Denise Ho

The Stoke Space team in Seattle has built a rocket company faster than many people can build software. Morgan Beller breaks down how this is helping them capture a huge opportunity: https://lnkd.in/gc5jv2-c 

23

2 Comments

If we want to see more diverse top companies like NVIDIA, we need to pave the way at the earliest stages—venture capital is that on-ramp. It was a pleasure to join Emerging Manager Office Hours hosted by Venture Forward earlier this week. Thank you to Rhianon Anderson and Maryam Haque for organizing such a value add event! A few (other) big takeaways to share: 👉 Distinguish the Curious from the Serious: Focus your time on LPs who are truly engaged. There are many LPs out there still excited about and committed to the VC asset class. 👉 Showcase Portfolio Performance: With liquidity tight, highlight KPIs, revenue growth, and the value your companies are building now to position for success when markets rebound. 👉 Clearly Differentiate: Provide concrete examples of how your approach stands out and drives unique outcomes, i.e., case studies. It was a pleasure connecting with friends and meeting inspiring next-gen GPs shaping the future of venture capital: William Crowder (Aperture® Venture Capital), Joshua Weed (Veteran Ventures Capital), Sonam Velani (Streetlife Ventures), Marcos Gonzalez (VamosVentures), Erica Duignan Minnihan (Reign Ventures), and Jenny Xiao (Leonis Capital). Here’s to collaboration, innovation, and creating lasting impact together.

63

5 Comments

Last night's Technology Association of Oregon panel discussion on raising capital for AI ventures was full of interesting takeaways. The event brought together leading PNW VCs, CEOs, and funders to share their perspectives and best practices. Here's what you need to know: ➡ The AI/ML space is rapidly evolving, presenting huge opportunities for startups tackling real business problems. VCs are actively seeking out the most ambitious and disruptive companies in this domain. ➡ Having an "unfair advantage" is key - whether that's proprietary data sets, unique domain expertise, or unparalleled access to customers. AI ventures need strong differentiation to stand out. ➡ Build relationships early with VCs, even before you're ready to raise. Their insights and connections can accelerate your journey. The PNW venture ecosystem is highly collaborative and accessible. ➡ Don't be deterred by the perceived lack of local funding. Great companies with compelling visions will get funded, period. Leverage the PNW's strengths in developer/engineering talent. ➡ Recognize and proactively address the potential downsides of AI - from data privacy to model bias. Building responsibly is both an obligation and an opportunity. ➡ Move fast, be bold. Raising capital is always hard, but fortune favors the brave in this space. With the right team, tech and traction, you can build a world-changing business here in the PNW. Thanks to the fantastic panelists Diane Fraiman (Voyager Capital), Geoff Harris (Flying Fish), Jon Maroney (OVF), Chris Sestito (Hidden Layer), Jon Turow (Madrona) for sharing their insights, and to Kristy Edwards for moderating!

20

3 Comments

Insightful breakdown from my great Partner Omri Amirav-Drory on the simple factors that really separate the top 1% of investors from the rest, and how more operators should become investors! https://lnkd.in/gEiZdT2h

16

3 Comments

Today, GTMfund’s is excited to announce to launch of Operator, its first incubated company. Max Altschuler (founder of GTMfund) teamed up with co-founder Adam M. (design engineer and 0-1 builder) and co-founder Mark Kosoglow (Outreach employee #1 and former SVP of Global Sales) to create Operator.ai alongside an insanely talented team Pleasant Middelhof, Jeremy Jonas, Carl Gunderson. We've entered a period called “The Great Ignore”. Spam and irrelevant, poorly-automated outbound campaigns are running rampant.   Operator gives you an easy-to-use Growth Engineer that allows you to build and enrich lists with accurate data, and run experiments and queries using AI to generate highly targeted outreach.    Check out their website to get updates, early access, and see how they are taking the world back to 2 touches meant to attract buyers into conversations that convert, instead of 20 touches meant to make sure you hit your activity number: https://www.operator.ai/

31

1 Comment

Big announcement below! 👇 Let's talk about the current state of GP-LP affairs: 🤯Emerging VC managers have absolutely exploded over the past 5 years. 📈 At the same time, more and more data has surfaced that shows that emerging VC firms tend to outperform larger, established firms. 🤔 All of this has made it intriguing but tough for LPs to know where to direct their attention. 🛍 GPs frequently meet LPs at conferences who are window shopping but not committed to the asset class or emerging managers. 🧾 And both crews get overwhelmed by transactional convos. So Sydney Paige Thomas and I created Abundance. Abundance is a private, nomination-based retreat for active LPs and top emerging GPs to form new experiences together and build lasting relationships. Why Abundance? Abundance is knowing that there is more than enough for more than one to succeed. And a single win within a community is a win for the community itself. The journey of an emerging VC manager from 1st close to final close or Fund 1 to Fund 2 is (1) communal and (2) requires an abundant mindset. LPs look for structure and confidence to feel comfortable investing in early VC firms. Yet many of the feeds we scroll and conferences we attend reinforce inherent power dynamics and transactional thinking, which allows scarcity mindset to creep in for emerging GPs. Some of the best events I’ve attended have been intentionally non-transactional, e.g. Camp Hustle, Recast Summit, and other GPs’ AGMs. The fundraising success stories we see usually involve a community (usually of other GPs & LPs) coming together to support and open doors for the emerging GP. We designed Abundance to be an immersive gathering that fosters these connections. Starting tonight, ~100 GPs and LPs are descending upon Seattle for the inaugural Abundance retreat. This has been under wraps for months and I can’t wait to see it come to life! Thanks in advance to our awesome sponsors who were the earliest believers in this vision: Sydecar, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Gunderson Dettmer, & Zelda Ventures. And shoutout to my dad Ed Illig for logo design & Halle Kaplan-Allen being the first sponsor to say yes 🤩 Presented by The Council Capital & Symphonic Capital.

131

33 Comments

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

201

13 Comments

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

114

4 Comments

The newest issue of The Pragmatic Engineer found a surprise uptick in eng hiring in the typically slow summer season - I'm curious to see how the macro environment impacts this uptick as we head into the fall, but I remain hopeful. I asked Gemini to give me the tldr of the article to share with my team (sorry, Gergely Orosz) and found it missed one of the most interesting pieces of the article. Gemini's highlights - Unexpected surge: Tech recruitment has seen an unusual spike in June and July, contrary to typical trends. Increased demand: Startups, especially AI-focused ones, are driving the hiring uptick. Global phenomenon: This trend isn't just limited to the US; Europe is also experiencing increased recruitment activity. Reasons for hiring: Companies are backfilling positions, investing in growth due to improved financials, and responding to increased VC funding. Challenges remain: While the job market is improving, finding qualified candidates and offering competitive compensation remains difficult for many companies. What I found most interesting - The nature of the backfills: the article finds that a lot of new headcount are actually backfills of folks that were "over-slashed" during rounds of layoffs. Not entirely surprising with the "trim the fat" and "rebuild lean" mentality, but interesting nonetheless. Either way, the uptick is encouraging (and don't always rely on Gemini's tldrs). #hiring #startups #VCbacked #softwareengineering

11

1 Comment

Instacart is a market leader when it comes to leveraging AI tools to boost productivity at work. I had an amazing conversation with JJ Zhuang, Instacart’s Chief Architect, who has shepherded over 50 AI-driven initiatives to market across the org. We explored what catapulted Instacart to the forefront of AI integration, supporting radically diverse use cases across various functional areas. One striking insight (echoed by Ethan Mollick and others elsewhere) is that you often don't need specialized tools for specialized work. Frontier models like GPT-4 can seamlessly adapt to a wide range of functions and use cases. They're not just for engineers; they're incredibly versatile tools used by marketing, comms, and legal teams. From generating code to proofreading and ideation, GPT-4 empowers every department to leverage AI for enhanced productivity and innovation. By integrating LLM’s like GPT-4 into their workflows, teams can streamline processes, automate repetitive tasks, and unlock bandwidth for new creative possibilities. How can you harness the power of AI in your own work to boost productivity? Share your thoughts below 👇 Want to hear more insights from JJ? Check out the full podcast episode by clicking the link in the comments.

8

2 Comments

What led Han Shen to invest in Weee!? In Episode 464 of The Full Ratchet, Han Shen of iFly.vc shares how he identified the massive, underserved market of immigrant consumers in the U.S. and why vertical integration made Weee! a standout opportunity. His insights reveal how understanding nuanced consumer needs and leveraging efficient models can drive billion-dollar outcomes. In the full episode, Han dives deeper into his contrarian investment strategy, why Gen Z’s behaviors are reshaping markets, and how concentrated portfolios create long-term success. Link to the full episode is in the comment section below!

5

1 Comment

Carta’s new QSBS offering for investors is one of the most exciting launches of the year. How it works 1. Investors can refer their portfolio companies. 2. Carta will prompt companies to get a QSBS Attestation to determine qualification. 3. If a company qualifies and receives QSBS Attestation, investors will receive an Attestation letter highlighting which securities held are QSBS-eligible. It’s that easy. With QSBS, investors can save millions and have peace of mind knowing they can provide an attestation letter in the event of an audit. More here: https://lnkd.in/eyX4BU-7 #investors #portcos #investment #captable #QSBS #carta

64

2 Comments

Hi Pradyumnā Nag Absolutely! With the advent of Millennial and GenZ Parenting styles, the need for a 3rd Parent in the story was always a gap. It's simple, Children are growing up with more screens and Parents have little or no access to what they are exposed to. Fighting Screen-Time is counter intuitive. Hence, there is some one required to monitor, coach and develop capabilities in children using all the data available. Not only to keep them safe but also develop those abilities and skills that let them flourish. Happy that Prequate Advisory Advisory has been an integral part of building this vision with us. Also glad that impact investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Justine Moore are invested in this sector. Check out our award winning AI models on www.parentof.com. Parentof

4

#SiliconValley Venture Capital Contacts. Explore a robust list of 200+ VC firms and 1,800+ professionals (partners and principals), complete with 1,500 email addresses for your outreach needs. https://payhip.com/b/eUIyc #startup #startups #vc #venturecapital #investmentbanking #privateequity #managementconsulting #b2b #founders #entrepreneurs

1

I’m excited to share this one! Redactive has raised a $11.5M seed round -- their mission is to become the trusted GenAI engineer for enterprise teams. Blackbird co-led this round alongside Felicis with participation from Atlassian Ventures and Zapier. Andrew, Alexander and Lucas are working to solve an urgent problem hidden in plain sight – empowering GenAI applications to meet their promise of "magic" in an enterprise setting. GenAI applications are only as useful as the data that they have access to, and for most enterprises, the most valuable data is sensitive and permissioned. We all want a chatbot (“ChatGPT for…”) at work that can search the data that we share in private Slack conversations or store in private folders on Sharepoint but first, we need to trust that our data will be kept safe – from prying eyes and accidental disclosure to others in the organisation who should not see it. Redactive keeps your sensitive data safe, giving developers the trust to connect it to GenAI applications and build products that you will love. Here's to the next decade. https://lnkd.in/gPuEAFvW

203

6 Comments

Our own Mary Grove recently joined Kritika Jain on the Girls Into VC podcast to share her journey from tech to venture capital, and all of her learnings along the way. Mary talked about building user trust, seizing opportunities as they come up, and shared advice on building a career in VC. She also shared insights on balancing career and family, creating a meaningful life, and the power of partnerships. Thank you to Girls Into VC for all the work you do to elevate future female VCs and the next generation of women-led startups! https://lnkd.in/gc9qbPqf

28

1 Comment

In our latest episode on the Practical Nerds podcast, Patric and I talk about our earned learnings on how founders (and other VCs) should choose the right (Co)Investors for their startup (Construction-tech or otherwise). Which of these do you agree with ? What did we miss ?

22

2 Comments

Urgency is the heartbeat of high-performing teams and companies. Without it, even the most talented teams risk falling into a plateau of low-level productivity. Leaders must consistently drive tempo and intensity to avoid this trap—aligning everyone towards ambitious goals and maintaining focus on what matters most. At the No Priors podcast, Frank Slootman of Snowflake says it best: urgency isn’t just about speed. It’s about setting higher standards, fostering alignment, and ensuring the team thrives under a shared mission. It’s the fuel that powers extraordinary outcomes and defines a company’s culture. At Magento, this mindset wasn’t just a guiding principle—it was an expectation. We fostered momentum and drive—setting ambitious milestones and encouraging the team to move fast and deliver results. Complacency wasn’t an option, and we worked hard to avoid it. The result? A team that consistently delivered exceptional outcomes by staying focused. Each milestone wasn’t just a win—it reinforced our culture of high performance and collaboration. For leaders, the plateau is a choice. ➡️ What strategies do you use to avoid the productivity plateau? https://lnkd.in/gmEFnWCw

16

2 Comments

👀 Looking at our recent investments at Draper Associates, here’s what standout founders nailed, making our decision to invest much easier (and faster): 💥 Visionary Tech with a Bold Vision – These founders are not here for incremental wins; they’re reimagining what’s possible in across tech - biotech, robotics, aerospace, and beyond. Their vision is big and audacious, tackling complex problems that demand breakthrough solutions, others have not been willing to try. 👊 Clear Passion & Purpose – The drive in these founders is undeniable. They’re committed to their mission with a depth of purpose that shapes every choice. One founder, for example, took two years completely off to learn and meet everyone in longevity biotech. This level of grit and dedication is rare but essential for the most impactful founders. 🌟 Assembling All-Star Teams – They bring together top-tier talent from diverse disciplines: experienced business leaders with successful exits or industry experience at top companies, technical co-founders with deep expertise, often PhDs or industry pioneers, and even published authors. It’s a complementary team, unified by a shared vision. They make the: "Why this team?" obvious - at a glance. 💻 Data-Driven to the Core – These founders present data insights that show why their approach is unique, especially against a competitive field of companies. This data is delivered with clarity and they make the complex simple. Many are published in top journals, adding depth and credibility to their approach, and reinforcing that they know their tech inside out. ⚡️ Memorable, Clear Vision – They don’t just pitch; they make the future feel tangible, with a vision that’s both compelling and concise. If I can relay their pitch in under 30 seconds to my team, they’ve killed it. 📣 Transparent & Proactive Communication – The best founders don’t wait for questions. They come prepared, often with a comprehensive FAQ doc, give timely updates to our questions, and are candid about challenges. This level of openness builds trust and strengthens our partnership. 💸 Milestone-Driven Funding Strategy – Each funding stage aligns clearly with already achieved or upcoming achievable milestones. They’ve mapped out a roadmap that minimizes risk at every step, giving us confidence in their journey. 💰 Revenue Milestones Along the Way – Even if it'll take a decade to hit revenue on their big vision, these founders find revenue generation stops along the way to profitability. They share a trajectory that connects early wins to revenue, showing how every step is a building block toward their bigger vision. Overall, the best founders are incredibly thoughtful, prepared, and fantastic verbal / written communicators. #founders #startups #fundraising #VC

36

2 Comments