Joash Lee

As the Shasta Ventures approval deadline approaches, we're presented with a unique opportunity to observe the complexities and inherent conflicts in GP-led secondary transactions. This scenario sheds light on the considerable leverage GPs hold within the private equity infrastructure. According to the article, proposed continuation fund requires LPs to approve the transaction if they wish to roll their interests into the new structure—a stipulation that could be seen as putting undue pressure on LPs. This raises critical questions about the balance of power in private equity deals and the alignment of interests between GPs and LPs. What are your thoughts? Is it appropriate for GPs to demand such conditions for LPs to participate in a continuation fund? How do you see this impacting the broader private equity landscape and the perception of GP-led secondary transactions? Looking forward to hearing your insights and perspectives on this pivotal issue. #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #InvestmentTrends #ShastaVentures #GPledSecondaries

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The recent acquisition of Bridge by Stripe for $1.1 billion sparked my interest in the Web3 infrastructure M&A landscape. In the near future, Web3 will need to mature into a sustainable, mature market as it moves beyond its rapid token speculation and memecoins hype. This maturation depends on infrastructure, but Web3 infrastructure startups are still being acquired at a limited rate. During the past four years, only 27 deals have taken place, totaling $4 billion. However, the annual value of deals within the cyber and fintech sectors is around $50 billion. For further details you are welcome to dive into the data in my newest Forbes Digital Assets article (link in comments). #web3 #crypto #acquisitions #startups #blockchain #infrastructure

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Want to understand why BTC has gone 🚀🚀 after the election? https://lnkd.in/eFDwZugQ In this week's ABCD Roundup, we unpack the 2024 US election's impact on crypto and AI with a strategic bitcoin reserve, crypto council and US mining investments all being proposed. We also shed light on how big tech is beginning to respond.

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Great thoughts here by Neil. The whole effort at PayPal has been one of a long journey of strategic planning that is now pushing into aggressive scale. As regulation and not technology becomes the gating function for mass adoption, these realities position PYUSD as a strong contender to punctuate the establish stablecoin equilibrium.

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✨ Excited to see agemo, founded by Aymeric Zhuo and Osman Ramadan come out of stealth with a first product, to remove the barrier to entry to software creation using AI! 🤔 Ai x software? When we decided to lead their inception round, twelve months ago, the "Ai x software" landscape was already quite busy with 100M rounds raised to blow on GPU farms here and there, Copilot experiencing a lot of gtm traction, and lots of grand visions shared regarding the future of software development. 🧠 What was not around however was a strong, deeply technical team starting from first principles (like, you know, inference costs should not be 10K per request!) and who was working on solving the deeper problem of reasoning (vs bruteforcing / superscaling LLMs into oblivions). We found just that with Aymeric and Osman, whose path enabled them to learn and take the best from what had been done at Deepmind and Microsoft Research (Swiftkey), and figure out from that intellectual heritage the best novel way to approach that problem. 👋 As a firm too, it's really cool to partner again with firstminute capital (hey Sam Michael Lorcan) who invested in Wayve's inception round with us at the time and accepted a similar bet. In 2016, Waymo and other self-driving tech giants had already raised billions to go all in on the Lidar / map tech, yet, Alex the founder of Wayve famously said: "they will be the first to operate in 3 cities, we'll be the first company to operate in 100". It looks like they might do just that. Read more at https://lnkd.in/e5Q4Qgaw

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October 08 2024 – 5 Notable Articles To Read Article: AI-Coding Startup poolside Raises Massive $500M Series B Takeaway: Poolside secured a Series B funding round, led by Bain Capital Ventures, bringing the startup's valuation to $3B. The round also attracted investments from corporate and institutional investors, including NVIDIA, DST Global, StepStone Group, Citi Ventures, and HSBC Ventures. Poolside develops AI software designed for programmers. Source: Crunchbase Link: https://lnkd.in/d8kHDqJf Article: Blackstone Seeks More Than $10B in New Asia Buyout Fund Takeaway: Blackstone Inc. is aiming to raise over $10 billion for its third Asia-focused private equity fund as it accelerates investments in Japan and India. Source: Bloomberg Link: https://lnkd.in/dp-mxTZC Article: BNP Paribas Asset Management makes first close of debt fund at €90M Takeaway: The strategy is designed to help institutional investors and family offices capitalize on special situations in Europe. This second iteration is structured as a fund of debt funds, featuring capital drawdowns, an eight-year maturity, and a target size of €300M. Source: Funds Europe Link: https://lnkd.in/dQTmhTtS Article: European VC firm Kurma Partners closes first $154M of largest planned fund, eyes up to 20 biotech investments Takeaway: Kurma aims to raise a total of €250M ($276M) for its Biofund IV, set to be the firm's largest venture capital fund to date. The fund is expected to support 16 to 20 biotech companies, with investments already made in three of them. Source: Fierce Biotech Link: https://lnkd.in/dbnvumac Article: Luxury London office portfolio comes to market in potential £400M deal Takeaway: The potential sale by private equity firm Alpine Grove Partners LLP and Seth Klarman’s hedge fund, The Baupost Group, would rank among the largest office transactions in the city since the pandemic. It will serve as another test of the demand for high-end and flexible office space in the UK capital. Source: Financial Times Link: https://lnkd.in/dbBerC6E #news #business #research #ai #funding

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Interesting post by Howard (Lee) Mosbacker IV, PhD on changing VC thinking in non Silicon Valley ecosystems. And yes, things have got to change. Howard argues that we need an active secondary market for VC positions at Series A rather than wait for those companies to become Decacorns. I completely agree... to an extent. Those secondary markets already exist, however. They are called stock markets. Hear me out. The VC world is so obsessed with Decacorn NASDAQ listings, that they've forgotten what built our industry. CISCO, Nvidia, AMD, Adobe, Amazon, Intel, all IPOd at sub $500m valuations. Companies are now being advised to wait until they have $500 Million in ARR before listing. This is madness. To be fair, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules and our litigious culture make a US IPO at a sub $1B valuation extremely difficult. Costs in the US are too high. Other global stock markets don't have that problem. For instance, on the LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) AIM market companies regularly IPO doing $10-20m in ARR growing 30% a year. IPO costs are 30% vs US costs, the US has more class action shareholder lawsuits in a year than the LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) has had in a decade. IN 2021, the LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group) had ~160 IPOs with an _average_ valuation of $100million. There's similar great small cap programs at the ASX, TSX Group and Euronext. The problem isn't the lack of a secondary market. The problem is that US VC's and board members don't look beyond the US to IPO. Maybe we should think outside of the box on this a little. BTW, I buy post Series B secondaries at Practical Venture Capital, and project manage small cap IPOs as a side hustle. You know... BYOL ( Bring Your Own Liquidity ) What would your fund's returns look like if you could get liquid at Series B?

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YC is usually considered one of the tastemakers for downstream investors. They de-risk companies at the earliest stages so that seed funds can pour more into the companies that find true PMF later. Having invested in 75+ YC companies and now focusing on Lobster Capital, I've seen this repeatedly - their batch composition often signals where markets are heading 6-12 months time. When YC starts funding a category, pay attention. But don't follow blindly. If you're looking for an idea on where future capital, talent, and business goes, follow the tastemakers, then decide for yourself what's real or not.

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“Voice AI applications will unlock $10B of new software TAM over the next five years” - Bessemer 🎙️ In my latest article on VC Cafe, I explore how Voice AI is reshaping everything from entertainment to customer service, with a focus on what this means for venture capital. It is based on research by Lightspeed   Bessemer Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and others. Read more: The Booming Voice AI Landscape - A VC Perspective (link in the first comment 👇)

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Does this mark the beginning of the end for this cycle of conglomerates trying to build? Since 2013, there have been waves of large SEA conglomerates alternating between acting as VCs and incubators, with Thailand being a prominent example. The latest trend is the 'Super App' model, something non-incubated startups moved on from several years ago. If previous patterns are reliable, this 'nature is healing' trend is a positive development for local startups. https://lnkd.in/g_ZnP-4K

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Amazing News!!! For 5 years now, I have been actively striving to one day tokenize my first real estate assets and now I am a part of a team that is actively building the industry. REtokens is bringing $30M On-Chain!!! It's important for us and those early in the space to focus on compliance and best practices. Therefore, we have selected the Polymesh blockchain because it is an institutional-grade permissioned architecture, that is built specifically for regulated assets, like real estate, in the form of security tokens. So much more exciting news to come, stay tuned!!! REtokens , Tyler Vinson , David Kirschbaum #blockchain #polymesh #securitytokens #realestate #tokenization #fractionalization #syndication #crypto #web3 #realestatetokenization

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

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🚀 The Future of Innovation is Shaped by What We Focus On Y Combinator’s Winter 2025 Request for Startups (RFS) just dropped, and it’s an intriguing reflection of the evolving tech landscape. From AI-assisted chip design to reshoring manufacturing and Stablecoins 2.0, it offers a glimpse into what might define the next wave of unicorns. 🦄 But here’s the twist: What’s missing from their list is just as fascinating as what’s included. 🩺 Where is healthcare innovation? 🌍 What about climate tech solutions? 📚 Why not a stronger push in education or urban resilience? In my latest article, I explore YC’s RFS through a critical lens: ✅ How it reflects broader trends in AI, Web3, and geopolitics ✅ Why some pivotal themes are conspicuously absent ✅ And why VCs should evolve from reacting to trends to shaping them 👉 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/grQTsAzS 💬 What do you think? What trends or themes should we be paying more attention to in 2025? Let me know in the comments or DM me!

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a16z's annual 'state of crypto' was released last week. Well worth a thorough read. My main takeaways: - crypto wallets & activity continue to hit new highs - mobile wallets are becoming dominant in emerging markets, as they offer an escape from antiquated banking systems - crypto is now bi-partisan politically (thank God) - stablecoins are becoming MASSIVE ("stablecoin transaction volumes more than doubled Visa’s $3.9 trillion in transactions in Q224") - and if stablecoins represent nearly a third of daily crypto usage at 32%, DeFi is 34%. DEXs are the future and $170B are currently locked in thousands of protocols - L2s are continuing to be built out, reducing costs even more - crypto & AI are converging, with AI applications being the top builders' focus The above only reconfirms my belief that Bitcoin will be the level 1 payment infrastructure for AI interacting with both humans and other AI. In other words, the Bitcoin blockchain will be foundational for all AI monetary transactions. May we live in interesting times, indeed. #bitcoin #crypto #DeFi #ether #blockchain - https://lnkd.in/dAFVfiJK

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In this edition, we delve into Sentient's recent mega $85 million seed round to uncover why top VCs are betting big on this venture. #venturecapital #veteranventures

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I rarely write about one particular token, but given the volume of requests for our thesis on Stacks STX, especially after the recent announcement https://lnkd.in/gWpkm-iu, I’m consolidating my thoughts here in one place. Hope this is helpful to those seeking to understand the STX ecosystem and the reasons behind our conviction. Full thesis here: https://lnkd.in/g2JGahpZ TLDR 1. It's the OG blue-chip crypto project. 2. It's the first compliant token: a key driver for institutional adoption is to use STX as the de facto BTC staking provider. 3. The most optimal return on risk for real “whales” to generate yield on BTC with peace of mind. 4. The undisputed forerunner in bitcoin L2 with 10 years of first-mover advantage. 5. It has a rare token standard moat. 6. Its ecosystem moat: 155 monthly actively developers + 60+ projects adopting its token standard 7. It's vastly being undervalued at the moment based on comparables in ethereum. 8. Tokenomics and token maturity: 100% vested. 9. Upcoming catalysts

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