dry powder -- and with rates on the decline -- will be looking to deploy into companies with stronger fundamentals than their 2021-2022 counterparts.

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Next one up, Glide! In an attempt to demystify some of the non-obvious elements we found when we first met the founders of our fastest growing portfolio companies at 186 Ventures, here is the third edition of the "idiosyncratic phenomenon". This highlight will be on Gautam A., Sameer Kapur, and Vishnu Chakroborty and their journey building Glide to bring world class, unparalleled enterprise grade infrastructure to the much overlooked market of credit unions and community banks-- some of the most important financial institutions across virtually every community in the US. Since we invested in their Winter, 2021 seed round, the company has built an incredible technology stack and has outpaced revenue projections by multiple orders of magnitude. This story is a *fantastic* reminder that it takes time to build incredible product and technology; the Glide story is a quintessential example of this startup proverb, in almost every regard. https://lnkd.in/e8b32CR2

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Reminder that the Unusual Ventures Fall 2024 Academy application is OPEN! Deadline for submissions is 9/9. Are you a Founder who wants to: 1. Learn from world class leaders the best practices of building from insight to product-market fit? 2. Receive up to $2M in a SAFE to accelerate company building? 3. Join an unmatched community of founders who are eager to support and learn with you? 4. Dive deeply into the latest pricing, go to market, and infrastructure choices founders are making for their AI-native startups? Unusual Academy is for you and your team. Each cohort consists of a small group of hand-picked Founders who are in the early stages of building Enterprise Software businesses. Over eight weeks Founders will participate in a highly personalized set of workshops that drive the building of the foundation of a successful startup. Founders will work very closely with our team on how best to execute Customer Discovery and validate the insight for your startup. We then explore the nitty gritty details of doing customer outreach and working through the Design Partner phase. We take you through proven tactics on how to navigate early customer engagements through to contract conversations. Throughout Unusual Academy we work closely with each team to align product strategy with the optimal go to market approach for their market segment and product. With the advent of AI, Founders are faced with new challenges with regard to pricing, ROI, data security, and managing infrastructure costs; we share best practices and the latest adaptations from the leading startups. Unusual Academy is a program for Founders who want to learn from exceptional teachers and get hands-on with specialized examples and tools. For those who want to maximize their probability of building a successful startup, this program is for you. https://academy.unusual.vc

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44% of VC capital raised this year went to just two firms. With increasing consolidation in VC, Equal Ventures' Rick Zullo shares his perspective on the outlook for the industry if we continue down this path. "The VC ecosystem is like all other ecosystems – players evolve to survive/thrive or risk fading away into extinction... As emerging managers experience a financing crunch, capital is consolidating behind mega funds, risking the very survival of our industry." Read more: https://lnkd.in/gzF2yFHv #VC #MarketTrends

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Ross Haleliuk posted the fantastic article below. This is the world where I live day-to-day. At TechOperators, we invest mostly in early-stage cyber, but we do things a little differently, and we believe there are ways to invest successfully outside of pure Power Law math. The article argues that many security problems are too small for VC. I agree. I often try to convince bootstrapped founders not to raise venture because doing so can turn a successful, slow-growing bootstrapped company into a failed venture-backed company because, despite a large infusion of capital, it couldn't double every year. VC is not monolithic--not by stage, strategy, or style. Venture is often equated with "Tier 1 Venture". Ross argues that VC is not always great for early-stage cyber--and he is right. Bootstrapping AND VC work when incentives are aligned. Does it work for an early-stage VC with a <$200M fund to invest in several early companies at reasonable valuations, setting up the conditions for reasonable exits that pay off for both investors and founders? Yes. Does it work for $800M funds investing in seed stage at $100M+ valuations? Well, that depends! Power law says it does (for VC), but the unfortunate externality is that these rounds destroy companies and founder equity more often than not. There is a role for patient capital in this ecosystem to fuel successful companies that retain exit optionality as they scale--driving exit value for both founders and investors.

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One of the things we see quite often at Grit Capital Partners, is a newly minted CEO. We see a big difference in the transition to CEO based upon the historical lane the CEO is coming from. There are different new muscles if you are coming from Product, Engineering, Finance, etc. In this article, we go deep on the CRO to CEO transition, which includes some thoughts from Rosie O'Meara, a particularly fine example of someone who has made the transition quite well. What were your biggest transition moments? https://lnkd.in/eEB-K2ZU

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This is quite interesting advice and also quite a non-consensus view in the B2B software world. Cross-border founders who are considering the US vs International incorporation question should consider this as valuable input.

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Thank you Caroline Hyde and Edward Ludlow for having me on "Bloomberg Technology last week. Ultimately, I hope the new administration understands the importance of protecting startups, supporting innovation, and fostering a thriving venture capital ecosystem. We’re at a point where a reset is needed—a reset in how Silicon Valley, startups, and the venture community engage with policymakers. US, China's AI Codependency We are in the first innings of completely revamping how software automation work, this is by far the most important and sustainable technological shift I have ever experienced. I am optimistic on the long term impact of AI for both US & China and we need each other. The US still heavily relies on TSMC for its chip needs and doesn't have a significant domestic fab capacity of our own.   On IPO market + M&A: Our regulatory environment for IPO hasn’t been great – some extremely qualified companies are not choosing to go public, that is not great for anyone and not great for venture investors, liquidity is crucial to ignite funding for startups.  Similarly, M&A, is a very important path for tech, it is crucial that have a rational hurdle for tech M&A to occur. #IPO #M&A #Trade #Exits #China #TradeWars #AI #TSMC #Intel #policies #trump #newpresident #public #ventureinvesting #venture #VC #siliconvalley #Bloomberg

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Watch this space. There are more amazing things to come from Cohere, a JC Venture Capital portfolio company. I was there when the Internet was just starting out and I tell anyone who will listen that AI is to Gen-Z what the Internet was to Gen-X. #ai #venturecapital #artificialintelligence.

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Go Gaurav Sharma and Capitalize! If you have a 401k from a previously employer, check out Capitalize.

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After the first deep dive discussion w/ founders I often hear a comment "I wish I had heard about this alternative [to all-in must-become-a-unicorn] way to build a startup earlier as I have wasted years in pursuing the wrong thing". Our mission is that no founder would ever need to say that again as it is such a waste. Us preaching the gospel 1:1 just doesn't scale, hence we use mass media to multiply our efforts - that's how Gorillacast came to be. The 1st episode is out, featuring yours truly. "How can you know what food you like unless you taste everything" said a chef. How can founders make informed choices about the best strategy for them to follow unless they know of all alternatives? This might not be of interest to you but pls spread the word so that the founders who should hear it can find it. I have a dream!

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The secret—if it ever was one—is out on private equity fondness for vertical software. While PE-backed acquisitions were down 50%+ from a peak in 2021, vertical buyouts have continued to grow, and the fervor seems to be gaining steam. In today’s essay, we will pose an answer to one question: is PE a viable path to exit for a venture-backed startup?

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Impactful Biz, Ops & Investment Roles at Early Startups & VCs: • Chief of Staff to Ex. Head of Product at Google • Founding GTM at the most YC product used by other YC companies in the past four years • Chief of Staff to a Partner at a Top-Tier VC Fund • Head of Platform of a NY State Backed Accelerator • Investment Associate at a Seed Stage Fund Investing in Category-Defining Companies • Partner at a Defense-Focused VC Fund • Chief Revenue Officer of a New Space Company in El Segundo • Venture Capital Analyst at a fund investing in overlooked geographies • Investment Associate at a Spirit-Focused Fund • Strategy & Ops Lead at a Company Focused on Helping Improve Autism • Senior Product Manager at a Company Focused on Building Shopify for Content Creators • Program Manager for a Space Security Company • Open-ended Investment Position at a Top-Tier Accelerator • Biz & Ops Lead for One of the Most Loved Digital Consumer Products 💸 All companies are well-funded and backed by top-tier investors. ⬇ You can find links to the roles above, plus many more, in the comments.

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A few spots left for this awesome workshop with Justin Gray of In Revenue Capital. Every successful founder I know learns to develop and maintain high performing relationships. This is a skill like anything else and can be developed. Founders, if you want to build a high-growth company, learn to build high-performing relationships. This workshop will help you do that. Hope you can join us.

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