Dale Bertrand

Venture Capital Fundraising Deck Template: Carta and Kauffman Fellows present a comprehensive venture capital fundraising deck template to guide General Partners (GPs) in attracting limited partners (LPs). Here’s what to include: 1) Background: Highlight the unique qualifications and track record of your team. LPs are investing in the people as much as the strategy. 2) Differentiators: Showcase what makes your fund stand out—whether it’s your access to networks, industry expertise, or proprietary methodologies. 3) Investment Thesis: Present your vision for the market, future trends, and how your fund will capitalize on these opportunities. 4) Track Record: Include metrics like IRR, multiples, and past successful investments to demonstrate your fund’s potential for generating returns. 5) Terms: Outline the economic terms, including fund size, management fee, carried interest, and target raise. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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I recently sat down with a group of Forum Ventures founders about to go out to fundraise and the topic of SAFE rounds came up. The context focused on the pros/cons of raising a priced vs a SAFE round and the conversation notably shifted toward the dilution implications of a SAFE round. Founders are keenly aware of the top line dilution of any funding round - ie selling 20% of their startup for $3M at a $15M cap - but very few fully grasp the implications of doing a SAFE round vs a priced round. The universal standard for institutional VC investors is a post money SAFE. This document essentially outlines ownership that an investor will have in a startup just prior to the execution of a priced round. Most importantly though, it is structured so that an investor in that SAFE will not be diluted by subsequent SAFE's that are issued. This is where founder education around the implications of this structure are not fully appreciated. In a situation where a founder continues to stack subsequent SAFEs, they don't actually convert until the first priced round and the net dilution they are taking is actually more than they realize. Here is a practical example - take a situation where a founder has already sold 15% of their business on a post money SAFE in a pre-seed round, and is now choosing to sell another 20% in a seed round. If the founder opts to raise this money on SAFEs, the dilution of that additional 20% will come entirely from common equity holders- meaning they will now own 65%. If SAFE holders were also diluted by that round, as they would be in a priced round, the founder would own 68%. This dynamic becomes more dramatic the more capital a founder raises on SAFEs. Note - this is a high level example and does not include an option pool carve out or other round nuances. Almost universally, when a founder raises their first priced round, there is some degree of sticker shock at the outright dilution on their cap table, particularly when options pools are factored in. This pain is even more acute when a founder has raised a fair amount of capital on SAFEs along the way. There are certainly benefits to raising SAFE round, mainly cash in hand 6-8 weeks faster and not having to decide on board seats too early, but I encourage all of our founders to run through cap table modeling and correctly account for the implications of SAFE rounds before they make fundraising decisions.

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Blueprints of a $4B success story: How focusing on the right team, structured employee integration, and a strong cultural foundation can propel your startup 👇 ➡ 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗲: Garrett Langley, Founder & CEO of Flock Safety 🔌 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿: Logan Bartlett, Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures ✏ “The $4B Tech Startup Solving Crime with AI” ⭐ 𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺, 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘀: "I am a staunch believer that people and products trump market. I think great teams build great products and find great markets. I don't know any other way to do it... And so I've just always believed if you have a great team, the rest comes with that." ⭐ 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝟵𝟬-𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗼𝘆𝗲𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝟯𝟬 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀: "What we tend to do is put together a very actionable 90-day plan for every new employee. Are people actually gonna make an impact? Is the plan actionable? And what that does is it drives this deep level of alignment between a new employee. Because you're effectively telling them this is how I'm going to keep score…" ⭐ 𝗪𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀, 𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: "If you don't write your culture down, it is inherently weak. In the absence of a written culture, your culture will just fade away. And in a remote environment, even harder, right? Because you don't see these people, you don't interact with people." ⭐ 𝗘𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗢𝗞𝗥𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀: "I expect anyone pretty much VP and above to own at least one if not two OKRs. One of the ways we're able to do that is every two weeks when we do a check-in, whoever is the owner is actually the one writing the update and it goes to the entire team." ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Check out our curated list of #New York funded startups, featuring key insights like HQ locations, founded years, and investor info. https://lnkd.in/dbw7pUqq #startup #startups #venturecapital #funding #vc #investmentbanking

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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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Sometimes I'm reminded of the paradoxical exuberance/foolishness of my own youth. Every day I meet amazing founders. Yo-Yo Ma level geniuses that are budding masters of their crafts and vectors, early in their careers, and intensely brilliant. The top products of the labs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, amongst other amazing institutions. They span upbringings, backgrounds, socioeconomic class, whathaveyou - doesn't matter. They're legit, and they're smarter than all of us. One or two of them will be a Tesla/Turing. Take my word for it. It's a pleasant byproduct of my job. Not the point. What I want to focus on is how in almost every conversation one of these folks says something that renders them a complete buffoon. Usually the baseheadedness is rooted in an Icarus Complex or can just be chalked up to being young, bold, and inexperienced (ironically the same qualities that can lead them to later build a decacorn). It's like listening to an LLM with an incomplete data set, hallucinating in real time. The only variation in these instances is how doggedly said youngin' sticks to their proverbial guns and digs in on a position of high moronitude. I've been there. I don't think I've ever told any one this story outside of Rob May having actually been there, sitting next to me. Not sure if he remembers. I was at a NextView Ventures dinner hosted at Trade in Boston. It was some startup event. Lots of very smart people. I was 27, and the CEO of my first vc-backed startup. The company had some heavy math roots - algorithmic rostering and optimization software, which I wrote the initial schema for. Anyway, I was sitting next to an older gentleman and (slightly) buzzed on wine, I mathsplained to him about how our statistics worked. Generally. A diatribe on normal curves. I think I said something along the lines of "should I explain normal curves to you?" It was painful, I'm sure. He listened politely. We both then returned to our dinners. It was only afterwards that Rob told me who that man was. It was Stephen Wolfram. I explained statistics and normal curves to Stephen Wolfram. I'm not sure what else to say here. Epic. I am the clown. The clown is me. There's no parable here. I just find it funny. If anything, it's that we all get ahead of our skis a bit - and probably more often when we're young or inexperienced. I certainly did. But I guess the ultimate takeaway for me is this: don't try to explain statistics or math to Stephen Wolfram.

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🚀 AlleyCorp Closes $250M Fund to Fuel Tech Innovation in NYC and Beyond🗽 🌟 Founded by NYC internet entrepreneur Kevin Ryan, AlleyCorp incubates and invests in transformative companies across diverse verticals including Diversified Technology, Healthcare, Robotics, and Impact. 💡💰 🤝 The fund, backed by a select group of LPs, supports AlleyCorp's mission to originate ideas, hire teams, provide initial funding, and maintain integral leadership throughout the company’s lifecycle. 🌱🔍 💼 With about 20–30 new investments and 5–8 incubations per year, AlleyCorp has a track record of nurturing early-stage tech pioneers. 📈🌐 🦄 Notable investments include MongoDB (NASDAQ: MDB), Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, and Nomad Health, shaping the landscape of tech innovation in NYC. 🌆🌟 🔬 AlleyCorp also announces the incubation of Radical AI, pioneering AI-driven materials design, and Conduce Health, revolutionizing access to personalized healthcare specialists. 💻🏥 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #VentureCapital #TechInnovation #NYCTech #StartupInvestment #Incubation #AlleyCorp #ImpactInvesting #HealthTech #AI #Robotics #DiversifiedTechnology #InvestmentStrategy

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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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As we dive into 2024, the Series A fundraising landscape is becoming increasingly daunting. Investment standards are soaring, and fewer startups are making the cut. Series A investors are finding many seed stage companies too premature. The median valuation jump from seed to Series A skyrocketed from $19.5 million in Q1 2022 to $28.7 million in Q1 2024. Investors now demand stronger revenue performance, targeting $2 million to $3 million in ARR, up from $1 million to $2 million. Alarmingly, only 12% of Q1 2022 seed startups secured Series A funding within two years, down from 31.8% in Q1 2020. #venture #earlystage #seedtoseriesa #seed #seriesa #inspireglobalventures https://lnkd.in/gW4bkcNy

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Startup decks vs Business plans. It's accepted that a startup needs a deck. Dax Dasilva of Lightspeed Commerce made an important point on 20VC. Writing a business plan - including financial projections - is an important step. It requires discipline. It provides a rigorous framework for thinking deeply about the problem you're trying to solve. Harry Stebbings countered that he doesn't even want to see a deck since it's all dreams. We spent a lot of time and energy on our business plan with the expectation that we would show it to no one ever. The business plan was part of our roadmap for the company. We researched customers - including having 50+ conversations. We wanted to understand them: their background, their interests, their presence on social media. We also wanted to understand how they were evaluated by leadership and how integrated they were with the business of the company they were protecting. We researched pricing both with potential customers and other products in our industry to find out if OpEx or CapEx was a better fit. How did they buy today? How would they like to buy? We did market research to understand the verticals and map the right entry point - we were wrong but that doesn't reduce the value of the research. We looked at competitors in depth to understand what they were seeing that we weren't. Dax is right. This is an invaluable document that should be updated every year - the company is changing, the market is changing, there's more feedback about price and ICP. It's not for sharing with the outside world. It's a map for driving forward. Decks won't get you investment - VCs invest in people. We make decks but we know they don't tell our story. The deck is a calling card. Dax and Harry are both right. https://lnkd.in/e25M82xY

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Black founders are creating exceptional products and driving innovation. However, the statistics have remained stagnant, highlighting a need for change. Remember, supporting Black founders is crucial for true diversity. Progress can only be achieved if we move forward together, not separately. This is what we aim to achieve @ Diversity-X

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I 💯agree with Oz Merchant on this topic. Some folks advise founders to pitch very selectively and 'pick your pitch' - you get one shot, choose it wisely? I'm 180 degrees opposite of that - be a promiscuous pitcher! - ABP - ALWAYS BE PITCHING. Because your pitch gets better with every no, take that feedback, learn, iterate. Right now it's taking 50-100 no's for Triangle co's to get funding, it's still tough out there, so get through the no's fast to get to a yes. Check out the event - also go see others pitch, it all helps you get better - pitching is like PMF - lots of iteration, tons of grinding to get through to the other side.

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1 min tips for founders and VCs to start a newsletter and grow on social media today! Inspired by my chat w/ my friend Michael Houck 🚀😁 #vc #founder #newsletter

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Shifting Fundraising Landscape: Should Founders Reassess the VC Path? For years, founders were advised to raise enough capital to last 18-24 months. But recent data from Carta suggests this is changing. Time between rounds is growing, and raising capital is becoming more difficult and costly. The VC Playbook: A One-Size-Fits-All? When capital was cheap and abundant, founders gravitated toward a model focused on rapid, top-line growth. The trade-off? (Significant) dilution in exchange for the potential of eventually owning a small slice of a large business. But as the economic landscape shifts, several critical challenges have emerged: Extended Fundraising Cycles: The growing gap between rounds means founders need to stretch capital longer, which can stall growth or lead to decisions around scaling back which in itself may impact the ability to raise again. Rising scarcity and higher Costs of Capital: Inflationary years and market corrections have made it more expensive to achieve the same milestones. The capital that seemed sufficient two years ago may now fall short. And capital is harder to access. These realities prompt an important question: have founders fully assessed the risks associated with the venture capital path? The truth is, not every business can—or should—scale at the aggressive rates that VC funding demands. Is There Another Way? A more sustainable approach is gaining traction—one that prioritises profitability earlier in the life cycle. For many founders, this could lead to a better risk-adjusted outcome. The Transition Challenge However, shifting from VC to a more private equity-style model isn’t easy. Many companies find themselves stuck—too slow for VC but not profitable enough for PE. At Resurge Growth Partners, we’ve noticed that more and more founders are asking these very questions and re-evaluating which path is best. We’re increasingly working with founders who are navigating this shift, helping them find the right balance between growth and profitability. It’s a conversation worth having. #ventureequity #privateequity #venturecapital

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🔮 What's the future of developer platforms? ☠ Or the death knell for open core companies? Get the answers (and more) from Ethan Kurzweil; longtime partner at Bessemer Venture Partners and soon-to-be founder of a new, early stage venture firm. In his time at Bessemer Ethan invested in Launchdarkly, Twilio, PagerDuty, Intercom, Twitch, SendGrid, HashiCorp and npm. He's seen it all, you won't want to miss his takes on what's next and what isn't going to work. I'm sharing our closing lightning round questions here, but the full interview (which is much juicer) can be found at calyx.substack.com. ⚡Lightning round questions!⚡ *What's the developer platform that you respect most?* 🔶 Zapier. It's the ultimate democratizer of development for 4,000 different esoteric use cases and some not so esoteric use cases. And they built it in a way to allow anyone to use it. *Who is a developer GTM leader you respect?* 👨 Adam FitzGerald at HashiCorp. Disclaimer - he’s a Bessemer operating advisor. He is the best thinker to help companies structure developer evangelism programs at scale. *Unpopular opinion re: dev tools?*  💼 That a lot of dev tools shouldn't be businesses. Many should be free or part of a larger developer platform offering. The difference between tool and platform can make a big difference as to whether you have a sustainable business. *How do you feel like you’re able to uniquely work with developer-first companies?* ⚾ I’ll keep it to one for the lightning round: I’ve gotten lots of experience with false signals. If you’re a founder working on a startup sometimes you’ll respond to a false signal and it’s hard to go back and unwind those choices—we have lots of experience with developer platforms and can help founders avoid those pitfalls. Disclaimer: Ethan would never use emojis like this. He actually...doesn't use emojis!? I've just added them in an attempt to improve readability on LinkedIn... enjoy!

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Narratize’s ResearchHub is amazing in accelerating #marketresearch and academic database research using the power of #GenAI. Katie Trauth Taylor, PhD demonstrates the breadth, depth and the speed in her brief demo. Highly recommend to check it out. #innovators #productdeveloper #researcher #academicresearch #AI

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Serious question—why do so many grant funders and accelerators make it so hard to find the application deadline? Is it a secret or something lol? 😅 At Mogul Millennial, Inc., we make it our mission to ensure every opportunity in our Startup Funding Database has the critical details founders need. Things like application deadlines, eligibility criteria, and the EXACT funding amount are essential—but surprisingly, they’re often missing. (Don’t worry, we always dig deep and find them because we're excellent at what we do.) If you're getting ready to launch a grant, accelerator, or pitch competition, I’d love to chat about how we can help make your application page clearer and stronger so you can reach more applicants. My email is [email protected] #grants #accelerator #funding #venturecapital #pitchcompetition #startup

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