Candice Xie

Good for the entire ecosystem

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Today, we are thrilled to announce Maven Clinic's $125 million Series F funding round led by StepStone Group, with participation from existing investors including General Catalyst Partners III LP, Sequoia Capital, Oak HC/FT, and Lux Capital. To date, Maven has raised more than $425 million, and with this round the company is now valued at $1.7B. The company plans to use this funding to further invest in Maven Managed Benefit, Maven's fertility benefits administration platform, and to expand its end-to-end virtual care platform, for maternal care, parenting and pediatrics, and menopause. Over the last 10 years, FFF Founder & CEO Kate Ryder has redefined the model for care for women and families by putting the patient at the center of the healthcare experience. She shared that in this next decade, they have “the platform breadth, depth, and data required to create the scaled change this industry so sorely needs.” In addition to Amazon, Maven’s services are used by the nation’s leading employers, including Microsoft, AT&T, Morgan Stanley, and L’Oréal. Female Founders Fund is proud to be an early investor in Maven, and we are excited by Kate’s vision for the decade to come as the Maven team continues to reimagine the standard of care within the healthcare industry. Maven's model is setting a new standard for personalized, comprehensive care for women and families, shaping healthcare for generations to come & inspiring so many other female founders along the way. More from CNBC 👇 https://lnkd.in/ekf7Kk-Y

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Los Angeles is buzzing with venture capital activity, ready to back the boldest entrepreneurs across industries like tech, fintech, and biotech. If you're aiming to elevate your startup in LA, here's where you might find your perfect investor match. Leading LA Venture Capital Firms: ✅ Mucker Capital - Big on software startups, investing in companies like AuditBoard and Honey. 🚀 ✅ Upfront Ventures - Specializes in ecommerce and healthcare, with investments in GOAT Group and Parachute Home. 🏪 ✅ Baroda Ventures - Eyes on consumer internet and SaaS markets, backing firms like Amplify. 💡 ✅ ScOp Venture Capital - Focus on SaaS, helping companies scale with investments in Cloverleaf. 🌐 ✅ Crosscut Ventures - Largest seed-stage VC in LA, invested in Boosted and Inspire. 🌱 ✅ Anthem Venture Partners - Biotech and fintech enthusiasts, with investments in TrueCar. 🔬💳 ✅ Arena Ventures - Backing consumer and fintech disruptors like CityMall and Aaptiv. 🚀 ✅ Canyon Creek Capital - Supports technology firms showing market traction like HoneyBook. 💻 ✅ Frontier Venture Capital - Investing in media and tech that enhance global well-being, like Syndio. 🌍 ✅ Karlin Ventures - Funds innovative solutions in software and ecommerce like StrikeAd and Wallaby. 🛒 🔗 Discover the full list here: https://lnkd.in/dtxqpiRy Explore opportunities, connect with industry leaders, and start your journey in LA’s thriving startup ecosystem today! 🚀 #VentureCapital #Startups #LosAngeles #Innovation #Entrepreneurship

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We are going to break down another investment opportunity that DealGen Partners uncovered this week... Deal:  Arizona Logistics Revenue:  $13,000,000 EBITA: $5,000,000 Asking Price $25,000,000 Company Description: Arizona Logistics is a Phoenix-based 3PL (third-party logistics) company offering services in warehousing, co-packing, and transportation, catering to industries such as food & beverage, industrial, and retail. Founded in 2013, it has grown significantly, expanding both its service offerings and client base. The company differentiates itself through proprietary technology, multi-year customer contracts, and a flexible, scalable operational structure. Financially, The Company has maintained strong EBITDA margins around 41%. The owner is selling the business primarily for financial planning and estate diversification reasons. My 2 Cents: The Company is a well-run, niche 3PL player with a strong foundation in Arizona’s growing logistics market.  Margins are good, and its proximity to major markets like California and Mexico make it attractive. 40%+ profitability is very nice, and their investment into tech seems to be paying dividends as they are able to do more with less overhead since making this investment. Some concerns here are customer concentration and growth constraints.  Businesses like this can lose one contract and their EBITA can drop substantially.  This makes them hard to finance, because banks understand the risk.  Also, being a warehousing business, growth potential is limited to the size of your facility, so there may not be a ton of room to expand. With proper investment and a plan to expand capacity and secure additional long-term contracts, this business could continue to scale profitably. However, like any business in the logistics space, it will need to carefully manage its customer concentration risk and adapt to fluctuations in labor and capacity needs. Questions:  Revenue and Client Diversification: What is the current dependency on key clients, and how diverse is The Company’s client base in terms of industry and geographic distribution? Growth Opportunities: What are the most significant growth opportunities the company is pursuing, and how realistic are the projections for expanding into new customer accounts or increasing share with existing customers? Contracts and Customer Retention: What percentage of revenue is secured through long term contracts, and how do they impact the company’s valuation? Competitive Landscape: How does The Company differentiate itself from its key competitors, particularly in technology and operational efficiency? Are there any significant competitors that could impact future growth? Operational Scalability: Given the company's reliance on contingent labor for repacking and production lines, what measures are in place to ensure scalability and quality control as the company grows?

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WE DID IT! After 2 years of pushing through the biggest downturn in VC in decades, Matthew Stotts 🌐 and I made it to the finish line with Fund I! We couldn't have done this without One Small Planet (Will Peterffy and Jack Wielebinski 🙏), Regen Network and Regen Foundation (Austin Wade Smith Gregory Landua and Will Szal), and a dozen other family offices and angels who believed that we can build a nature-positive economy utilizing our eye for software and our history as founders from day 1 A shout out goes to all of our founders (only four announced today, but watch this space - there are multitudes!) who trusted us enough to give us a spot on their cap table for this 10-15 year journey. This is the best job in the world, and it's because we get to work with people like you who have weird ideas in the best possible way. Using Bitcoin as anchor base load to decarbonize residential housing in America's most expensive energy market? Make every complex supply chain legible to machines so we can find and eliminate deforestation in commodity supply chains? Build deeply liquid environmental asset markets to price ecosystem services, on a blockchain, that no one needs to know is a blockchain? I'm so excited to get to work on this stuff for the next 10-15 years minimum, and to see what we can accelerate with our tiny fund in the next 5-6 years as we approach 2030 Onward! https://lnkd.in/gy3B-DFe

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How did Gamma grow to over 25M users in less than 12 months? It's an amazing story with so many insights for founders navigating the early days of founder-led growth. Gamma founder and CPO Jon Noronha joined us at Pear VC's Zero to $1M conference to share Gamma's story and this ONE thing stood out to me the most... Jon was 1) customer obsessed AND 2) committed to sharing customer feedback relentlessly with his internal team. He willingly became the conduit between his team and their users and that was what fueled their journey to PMF. In Jon's words: “I was relentless about sharing [customer feedback with our team]… I made sure that every week our team heard five or 10 positive things that were going well. And we were getting some diehard fans out of this...” Founders -- if you're willing to commit to being the conduit between your users and your team, you will build a flywheel of trust that will get you there. You can catch the full recording + blog summary of Jon's talk in the link in comments! Would love to hear your reflections-- what stands out most to you from Gamma's journey to PMF?!

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The new quarterly review is live! Each quarter, I dive into the latest trends and shifts in the venture capital market, covering both the broader macro perspective and the unique insights we’re seeing at Florida Funders. Check out my latest article to stay informed on what’s shaping the VC landscape and how we're navigating it at FF. Always eager to hear your thoughts – let’s keep the conversation going! #VentureCapital #FloridaFunders #MarketInsights

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I recently saw this metric from Carta’s 1Q24 VC Fund Report, which is very concerning. DPI... is nowhere to be found in earlier vintages that probably should start showing DPI. Funding early-stage projects is great, but ultimately, these venture dollars need to exit their investments and pay back their limited partners. That’s where the metric Distributed to Paid-In Capital (DPI) comes in. While managing a fund, we get interim measures during the life of the fund (e.g. IRR, MOIC), but ultimately, “you can’t eat IRR.” If you want to build a lasting venture capital organization, you need to start showing DPI for your fund. Keep in mind that this is traditional VC data from Carta, and is not strictly crypto venture. Crypto venture tends to get liquidity earlier (tokens) and things tend to go parabolic sooner (faster, more unicorns) - but I’d wager that the data here is somewhat similar for Crypto VCs… Not as much DPI as there should be from these earlier vintages. Read the full article, as well as a recap of all the crypto fundraising rounds for August, here: https://lnkd.in/g3eVJ-iF

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The autonomous trucking industry has faced significant challenges in recent years. In 2023, Embark was acquired by Applied Intuition for $71M, a mere fraction of its $4.5B valuation when going public via SPAC in 2021. Waymo Via, the commercial trucking unit of Google's autonomous vehicle division, shifted its focus from trucking to ride-hailing. TuSimple, once a leader in US autonomous trucking, wound down its US operations to concentrate on China and Japan. Despite this backdrop, Harpoon portfolio company Kodiak has continued to make waves in autonomy for trucking and defense, reflecting its resiliency as a leader in the space, and setting the stage for widespread industry adoption in the coming years. The US trucking industry, a massive $940B market, faces critical challenges that Kodiak aims to address: a severe driver shortage expected to double in the next decade, increasing freight demands driven by e-commerce, and stringent government regulations on driver working hours that impact delivery efficiency and truck utilization. Kodiak's market leading approach tackles these industry challenges with its modular system, the Kodiak Driver, which seamlessly retrofits any driving platform with autonomous capabilities. The company has achieved significant milestones to-date, including disengage-free commercial deliveries, 24/7 operations, delivery of over 4,500 loads, and partnerships with some of the world’s top logistics companies. Kodiak leverages a world-class team from leading self-driving programs, positioning itself uniquely in the market. Its incremental deployment strategy and partnerships with existing fleets for rapid technology scaling demonstrate a pragmatic and efficient path for growth. With the increasing demand for freight and the urgent need to address the driver shortage, Kodiak is poised to transform the trucking industry as it progresses towards fully autonomous capabilities.

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A few months ago, we shared a blog post on how to structure equity when making your founding hire(s). I recently joined Amir Bormand to discuss the topic in greater detail. Link to our discussion below:

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Pear VC Startup Equity Calculator for Early Hires Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum created this calculator to determine the equity for early hires. You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6

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We recently had an opportunity to gather with finance leaders based in Utah, all the way from public company CFOs to finance leaders of fast growing Series A-stage startups. It was a great discussion with a great group. A couple things stood out for me from the discussion: 🤖 A handful of these leaders mentioned that they are starting to see some tangible productivity gains from the AI in their organizations, mainly around developer productivity and getting more done with less. It still felt early, but interesting to hear anecdotes of the promise of AI being realized. ✂️ On behalf of our portfolio companies, we asked what it takes takes to sell software into their organizations given the current economic environment. Their feedback confirmed a lot of what we were hearing from our B2B portfolio companies: ▪️They are looking to consolidate vendors, it's very unlikely (if not impossible) they would approve a net new vendor unless it is replacing another tool/service they can cut from the budget ▪️ROI is extremely important. They are looking for tangible evidence that the tool will drive revenue and/or reduce costs. ▪️The mentality of "everyone gets a seat" is over. They are looking for justification for why certain teams and individuals should get a license. ▪️ They are approving every purchase. Just assume the CFO is a part of the buying committee even if it isn't obvious. Bring the CFO in early to the buying process and arm the internal champion with the ROI case along the way. Really grateful for this group for gathering and sharing their insights!

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🌟 Calling all emerging GPs! Walking Ventures is seeking new venture funds to invest in as LPs. With 50+ successful investments and an IRR exceeding 30%, Walking Ventures isn’t just a VC, they’re also LPs in five standout funds that excel in areas outside their own focus. Now, they’re looking to add more LP positions, particularly in first or second funds led by smaller, ambitious firms. Here’s what they’re looking for: 1️⃣ Strong deal flow 2️⃣ Solid internal processes 3️⃣ Operating experience 4️⃣ Relevant network 5️⃣ Sector or geographic expertise Walking Ventures is agnostic on geography, sector, and focused on identifying top-tier emerging funds that deliver exceptional returns. If your fund fits the bill, check out Tim Jackson post for more details on how to connect.

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🎩 The VC platform role wears a lot of hats in the world of private capital—from business development to community-building to recruiting and marketing—and perhaps the most critical one today is portfolio value creation. Our co-founder, Ray Zhou, explained why the platform role is so important (and how to excel in it). Read the article in Forbes Technology Council. 👉 https://buff.ly/45OlLcA

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VC Market Update: Riding Out the Post-Boom Bumps. 2021's high-flying valuations and growth have given way to a more complex reality. With longer private timelines, tough exit markets, and capital tightness, startups face unique challenges—but also fresh opportunities. For those navigating today’s VC landscape, strategic planning is key. Whether it's balancing growth with capital efficiency or exploring secondaries smartly, there’s a path forward. And with boosts from AI and future rate cuts, brighter days could be ahead!

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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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Don't call it a comeback - growth equity deals on the rise again per PitchBook. From the attached article: "According to PitchBook’s latest US PE Breakdown, PE growth investments were on the rise in the first half of 2024, accounting for about 23% of all PE deals and surpassing leveraged buyouts, which made up 19%. That reverses a long-time trend. Growth investments in the first half of 2024 are already exceeding those from the whole of 2023, when they accounted for 20% of all PE deals." The heightened cost of capital is obviously driving a lot of this dynamic. However... it is interesting to note that PE funds are seemingly more willing to take minority stakes - a dynamic that is historically more from the VC playbook. The hard truth is that, even in a challenging funding and valuation environment, growth stage companies - both PE-backed and VC-backed - still offer large institutional investors a compelling return profile. A growth-potential profile not often available in the public markets. This dynamic alone will push PE and VC private market investment through and beyond the current challenges... Endeavor Colorado Zeb King Tegan Stanbach Kathryn Dickson #privateequity #venturecapital #entrepreneurship #innovation #founders #startups #investing https://lnkd.in/gKZKwXct

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