Collin Bhojwani

This post is interesting for new VC investors and it is also interesting for founders. As a startup founder seeking investors, it's important to consider whether the investor is a first-time funder or a long-time funder and which fund vintage they are currently managing. This understanding helps you gauge their deployment cycle and investment strategy. However, in reality, your options may be limited, and you might not always have the luxury of choice. Here are the key points to keep in mind: 1. Investor Experience: Distinguish between first-time funders and long-time funders. Experienced funders might offer more stability and resources. 2. Fund Vintage: Know the year of the fund (e.g., Fund I, Fund II) to understand where they are in their deployment cycle. Early funds may be more risk-averse or have specific criteria for investments. 3. Deployment Cycle: Understanding the fund’s stage can help you tailor your pitch to align with their current investment focus and timeline. Although understanding fund vintage and investor experience is a good practice, it can be somewhat theoretical. Choosing the ideal investor also depends on various other factors, such as their focus, the level and area of support they offer, and their communication and management style with their portfolios. Ultimately, the most important thing is to secure customers and generate revenue, with or without their help.

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Big things on the horizon, we are motivated and blessed to be at the dawn of a new age for the internet. Read more about our journey below or listen to the podcast: https://lnkd.in/eJeNhvVa

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Private credit ranked as the most favored asset class for expected total return in the next 12 months in a Goldman Sachs Asset Management survey of insurance executives. This finding simply underscores our long-held view at Blue Owl Capital – there’s a strong opportunity in the $1.7 trillion private credit market.   Read the full Bloomberg News piece here: https://lnkd.in/eN-PkV4h

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What's our "WHY" at Champion Venture Partners? 1. Access! Providing athletes and athletes adjacent professionals access to the private alternatives sports asset class as a lot of their financial advisors don't play in them or even look at them. 2. Access! Providing the general public the opportunity to invest in the private alternatives sports asset class. How awesome is it that you can invest on the same terms as some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment! 3. Education! If you want to learn before you invest, we have programs and services available. 4. Partnerships! CVP are long term "forever partners" for our portfolio companies. Sure, we may have a few turn and burn VC & PE deals as that's the nature of the business, but our bread and butter is long term strategic growth value add no matter if it's a 5 year deal or a 30 year deal or a "forever deal".

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Interesting data and good work from Carta in their inaugural VC fund performance report analyzing benchmarks for more than 1800 funds across six recent vintages - https://lnkd.in/e5R_dhXp Take a look at the pace of investments. As expected, capital deployment has slowed since the 2020 peak, with 2022 funds only using 43% of their capital after 24 months, down from 60% in 2020. This trend seems broadly consistent across private company and fund investing, with GPs and their LPs being more cautious and selective with capital allocation. Raising capital is tough today. Full stop. It's easy to focus on that, but I'd encourage us all to instead consider and focus on what is less talked about - that this cautious approach has created a large amount of available capital aka "dry powder," dedicated and ready to support special founders. The best founders are aware of private market dynamics, which impact the time needed to raise rounds and the milestones they must hit to successfully do that, but their primary focus is always the mission and the customers they serve. They are committed to building products to solve their customers' problems regardless of what us investors think. Building generational companies is never easy, but many have been and will continue to be built in tough markets. I try to take a similar approach in supporting founders. That doesn't mean ignoring market conditions, which can greatly impact my investment decisions and outcomes, but like focused founders, I know it makes more sense to dedicate my limited daily energy to what I can control. That means finding and supporting founders who are transforming or creating markets and doing everything I can to help them win, no matter what the market is doing. I hope to collaborate with many doing the same. Have a great week and see you out there! Note: These thoughts and opinions are solely mine and and mine alone. They do not reflect and are not associated with any company I am part of.

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The practical application of AI to help manufacturers eliminate unplanned downtime is key to our current and future offering. We do not label ourselves as purely an AI company, as that is one component of our value delivery, but I can say we have a world class team of AI Engineers building incredible tech alongside a team of world class Condition Monitoring Engineers. I am bullish and excited to see how Central Ohio emerges as a global AI hub with Intel as an anchor. cc: Brian Graham, Seyed Mohammad Parvasi, Ph.D., Jaidev Krishnan, Matt Longhouse, Chris Berry

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Our portfolio company Floodbase is an AI insurtech platform that's tackling flood risk, and just yesterday they launched a first-of-its-kind insurance product that gives California's cities and towns a fighting chance to protect themselves against atmospheric rivers. Okay let's take a step back - WTF is an atmospheric river and why should we care? Basically, they're massive streams of water in the sky that bring down torrential downpours of rainfall and hurricane force winds. They cause the kinds of floods that lead to a state of emergency. Worse yet, climate change is intensifying them - last year, atmospheric rivers caused $5-7 billion in damages across California, of which only 1% was covered by federal aid. Help is on the way. Floodbase has partnered up with Amwins to offer coverage against these damages, powered by satellite data and machine learning to properly price the risk. If the worst happens, payouts are wired fast to help municipal governments fund emergency response, repair public infrastructure, and more. Big thank you to Bessie Schwarz and team! More on what they're building below. #tech #climatetech #insuretech #insurance #parametric #AI #flood #risk #stateandlocal #localgov #government

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Can't wait to reconnect with the brilliant Amanda Herson and join the discussion with Maciek Gnutek and Iain Martin at Slush about our fund models and what they mean for Founders ❄ 🚀

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📈🏢 Aby Rosen's RFR Holding is facing a staggering $2.5B debt bill as defaults pile up! 💥 🔎 According to a recent Bisnow article, RFR Holding, a prominent NYC real estate firm, is grappling with mounting debt and defaults. The company, led by billionaire Aby Rosen, has a portfolio of high-profile properties, including the iconic Seagram Building and Lever House. 🏢🏦 📊 The firm's debt load has surged to a whopping $2.5B, with $1.1B in loans maturing this year alone. 💸 The pandemic has hit the commercial real estate market hard, causing defaults to skyrocket. RFR Holding is no exception, with defaults on several properties, including the $200M mortgage on the Seagram Building. 📉 🗣️ "The pandemic has created a perfect storm for commercial real estate," said one industry expert. "Companies like RFR Holding are facing unprecedented challenges as they navigate this difficult time." 🌪️ 🔜 So, what's next for RFR Holding? The company is reportedly exploring options to refinance its debt and avoid further defaults. 💡 With the commercial real estate market showing signs of recovery, there's hope that RFR Holding can weather this storm. 🌞 Stay tuned for more updates on this developing story! 📰🔔 #RFRHolding #CommercialRealEstate #Debt #Defaults #NYCRealEstate

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Great analysis of recent #vc trends. Thank you Kaela Roeder and Technical.ly for including my thoughts in the piece. My "expanded" two cents below for anyone curious... It is easy to get excited by what is happening in venture capital these days given the advent of AI. However, for early-stage startups, the numbers tell a more nuanced story. Early-stage deal volume in Q4-2023 was down 66% from the peak (Q4-2021) and a quarter of the deals were down rounds. In 2024, volumes stayed fairly flat relative to 2023 levels (signalizing a normalization to pre-pandemic VC activity) and 32% of deals were down rounds in Q1 (a worsening since year end). Early-stage valuations have spiked back up this year – a pleasant boon for some founders. But, this inflation is largely driven by the excitement around AI and strong demand for capital-efficient, high-growth companies. Many startups have tried to become “dot AI” businesses overnight; however, such tactics are not the “silver bullet” to fundraising challenges and growth. With limited time and capital, funds are on the hunt for companies with bulletproof fundamentals or those with exponential growth potential. If you don’t check one of these two boxes, the VC world looks fundamentally different for you. Locally, there are some positive tailwinds. The D.C. area has outpaced other metro areas in adding AI jobs due in large part to the defense industry and an increasing number of tech companies opening-up federal outposts. Over the long-term, this will be very positive for D.C. startup growth and talent.

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Excited to share our latest thoughts and findings on the emergence of AI / GenAI in the insurance industry. If you are a founder working in this intersection, please reach out!

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Is Now the Best Time to Raise a Private Equity Fund? According to industry leaders, it just might be. "I’m much more optimistic at this point in the cycle in 2024 than I was in 2023 and 2022," says Andy Lund, global co-head of Houlihan Lokey's Private Funds Group. Despite expectations of a slowdown, the first half of 2024 has been unexpectedly successful for PE managers raising capital. U.S.-based funds closed on $155 billion by the end of June, slightly ahead of the first half of 2023 (PitchBook Q2 2024 US PE Breakdown). Alex Russ, head of North America for Evercore's Private Funds Group, sees this as an ideal moment for GPs with open funds. "We saw fewer new fundraise launches in 2024 than in 2022 and 2023, leading to a slight easing, which we expect to continue into the second half of this year," he notes. However, challenges remain. LP capital is still largely locked until M&A and exit activities resume. Evercore anticipates flat PE fundraising figures for 2024 compared to 2023. Moreover, other asset classes are vying for already limited institutional capital, with private credit showing particularly strong growth. In this context, Maria Konnikova’s "The Biggest Bluff" offers an insightful analogy. Inspired by "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior" by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, the book explores von Neumann's belief that poker epitomizes the delicate balance between skill and chance that governs life. Doing well at poker isn’t just about playing well; it’s about playing well relative to everyone else. And even with the best strategies, luck plays a critical role. As Nobel-winning economist Daniel Kahneman notes, "The successful funds in any given year are mostly lucky; they have a good roll of the dice. There is general agreement among researchers that nearly all stock pickers, whether they know it or not—and few of them do—are playing a game of chance." The last two years were like drawing a bad hand in poker for those raising funds. The book also emphasizes the importance of thinking like a Strategist—something I’ve honed throughout my career. Each move requires reassessment based on new information. You need a plan that evolves with feedback and supports long-term, good decision-making. If you’ve lost your chips, was it due to an unlucky situation—or because your strategy was flawed? A recurring mantra of Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel is "less certainty, more inquiry." If that becomes your guiding principle, not only will you actively listen, but you will also adapt and grow. For GPs, strengthening relationships with existing LPs is more crucial than ever. Now is the time to leverage your learnings and craft compelling narratives that showcase your commitment to value creation and strategic growth. By highlighting your firm's ability to navigate complex market dynamics, you can strengthen LP alignment and foster the partnerships needed for long-term success.

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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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Chatted with a lot of emerging fund of funds managers recently & a lot of them are really smart Definitely excited to see more of these This post is more/less why + how I think about underwriting Fund II GPs: There's a complexity premium to be paid for underwriting Fund I/IIs Fund I fundraises are at an all time low That said, I don't think anyone who can be a GP should be a GP At the same time we're potentially losing out on some of the best vintages since 2007 Most Fund IIs fundraising today have a Fund I of the 2021/22 vintage, meaning most of their portfolios have yet to raise subsequent rounds The memo in '22 was also raise so you won't have to again for a long time, aka longer runway IRR is near zero for the most part & too early to fit into the 25% IRR underwriting for VC Even if they aren't, too early to tell for overall portfolio health It takes 5-7 yrs for a fund to fall into its respective quartile Same for DPI & TVPI (negligible) So LPs need to look beyond the IRR, TVPI, DPI metrics to get to conviction around a Fund II GP Largely around 2 things: 1/ discipline 2/ quality of the portfolio 1️⃣ Discipline - Did the VC do what they'd say they'd do? (ie # of investments, pacing, chk size, ownership, verticals, stage) then compare/contrast current portfolio to Fund I pitch deck 2️⃣ Quality of portfolio - while not all encompassing, this is what I use - rev growth rate YoY (loose proxy for IRR) - speed to 1M ARR, speed to 10M ARR - net rev retention (if the co never got another new customer, how much can rev grow) aka can founders upsell -customer satisfaction - rev/employee (how cash efficient are they) - burn rate or burn multiple (how much is needed to gain $1 of rev) Having a VC background is super useful for point #2, which frankly is a large part of the complexity premium that justifies imo FoF and their diligence/underwriting Most LPs don't have a team with robust direct investment exp & mostly follow signal on co-investments Sometimes an investment into a FoF is cheaper (in terms of fees) than building up one's own FoF practice

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ANNOUNCEMENT- I’m delighted to share that Asset Class has partnered with Palantir Technologies to bring AI to the Alternatives and Private Capital Markets. At Asset Class we will integrate the AIP platform and Foundry capabilities of Palantir with our Fund Operating System (Fund OS). We will work with the AIP Platform and Palantir's Foundry Ontology to support highly complex tasks / co-pilot features that will allow us to leverage the FULL dataset that comes with the Asset Class Platform. By linking EVERY step of the Investor and Fund journey on a SINGLE platform, we have a uniquely complete dataset that can inform our AI actions. Over time we will integrate this as part of our Asset Class Network. This will continue to ensure Asset Class is a far more powerful system than any other in the market. We are a platform - not just an app. In the near future, we will be an AI Enabled, Networked Platform I cannot wait to bring the power of AI to our platform to enable our clients to super-charge their investment in our platform. See announcement here: https://lnkd.in/eCSy5Tnu

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LP Tip #17 out of #50: Access isn’t achievable overnight. ➡️ Are you able to prove to an LP that you have unique and/or preferential access to deals? Almost everyone that pitches me a fund tells me they have access to unique deal flow given their networks. It is easy to say that but unfortunately not true for the majority of people that say it during pitches. Why? It can take years to build access. Furthermore, the strongest networks you have today should be helpful to source the types of deals your fund will invest in today. I often see first time managers have an interesting thesis but lack the established networks to source well so they have to spend time building a network while raising the fund which puts them at a disadvantage. My expectation is that you have those strong networks in place already. Below are four areas I think about when I am trying to better learn about your access. 1️⃣ In the Know:  Do you see or know about every deal in your area of focus? This assumes that you have a tight thesis and clarity on the type of founder you are looking to invest in. If you don’t know about a deal why didn’t you see it? Are you the first call for an operator about to start a company? 2️⃣ Depth and Strength of Network in Focus Area/s:  What are your personal and professional networks? What is the quality of the network in the area you are investing in? For example, do you know the most successful founders, operators, industry experts, angels, or investors in your target area? Are they sending you dealflow versus just being supportive? Are any of them seeking you out because you have some unique insight via research you published or community you built? How have these networks helped you secure access or support your founders? 3️⃣ Downstream Signal: Are you top of mind for downstream investors? Are you a signal for downstream investors? For example, if you are a seed investor are Series A investors in your area of focus knocking down your door for your deal flow? If not yet, what could you do in order to make that happen? 4️⃣ Ability to Expand Network:  Networks take time to build but they also need to grow and can evolve. Can you continue to build upon your network? 

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Summary: This article discusses various venture capital news, including insights and analysis of VC firms, trends in investments, and the impact of technology on the industry. Key takeaways: The article mentions that Insight Partners is potentially raising over $10 billion for its 13th fund, and OpenAI may be altering its complex corporate structure. There is a growing trend of Silicon Valley companies following China's lead and a discussion of how VC Mike Moritz believes the pace of work in tech companies should be "furious." Y Combinator is expanding the number of cohorts it runs, a new decentralized music streaming service called Tune.FM is introduced, and there is discussion about startups working on addressing climate change. Counter arguments: There may be concerns about the potential drawbacks of following China's lead, and the idea of a "furious" pace of work may raise questions about work-life balance and company culture. Some may argue that expanding the number of cohorts may lead to a decrease in the quality or effectiveness of Y Combinator's program. The article does not mention potential challenges or limitations facing the new decentralized music streaming service or startups working on climate change solutions. #venture #venturecapital #vc

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Why are Public pension funds over allocating into alternatives? Public pension funds are increasingly overallocating into alternative investments due to several factors: they offer potential for higher returns in a low-interest-rate environment, provide diversification and risk management benefits, and present opportunities in private markets that may not be as saturated as public equities. This strategy, influenced by the successful investment models of family offices and university endowments, aims to stabilize returns and manage overall portfolio volatility. As market conditions evolve, public pensions are adapting their strategies similarly to how family offices have, making strategic adjustments necessary to meet their long-term obligations. #PensionFunds #InvestmentTrends #AlternativeInvestments #AssetManagement #FinancialMarkets #FundLaunchPartners #FamilyOffice #privateequity #investing

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Back with the #EIS Navigator podcast after a short break with an exciting lineup of guests coming up. First is a really interesting interview with Renan Devillieres of venture builder OSS Ventures. He has generated an original and successful process for starting and building new companies in #manufacturing and #operations. We talk about what he does and why - both enjoyable and fascinating. Enjoy! #venturebuilder #venturecapital #startups

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