Chris Hladczuk

Charles Hudson is hands-down one of the sharpest minds in early-stage investing. As the Founder and Managing Partner at Precursor Ventures, Charles has backed over 375 companies and supported more than 400 founders. → His portfolio includes hits like Clearco, Juniper Square, and Carrot → He's helped founders raise over $175 million across four funds → He's an active leader in the VC community, serving as the 2023-2024 Chair of the NVCA Board of Directors But even with all of his successes and accolades, what really sets Charles apart is his founder-first philosophy. He's not looking for "coachable" founders who hang on his every word. He wants founders who are decisive, independent thinkers. He believes his job is to give founders what they need, not impose his own agenda. Charles is the kind of investor every founder wants in their corner. One who shows up, follows through, and builds genuine relationships over time. And on this week’s episode of Minimum Viable Podcast, he's sharing his insights on what makes for a truly productive founder-investor partnership. Founders, this is a conversation you’ll want to hear. — What's the #1 quality you look for in an investor? Tune in to the full episode when it drops this Wednesday to hear much more from Charles and learn how to make the most of your investor relationships.

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Juniper Square recently released their look back at the state of venture in Q2 2024, and the data is interesting. 👉 The liquidity drought continues to stifle fundraising, with $37.4B committed to 255 funds YTD. 👉 In the current climate, established managers are securing 77% of fund value YTD, the highest concentration in the last decade.  👉 Over 63% of capital raised in 2024 so far is in funds of $500M+, the second-highest percentage in the last decade. 👉 Q2 reflects an uptick in US venture deal momentum, with quarterly deal count climbing to the highest level since Q2 2022. 👉 Q2 data shows a third consecutive upward quarter in both exit value and the total number of exits.  👉 Q2 hit a 9-quarter high in total number of exits, and the total exit value recorded was the second-best quarter since Q1 2022. The data shows that the landscape is especially competitive for emerging managers. When it comes to generating returns though, a fresh perspective can help find the most interesting deals. I wrote a bit about this last week, if you’re curious to dig into stats on unicorns at the seed stage, and the funds they’re raising from. You can check out the full report from Juniper Square here: https://lnkd.in/eN6VnY-k #emergingmanagers #stateofvc

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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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What do you do as a founder, when you're no longer VC-backable, but are too small for private equity? Join us on May 23rd for a fireside talk with Andrew Chang, where we will explore the venturePE financing model, the gap in the funding markets that we address and how back companies that need that extra push and operating muscle. Lauren Bonner Jonathan Jetmundsen MBM Capital #fundraising #venturePE

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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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Coming soon on Aug 1: "Transformation to a Fresh Tomorrow." This is theme of our 3rd Annual Web3 Investor Day, as we welcome the innovators and investors convening in Chicago for these discussions around the next generation Internet. Our theme reflects the optimism, determination and commitment investors and innovators have solidified off the depths of the bear markets to drive success in the bull markets. Broader investor optimism suggests that fresh institutional funds into Web3 across both tokens and equity may endure.  Across adoption metrics, customer interest and developer activity, Web3 seems to have normalized. It’s refreshing to see the transformation and next evolution of Web3 and it’s refreshing to meet many of you on August 1.  And yet, even with the improved optimism from last year, there still remain open questions in the development and adoption of our next generation Internet:  1. the balance of speculative versus productive investor capital in this current cycle 2. the productive role of liquid trading capital in fostering Web3 innovation 3. the attractiveness of venture investments in follow on financings 4. the role of policy and regulation that may enhance innovation 5. the continued developer activity to improve the underlying infrastructure 6. other Web3 recovery characteristics in target customer use cases. We remain committed to navigating regulatory shifts, fostering investor optimism, and building the customer use cases for Web3.  Physical spaces enhance our innovation conversations.  In person relationships foster our collaboration.  Relationships drive breakthrough innovations.  Reach out to Rizza Torres at Decasonic if you would like to join us! #web3investorday #web3 #venturecapital

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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

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New podcast with Betr CEO Joey Levy: we share all our insider secrets of how we’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital. This is a no-bs, real talk episode from guys in the trenches today. For fundraising, should you try to “buddy-buddy” investors and then guilt-trip them to invest? I will tell you first hand that guilt-tripping works, but it’s virtually always a bad investment. You can probably pull that style of fundraising off, but it won’t work on experienced investors. Go to https://lnkd.in/e5m6DNYR for the full show.

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Did you know that YC founders get a secret weapon… and it’s not what you think. “Bookface” is YC’s internal social network. It was needed because YC had funded larger batches and the hardest part of a community is knowing who is in it and who you can trust and ask for help. On the platform, founders share real methods and advice that would break if it were shared widely It’s secret knowledge shared with a trust-first community - answering 80% of the questions a founder can have about building and selling a product, be it to clients, candidates or investors. Before the platform, if you had a B2B startup, you had to reach out cold to potential customers. Now there are over 1000 YC companies you can sell your service to and all of their contact information is in Bookface. As a result, YC alumni companies are often over 50% of your new sales during YC. It’s superpowers like this that make YC deals so attractive compared to the norm. You are investing in a founder with a 10x network already!

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🚀 Scaling New Heights: Cribl's Strategic Growth 🚀 In a remarkable stride within the competitive market of data infrastructure, San Francisco-based startup Cribl has recently clinched a substantial $319 million in its latest Series E funding. This momentous investment spearheaded by GV (Alphabet’s venture arm) pushes Cribl to a towering valuation of $3.5 billion. 🌟 🔍 Here's Why This Matters for Startups and Small Businesses: 🔹 Innovation and Expansion: Cribl's trajectory illuminates the potent impact of innovative solutions in data management amidst an ever-expanding corporate data environment. 🔹 Significant Growth Potential: With the company boasting an impressive portfolio including 25% of the Fortune 500, the journey reflects significant growth potential and scalability that startups can aspire to. 🔹 Strategic Partnerships: The involvement of heavyweight investors like GV and others underscores the importance of strategic partnerships in accelerating business growth. Key Takeaways: - 🌐 Adapting advanced data solutions is crucial in leveraging the voluminous data generated today. - 📈 Embrace growth by seeking impactful investments and forming strategic partnerships. - 🚀 Aim for scalability by continuously innovating and expanding your solution offerings. Stay updated, engage with current trends, and continuously seek to innovate. The path Cribl is carving out highlights the robust possibilities within tech and data management sectors. For a deeper dive into Cribl’s funding news: https://lnkd.in/gQhmrYUK #DataManagement #StartupGrowth #Innovation This post was generated by an AI. Please contact us for more information.

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ARR abuse, while obfuscating true GAAP revenue is a real issue. In VC pitch decks, I am noticing an increasing confusion in how the founders share the Annualized Recurring Revenue (ARR), Booked Revenue, and the GAAP Revenue. This recent WSJ article on this topic, as applied to #Crowdstrike, makes this point very well. Thanks Jonathan Weil Krishna Kunapuli, Dr. Pallab Chatterjee Rajiv Roy Sumanth Channabasappa #crowdstrike #accounting #saas #ARR #GAAP #Revenues

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Within the venture industry, illiquidity in is sometimes viewed as a feature rather than a bug, as it protects investors from selling at the worst times (which as seen throughout history is commonplace in the public markets). However there are limits, and the problem of illiquidity will have to be solved in a more systematic way. LP driven secondaries are inefficient and opaque, large M&A comes with major regulatory hurdles, selling in traditional secondary rounds is limited given the focus on efficiency and the departure of crossover funds, and the IPO bar is expected to remain very high (don't see <$1B market cap IPOs). Meghan Reynolds and I talked a few weeks ago about this (see link in comments) as has Mark Suster in many recent pods. Agree that over the next decade, we should see more of the following to solve for the liquidity problem. 1) PE funds serving as an exit for VC backed companies, meaning companies that are near or at EBITDA positive. 2) Continuation funds that provide LPs with an option to rollover or get liquid (single asset or all assets). I'm spending a lot of time here. 3) A more efficient liquidity marketplace for LP sales/buys. 4) Strip sale of a set of assets. Planning a special roundtable pod with some secondary and primary managers to discuss the growing liquidity problem in VC.

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The state of venture capital is wild right now. We are witnessing a surge of innovation across the spectrum: - Funds merging - VC doing PE - PE doing VC - Secondary funds - Buyout funds - Spin-out funds - Debt funds - Continuation funds - Infrastructure funds - GP turnover - Hard Tech surging - Family Office uptick

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⛳ Emerging fund managers pulse check. PitchBook tracks over 10,000 funds that are raising money, with 45% being emerging fund managers (defined as firms with less than 3 funds). Despite a dip in available capital—down to 16% from the pre-pandemic 23%—these managers are finding creative ways to stay competitive, like partnering with larger firms. 💼 Joanna Drake (founder turned investor) shared how "wildly different" it is raising a fund versus for a startup. One key datapoint she shared on the fund side was how little feedback you get along the way (and the years you can wait for it). The “long-winded and challenging process to raise capital” inspired Drake and Ben Black to create RAISE Global, a community for emerging fund managers and the “forward-thinking LPs” who back them. (A decade later, several hundred emerging managers with AUM under $200m are on the platform) They've found the newest emerging managers are more diverse and geographically dispersed than Silicon valley, and more were able to crack the ceiling and raise larger $100m funds (although this is still a small % of the market, requiring partnership with larger funds at the late stage). ▶ And not a hugely surprising datapoint: A lot of action is in the sub $49 million range, where roughly 50% of emerging managers are raising. Theresa Sorrentino Hajer, Head of U.S. venture capital research at Cambridge Associates warns that past success isn't actually a strong indicator on it's own to assess emerging managers. We've had a valuation reset. And newer managers with investments during the 2019-2021 "party days", need to build relevant track record and play to their strengths. A lot of emerging managers are specializing (70% who applied for Raise had a thematic focus), and betting on getting in as early as possible in the startup's lifecycle (Raise: 31% at accelerator/ pre-seed stages, and 47% at seed stage). “Emerging managers have to compete on a different dimension,” Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures. You're no longer just dealing with capital. Emerging VC's need to be as innovative and nimble as the startups they invest in, having a unique thesis and insights. They also play a role at the top of the deal-flow funnel: helping larger firms find promising companies, so finding a thesis, sector or philosophy aligned partner at a larger firm is helpful. Onwards! #EmergingManager #Startups #VC

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645 Ventures’ first fund was a scrappy $8 million seed round announced in 2014. In late 2022 the firm raised its largest funds ever with $350 million across two; a $195 million fourth flagship fund and a select fund of $153 million. Seed- and early-stage venture is a network-driven business. However, what differentiates 645 Ventures is that it has also built its own software to source investments at the seed stage.

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Silicon Valley built venture capital. But New York's new guard is reinventing it. Just reviewed TechCrunch's Top New York VCs Under 30 List. The paradigm is shifting from the traditional Sand Hill Road model to something more diverse and dynamic, marked by: +Founders-turned-investors have hands-on startup experience +A deeper focus on overlooked markets and underserved founders +Cross-pollination between tech and NYC's legacy industries +An emphasis on sustainable growth over growth-at-all-costs As this generation steps into decision-making roles, they’re bringing a fresh take on community-driven investing, alternative funding structures, and an emphasis on long-term value creation. Congratulations to all the honorees. Young talent is reshaping VC but remember – great investors come at every age. (Fun fact: the average GP is 43!) Want to meet the next wave of NYC's venture talent? Follow along as TechCrunch updates their Under 30 list: https://bit.ly/4hiw4ef Thoughts on the approach of younger VCs? Would love to hear your perspective. #VentureCapital #StartupNYC #Innovation #TechNews" Data Sources: TechCrunch and SaaStr PS 🔔 Unlock a better way to raise capital with: 💸https://fundingstack.com/ for VCs and investors

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Secondaries are becoming a super attractive asset class. Just this month, StepStone announced a new $3B+ fund dedicated to secondaries. Late-stage private companies are still trading at a discount relative to their 2021-2022 highs. But the venture capital advisor exemption requires firms to keep their secondary positions less than 20% of total investments. I think this will encourage fund managers to get creative with registration/legal structures in order to unlock greater exposure to secondaries as attractive deals come through. https://lnkd.in/e_3_xitM

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