Harlyn Pacheco

👀 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

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Waymo's market share is now equal to Lyft within SF. Incredible. Network effects is one of the best sources of defensibility. But it's proven to be not that important in ridesharing. When Waymo launched in August 2023, Uber and Lyft were at 66% and 34% share in SF. 15 months later in November 2024, Waymo is at 22% - the same as Lyft - with Uber at 55%. Note: stats from a partner at a16z. #ridesharing #Waymo #Lyft #Uber #a16z

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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!

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Check out my recent post on why President Trump is the forcing function for us to solve the “Missing Middle” and catch the industrial Tsunami of onshoring coming to the US!

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⚡ 🔌 Sense is helping to decarbonize the world through better grid analytics as we march through a critical intermediary step: electrification 🔌⚡ It's W2 / Q3 / 2024 & this week in our MGMT Boston startup series we’ve got Sense, a growth stage startup bringing better intelligence to the edge of our electrical grid. Founder and CEO Mike Phillips has built software companies through many cycles, including the dot com era. In the early days of AI and machine learning he founded a company called Speechworks, licensing speech recognition technology from MIT. When Mike & his early team were ready to build something new at the intersection of machine learning, data and consumer in climate tech, they had a battle tested plan. Electrification helps decarbonization because we can then use software to more intelligently identify areas of efficiency. As we onboard more electric vehicles, integrate more heat pumps, and stop burning stuff in our home and cars we need to see what is where. When you get a bill from your energy provider and it shows that energy usage bar chart relative to your neighbors, it’s not very actionable. Did you know the transformer at the end of your street can only support charging 3 EVs at any given time? Our electrical grid is the largest machine in the world, based on 100-year-old technology. It’s amazing it even works because it’s practically devoid of real time insights. When Mr. & Mrs. Smith move in next door with the 4th EV in the neighborhood and the power goes out, do you know how the utility knows? When you call them! Estimates from Bloomberg, McKinsey & others state that $21T of investment is needed to upgrade our electrical grid in order to hit net zero emissions with capacity also needing to double by 2050. In 2024 they are focused on meter rollouts to utilities across the U.S., partnering with major utilities on the east coast to bring Sense’s technology and insights to over 3M consumers, with more on the horizon. Sense is proud to be a part of Boston’s growing climate community seeing big potential throughout the Boston ecosystem, aspiring to be one of the companies leading the way in the years ahead. Sense is backed by Blue Earth Capital AG, Bolt, TELUS Global Ventures (TGV), MCJ Collective, Schneider Electric, Energy Impact Partners, Prelude Ventures, and iRobot. Operators to Know (Locally): -Karen Rubin, COO -Colin Gibbs, VP Energy Services -George Zavaliagkos, VP Technology -Sam Alden, Director of FP&A -Maggie Fitzgerald, VP Business Operations -Vikas Garg, Senior Electrical Design Engineer -Joel Margolese, Director Software Engineering -Stephon McCoy, Head of Strategic Integrations, North America -Aisha Strauss, Director of Customer Success -John A. Watlington, Director of Hardware If you're interested in learning more, the full post is linked in the comments! And sign up for the newsletter to see who we bring you next week, will ya?? #bostontech #startups #AI

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🚀Super excited to announce Day Zero Ventures Investment in Zeno🚀 We're thrilled to back Zeno, a company set to revolutionize two-wheel transportation in emerging markets with their innovative electric motorcycle ecosystem. Why we're excited: Massive Untapped Market: • 600M petrol motorcycles globally, growing to 2B by 2040 • 60-80% are 100-200cc commuter motorcycles • No good electric options exist for this segment yet Perfect Product-Market Fit: • African bike taxi (boda boda) drivers cover enough miles annually to circle the globe • Switching to electric can reduce fuel costs by 50-75% Comprehensive Ecosystem Approach: • 100-200cc equivalent electric motorbike • Flexible multimodal charging: swapping, fast charging, home charging • Innovative battery-as-a-service subscription model Exceptional Team: • Michael Spencer (CEO): Ex-Tesla leadership, 15 years in East Africa • Rob Newberry (VP Software): Former Apple & Nest senior engineer • Swaroop Bhushan (VP Engineering): Powertrain expert from Lucid and Harley's LiveWire • Plus ex-engineers from Gogoro, Ola Electric, and Ather Zeno's vision goes beyond transportation. They aim to transform customers' relationship with energy, potentially powering homes, businesses, and supporting the grid in emerging markets. We're excited to partner with Zeno on this journey to electrify the world's fastest-growing vehicle segment. As emerging markets continue to develop and urbanize, Zeno is well-positioned to become a cornerstone of sustainable transportation infrastructure. Read why we invested in Zeno in the 1st comment! Alok Bishoyi Rahul Rajvanshi #CleanTech #ImpactInvesting #ElectricVehicles #EmergingMarkets

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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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Who doesn't love a good top 50 list?! Very excited to launch Congruent Ventures and SVB's inaugural 50 by 2050, focused on identifying the companies with the highest potential to drive carbon reduction over the next 25 years. I'm 100% certain that we've missed some amazing companies. I'm also 100% certain the companies on the list are awesome. Sadly, by our own methodology many or our incredible companies at Congruent didn't make the list (but suppose that is as it should be). Check out the report below. Live / interactive list here: https://lnkd.in/dYgCfEv8 Tim De Chant TechCrunch coverage here: https://lnkd.in/dkUJm_Sn The Congruent/SVB team collaboration was awesome Dan Baldi Eliza Cushman Marianne Wu Joshua Posamentier!

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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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Early stage climate investing impacts of Trump 2.0 through the lens of an LLM observing our teams post election investment committee discussions - 1. IRA Implementation Challenges reflect deep concerns about program execution rather than just policy changes. The team noted that even without formal rollbacks, administrative cuts or friction could effectively neutralize IRA benefits. They discussed how bureaucratic slowdown and uncertainty around decision-making could make programs practically inaccessible even while technically remaining in place. This led them to pass on at least one investment opportunity that was heavily dependent on smooth IRA implementation, demonstrating how these concerns are actively shaping investment decisions. 2. The Municipal/State Level discussion focused on the potential for local action to provide some stability amid federal uncertainty. The team explored how in the past some cities and states led on climate initiatives and could continue pushing climate initiatives forward regardless of federal stance. This created an interesting tension between seeing local government as a source of stability while recognizing its resource limitations. 3. Market Psychology emerged as a crucial factor in their analysis. The team explored how regulatory uncertainty affects behavior throughout the market - from individual bureaucrats becoming more risk-averse in approvals to customers hesitating on purchasing decisions. They highlighted how market participants' fear of potential changes can freeze activity even before any actual policy shifts occur. This psychological impact appears to act as a force multiplier for regulatory uncertainty, potentially affecting markets faster and more severely than formal policy changes. 4. Unsubsidized Business Models. The team is continuing to focus on finding companies that can succeed primarily on economics rather than regulatory support. They discussed adjusting valuations to account for increased regulatory risk and showed particular interest in business models that could maintain growth even in adverse political environments.

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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

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Non-Engineering Roles at Early-Stage Startups Offering $120K+ Base Salary with Meaningful Bonus and Equity: Chief of Staff @ Milo (Consumer), Remote Biz Ops Lead @ Fractal Agriculture (FinTech), Remote; Backed by Virta Ventures Chief of Staff @ CakeAI (AI SaaS), NY; Backed by Primary Venture Partners Demand Generation Specialist @ Rootly (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, 8VC, Gradient Ventures Account Executive @ CommandBar (Enterprise SaaS), Remote; Backed by Soma Capital, YC, Insight Partners Product Marketing @ Slope (Enterprise), Remote; Backed by YC, Union Square Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures Supply Planning Manager @ PROVEN Skincare (Consumer), Remote; Backed by YC, FJ Labs, Soma Capital, Social Capital Account Executive @ Accrue Savings (Consumer), NY; Backed by Ground Up Ventures, Tiger Global Chief of Staff @ UNIGRID Battery (Climate), CA; Backed by Union Square Ventures, LiquidMetal Ventures Job details and the full list (40+ opportunities) are in the comments below. If you're interested in non-tech jobs focused on specific industries like HardTech, HealthTech, Climate, etc., then DM me or let me know in the comments.

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WAYMO -- WAYCOOL or GHOST RIDER? If you preside in San Francisco, Santa Monica or Phoenix you are now seeing driverless Waymo taxies making their way through town on an ever-increasing basis. The network is expanding, and I can honestly say that in the Santa Monica / West Los Angeles area I have not driven anywhere in the last two months without seeing one of them on the road every time. In fact, sometimes they are so prevalent that there might be three in a row waiting at a stop light. It still is kind of spooky seeing cars moving around with no driver, or anyone for that matter, in the front seat. It's not exactly the same as the Headless Horseman but it does conjure up that image in my imagination. I have not taken a ride in one, but several family members have and report their satisfaction. Waymo is a division of Alphabet (GOOGL). I have not seen any visible evidence of General Motors (GM) Cruise vehicles which I understand are still being road tested, while Tesla (TSLA) has been projecting their autonomous vehicle vision for some time. For now, Tesla seems to be behind but that could change quickly. GM is likely to use their own branded vehicles, and it would seem that Tesla will likely do the same. However, Waymo technology could be outfitted on any cars. That seems like a big advantage, staying out of the car business and just being like the "Intel/Microsoft" inside personal computers which is a much higher margin business. There has been a lot of noise in the business journals and chat rooms about a Waymo initial public offering but nothing from Alphabet itself. They recently concluded a $5.6 billion investment round; see TechCrunch post below. The autonomous race is on, and it will be expanding rapidly from here on out. I just wonder if we will ever see an autonomous police vehicle stop a wayward autonomous taxi and write it up for some violation as yet unknown. Will traffic school be an option? #waymo, #autonomousvehicles, #selfdrivingcars, #GM, #Generalmotors, #tesla, #Investing, #business,

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🚨 AI-Powered 911 Assistants Will Revolutionize Government Services and Save Lives. They are the future of emergency response for civil services for the following reasons: - Faster Response Times: AI can quickly analyze and prioritize calls, ensuring the most critical situations get immediate attention. - Accurate Data: AI can gather and process data swiftly, providing emergency responders with precise information, reducing human error. - Enhanced Efficiency: By handling routine inquiries, AI frees up human operators to focus on more complex and urgent issues. - Cost Savings: Automated systems can reduce operational costs, allowing governments to allocate resources more effectively. - Scalability: AI systems can handle high volumes of calls, especially during crises, ensuring no call goes unanswered. - Training and Support: AI can assist in training new operators, offering real-time guidance and support. Embracing AI in 911 services is not just a technological upgrade—it's a life-saving innovation. Let's drive government services forward with AI! 🚀 Benjamin Sanders Damian McCabe #AIAssistants #EmergencyResponse #GovTech #Innovation #PublicSafety

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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I'm excited to announce that Canapi Ventures has led OpenYield's seed round. OpenYield is redefining how bonds are traded and who gets to trade them. Despite being one of the largest global asset classes, fixed income has long lagged behind equities in terms of innovation. Outdated systems, fragmented liquidity, and barriers to access have made bond trading inefficient, opaque, and inaccessible to many, particularly retail investors.   OpenYield is changing that. By delivering an equity-like trading experience for bonds, the platform transforms the fixed income market into a space defined by transparency, efficiency, and access. With real-time pricing, seamless execution, and intuitive workflows, OpenYield is making bond trading easier and more effective for institutional players, market makers, and retail investors alike. This progress wouldn’t be possible without the exceptional leadership of Jonathan Birnbaum and Hilton Lipschitz, whose decades of experience in capital markets and fintech have earned them the right to build a category leader in this market. Also hard to believe that meeting Jonathan over 20 years ago led to this partnership today!   For Canapi’s network of financial institution LPs, OpenYield represents an exciting opportunity to enhance wealth platforms, attract new client assets, and deepen advisor relationships. As the competition for wealth clients intensifies, access to efficient fixed income trading will be a critical differentiator, delivering real value for customers and strengthening client loyalty. Thrilled to be partnering with Ben Savage and Ned Daoro at Clocktower Ventures. Shoutout to Harrison Kioko. More thoughts on our investment thesis here:

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Last week at Stripe Sessions, we at OMERS Ventures, in partnership with Recall Capital and Gusto Embedded, hosted a few founders, builders and investors to chat about current and future trends in embedded fintech and vertical software. A few of my big takeaways from the evening: 🤖 A lot of us on the media and content side see AI as an existential threat, but many of those on the SMB and entrepreneur side actually view it as a solution to the 'cold-start' problem of 'wtf do I actually put on my website?' when they sign up for a Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, whatever and have to actually populate a customer-facing surface for the first time 🥞 Point solutions are increasingly losing out to full-stack offerings, even in vertical markets where requirements up and down the stack are unique. Everyone building a point solution is looking at how and when to expand. I think the differentiator will be in what the starting line was and how that cascades through the company's DNA as it adds additional features and capabilities. 👩‍💻 Technical integration of embedded solutions remains a complex and frictionful process, even for so-called 'two lines of code' 'simple' plug-ins (they end up not being this when they encounter complicated, aging legacy codebases). Is this a place for AI to excel – can agents handle heavy lift codebase stitch-ins without the time and effort it takes devs on either or both sides now? All in all a fantastic evening with great discussions and a terrific panel hosted by Somrat Niyogi! Thanks to Fred (Fady) Helou, Elizabeth Olveda, Charity Hudnall, Jackson Reynolds, Jeremy Butteriss, Lucy Wang, Isabelle Cole, Sarah Tierney Niyogi, Matt Bocci, Yi Liu, Yanett Burgueño and many more for provoking the above thoughts and many more!

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Summary: The article discusses the impact of hype on consumer and investor behavior in the tech industry, using the example of the autonomous vehicle service Waymo and the startup Mill. Key takeaways: Hype often leads people to focus on potential future developments, rather than the current limitations or challenges of a product or service. Social media plays a crucial role in amplifying hype and creating excitement for products, even in less glamorous industries like trash technology. Companies need to balance leveraging hype for marketing purposes with providing a positive product experience in order to build lasting relationships with customers. Counter arguments: Some companies may be more interested in using hype and buzz to attract investors, rather than focusing on the actual problem their product or service is solving. Investors should be cautious of companies solely relying on hype, and instead assess their potential based on their ability to efficiently solve a problem. #venturecapital #vc #venture #startups

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And my second investment at defy is in 🐶 zeroETL puppies 🐶... I mean PuppyGraph, which is all the beauty of a graph database, none of the data migration or continuous upkeep of a graph database. Sounds like magic? So are puppies 🐶 . Puppygraph is NOT a graph or a database. It is graph analytics engine that answers graph questions on your existing data warehouses, whether that is a Databricks datalake, Google BigQuery or postgres. Compared to SQL, it's faster, handles way more complexity, scales and has almost no upkeep. How did I get to conviction? 1. Tailwinds - 🌊 Lakehouses 🌊 have helped enterprises put all their data in one place, enabling Puppygraph to unlock insights previously unavailable. - 📚 LLMs! 📚AI and RAG cannot easily traverse fragmented data. Puppygraph's Graph RAG unlocks insights with their Knowledge Graph and spoonfeeds to the LLMs. 2. 👯 Team 👯 We have graph experts from Google, LinkedIn, Databricks, Tigergraph, and Instacart who are uniquely able to build this solution. 3. 💸 Customers 💸 . My alma mater Coinbase is a proud user. The feedback from my former colleagues was off the charts! A blockchain is very much a graph database and Puppygraph tracks down fraudulent transactions that go through mixers and helps identify patterns. Huge congrats to Weimo Liu Danfeng Xu Lei Huang Zhenni Wu Gary Hagmueller, defy.vc is proud to be an investor!!

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