Kate Thorp

The consolidation play by Private Equity has both pros and cons, and it cannot be denied that sometimes the consumer may suffer, but the quality of the provision may become higher. It's a trade-off that needs to be managed well in order for it not to become "vampire economics" #PrivateEquity #VentureCapital #ImpactInvesting #Economy #USEconomy #Investing https://lnkd.in/gtdk6d5v

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Packed house for #ATSL24 and a great discussion between Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk and our own Ciarán O'Kane of FPC and ExchangeWire. The discussion touched on the lack of VC participation in AdTech (despite being a $1 Trillion addressable market). “Generalist VCs avoided AdTech because it’s complex. They often don’t understand why they’d win or lose”. This summed up exactly why FirstPartyCapital exists. A $1T+ complex sector needs specialists to fund innovation, provide deeper DD, illuminating context, access to networks and relevant portfolio support. Over time we hope this provides a stronger signal to generalist VCs and PEs. Look out for Rich Ashton Jack Tunney Alex Powell Mike Follett Mark Giblin Dan Jones Rafael Michelucci Ed French Shane Shevlin Lumen Research LightBox TV Contxt Media Bedrock Platform Exiber Pixels AI

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Having a Cars and Capital event tomorrow in Southern California with Oren Klaff. If you want to join message me. https://lnkd.in/gDQ4D39u Oren Klaff Bridger Pennington #InvestorEvent #FamilyOffice #InvestmentOpportunity #CarlsbadEvent #PrivateEquity #WealthManagement #InvestmentConference #CapitalRaising #NetworkingEvent #IndustryLeaders #FinancialGrowth #InvestorsMeetup #WealthBuilding #BusinessGrowth #InvestmentForum

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Sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive.

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From Cornfields to Cabernet: American Farmers Are Financing a $2 Billion Wine Buyout - I wonder if it will be a "fruitful" enterprise... I read a recent FT article about how Butterfly Equity has orchestrated a $2 billion acquisition of Napa Valley's Duckhorn Portfolio, funded by the US Farm Credit System. This deal attracts attention for several reasons: - Unconventional Lender: The Farm Credit System, focused on agricultural lending, is backing a major M&A deal in the luxury goods sector. - M&A Inexperience: This government-sponsored enterprise ventures into complex merger and acquisition territory, beyond its usual scope. - Regulatory Implications: The deal pushes the boundaries of the Farm Credit System's mandate, inviting potential scrutiny. - High Valuation: Butterfly Equity is paying a premium (13 times EBITDA) for Duckhorn, despite the vintner's struggles with stagnant sales and shifting consumer preferences. - Precedent Setting: Success could usher in a new era of creative financing in private equity. The transaction represents a confluence of trends: the pursuit of alternative funding sources, agricultural finance expansion, and pressure on luxury brands to find growth avenues. Risks are evident. The unusual financing structure and high valuation raise questions about the deal's viability and implications for both the wine industry and agricultural finance sector. This pairing of heartland finance and coastal luxury challenges traditional deal-making norms. It prompts consideration: Does this represent financial innovation or an overreach with unforeseen consequences? Link to article in the comments.

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Can you navigate the highly regulated alcohol industry and still find scalable growth? Noah Sanborn Friedman shows how it’s done. Join me as he shares his top strategies on balancing regulatory challenges and market opportunities. Get the inside scoop on his dos and don’ts that can make or break your venture in the latest from #FundraisingDemsystfied

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What’s the definition of Indentured Servitude? Equity partners shouldn’t be treated this way. 51% should mean of everything. Not just ownership of an entity with no profits and unequal voting rights giving them. Loans as salaries. A disgusting perversion what social equity partnerships should be. What a year for Stiiizy! 1) Founders owning multiple properties that coincidently have illegal shops. 2) Products having pesticides 3) Now calling equity partners “greedy” and suing them for wanting their share. What else did I miss? Alex Halperin is on a streak. Worth a subscription to his service.

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Welcome Andrew Condon Co-Founder, Head of Design & Marketing at BlueTrace on this episode of 🔥 The Lantern 🔥 BlueTrace’s mission is to simplify the seafood supply chain. First, that meant helping shellfish farmers print compliant shellfish tags by creating digital receiving and shipping logs to help them comply with state & federal regulations. Now, they’re helping 500+ small and medium sized seafood businesses, producers and distributors, with inventory management (plus sales & purchasing). They just crossed 8M tags printed...that will stretch to South Carolina and back..we think. 🔍 What’s going on inside BlueTrace this fall? 🔎 The team is continuing to bring to market their end to end inventory management platform. Creating sales orders, pushing invoices to Quickbooks, and more. A lot of seafood businesses do their software purchasing toward the end of the year when business is quieter so it is BlueTrace's busy season. The team at BlueTrace is also looking to hire a seasoned Sales Leader to build out their GTM strategy. Take note! 🤔 What has Drew learned from building BlueTrace? 🤔 Drew’s background has been in product & user experience design. His well worn advice? Know your customer! BlueTrace is co-located with a customer on the Boston Fish Pier, moving fish in and out of the building all day long. If they need something, they go downstairs. If their customer needs something, they go upstairs. That level of “always on” field study is incredible. Feedback cycles move quickly! Empathy grows too. 🤝 How can we help? 🤝 BlueTrace’s new Sales Leader will be integral to inflecting their growth. They’re looking for someone who’s passionate about doing these under appreciated, underserved jobs. Reach out if you know anyone! The Lantern is brought to you by MGMT Boston

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What does it take to create the next-generation builder platform? 💡 I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jesse Pollak who shared the compelling origin story of Base and the vision behind launching Base Camp in Idyllwild, CA. Base Camp is more than a summit —it’s a crucial step toward creating an open, decentralized platform that’s globally accessible. Jesse emphasized Base’s mission to build an onchain platform that’s as transformative as the internet itself. 🚀 Curious about how Base is leading this charge? Stay tuned for more insights from our conversation and what’s next on this journey! ♻️ if you found this insightful, don’t forget to like, share, and spread the word! P.S. How do you see the future of open-source platforms shaping the tech landscape? #BaseCamp #Onchain #Innovation #OpenSource #CommunityBuilding #FWBFest #Idyllwild

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Excited to announce that we recently joined GALY's oversubscribed $33M Series B round through Brinc's AngelList Syndicate. We’re in excellent company alongside top co-investors like Breakthrough Energy Ventures, H&M Group, and Inditex, with additional backing from returning investors such as Material Impact, John Doerr's Family Office, and Artesian (Alternative Investments). Luciano Bueno and his team are revolutionizing the cultivation of cotton and other crops by employing cellular agriculture, a method that is ethical, sustainable, and a step towards climate resilience. Their process replicates the quality of traditional cotton while using 99% less water, 97% less land, and generating 77% less CO2. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dJpPWTGB Join our syndicate and check out our latest deals here: https://lnkd.in/dj6WJRSz #venturecapital #brinc

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At last week’s ClimateTech Coffee 🚲 Bryan White and I were joined by Kimberly Gilbert, PhD to hear about her work on Carbon Neutralization and Ocean Storage (CNOS) through her company pHathom. Here’s a recap: The ocean naturally absorbs CO2 over time, but we’ve added so much that the ocean has become increasingly acidic. Ocean pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 globally over the last hundred years, and as pH drops it becomes harder for coral-based organisms to form shells. To combat this, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is an intervention that both reverses ocean acidification and removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Challenges with traditional OAE: - When you add the alkalinity into the ocean, it spreads out. It’s hard to measure the change in pH. - You don’t know exactly when the extra CO2 will be absorbed. Modeling and measurement companies are trying to help with this problem. Advantages of CNOS: - Co2 is captured directly at a coastal power plant or refinery, and then the concentrated Co2 is pumped into water that has limestone (and/or other alkaline materials) in it.  - This means the Co2 is dissolved onsite and the pH can be equilibrated onsite, which makes accurate measurement more feasible. Factors that affect progress:  - We’ll start seeing more companies enter in this space as the chemistry and its impacts are better understood and seen as safe  - Local and national permitting are a huge bottleneck - On the international permitting level, the London Protocol has a blanket ban on ocean geoengineering for anything except for research. There were good reasons for doing that, but it’s unclear who decides when that can change and the circumstances under which the ban is lifted. (Note: pHathom is not doing geoengineering; it’s doing water treatment on-site and releasing it back as ocean water) Open questions for the category/technology: - Can they come up with enough low-cost alkalinity sources, and get them in a way that doesn’t cause additional environmental damage or Co2 emissions?  - This approach will require pumping a lot of water. How much will that cost and how can the cost be driven down?  - Putting 100 plants’ worth of bicarbonate into the ocean is likely fine for ocean health relative to the climate benefit, but what is the point where the tradeoffs cross over? Some groups doing good work in this space:  [C]Worthy Carbon to Sea Initiative  University Research: UC Santa Barbara, University of Tasmania, GEOMAR, Dalhousie University, Scripps Join us for the next one in May! Details coming soon, and you can get updates by subscribing to the series page here: https://lnkd.in/g7DTGm2V

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Wondering what's new in the world of early-stage innovation research? Katie Sheehan's team has helped many brands use conversational research to better explore unmet needs and whitespace territories, understand their real potential in the market, and refine ideas. Register for the next Reach3 Insights masterclass webinar featuring Katie and Matt Kleinschmit to hear what they're learning and best practices you can use right away: https://lnkd.in/gwrpUxga #innovation #marketresearch #productresearch

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Syracuse, New York has 253,108 likely hip or knee patients. We know this thanks to our consumer data. It’s smart. It's collected ethically (with permission and opt-in). And gives insights into people's lives - who they are and what they do, from both offline and online perspectives. We build personas of people's attributes and behaviors: Ages, lifestyles, sports they enjoy, activities they engage in, purchase patterns, app download/usage and more. For example, we know that likely total joint patients are: over the age of 50, have active lifestyles (including golf, tennis, yoga, pickleball, etc.) and about 12 other demographic and psychographic data points... We link our persona to a geography, like 30 miles around Syracuse, and  *Cha-CHING* we have our audience: these 253,108 individuals. We serve ads just to these people in our audience, directly on their devices and in the places online where they already go, promoting you and your solution to their problem. THESE PEOPLE NEVER SEARCH TO SEE YOUR AD. Why is this important? ➡️ Because when you put yourself directly  in front of your most-likely audience,  you will influence their behavior. This exact total-joint strategy generated 859 NEW patients for one group this year (Jan-May). Question for you, Syracuse Orthopedic Specialists, PC Upstate Orthopedics St. Joseph's Health How are you getting the attention of these people? You can't maintain market share without being strategic and proactive. If you have: ✅ the desire to increase procedure volume, ✅ the process to convert traffic to patient visits, ✅ the ability to see value in this strategy,  we should chat. #Syracuse #NewYork #hip #tha #knee #tka #data #healthconsumers #DTC #patientacquisition #healthcareDTC

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Team San Diego! I though you may find this as surprising as I did...we are not alone. Read this quick article from Jon Prentice's (Silicon Valley Bank) interview with with James Newell (Voyager Capital), published in GeekWire on Seattle's innovation ecosystem....they lament the SAME issues as we do in San Diego: * Lack of angel investors, (Especially, it calls out, given the local giant tech co's) * "We need low-conviction check writers." * Lack of "cachet associated with being an angel investor" - We have similar efforts (as described in the article) to drum up angel activity: NuFund Venture Group and, Interlock Capital (read the article and you'll see why the Interlock effort is tops as relates to "paying back into the ecosystem") Connect.org strives to 'connect' innovative companies with investors of all types (angel, VC, PE...) - just see "Innovation Day". Their Springboard program provides another great way for experienced entrepreneurs to give back through mentorship...as for the companies going through Springboard: "Ask for advice, and you often get $$" Your thoughts on the article or San Diego innovation ecosystem? https://lnkd.in/gfwq6mfq

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Here is a tech policy piece on "If 2024 is The Influencer Election." The answer is yes, but the real question is, who funds the influencers? We now have a partial answer with the recent DoJ indictment. But we know that the funding goes far deeper and broader... Influencers who are being PAID to endorse a candidate need to disclose who is funding them and be subject to FEC, DoJ and FARA regulations. https://lnkd.in/enM92WFK #DoJ #fec #fara #freeelections #democracy

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Want to end the week strong? 💪🏻 Thought so! Then take a close look at this kick-ass team with @Josef Bromovsky, Seyfihan Usarer and @Kyle MertensMeyer who are the founders of Algoma. Algoma is on a mission to tackle three of the most pressing challenges in the construction industry: sustainability, productivity, and housing shortages. The built environment accounts for a staggering 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and Algoma is determined to change that. With the construction sector seeing just a 1% productivity improvement over the last decade, the global housing crisis continues to worsen. That’s where Algoma steps in. 🌳💻 As a digital architect and engineer, Algoma provides real estate developers with faster, lower-cost, and more sustainable solutions. When developers approach Algoma with empty sites, their technology delivers designs in days, not months!⏱️ In just a few months, Algoma has secured over $600K in contracted revenue and is disrupting the residential construction market with its groundbreaking approach. 💸 Algoma is currently raising a seed round, so reach out if you’re interested. To learn more about their product, visit their website and schedule a demo at: https://www.algoma.co 🏗️ 

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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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Great article on the founder-investor relationship—one that’s so critical to the success of any venture. Tough times are inevitable, and the true strength of a founder-investor partnership isn’t measured during the good times, but in how both sides show up when things go wrong. These moments test trust, alignment, and shared resilience. As founders, we’re expected to lead our teams through crises, rally, adapt, and navigate the storm. The best investors also show the same level of leadership and step up during challenging moments, offering guidance, empathy, and actionable solutions. It’s a collaborative effort, and I’ve been fortunate to witness how impactful it can be when investors show true leadership. One way to ensure this is to work with investors who’ve been in your shoes before—there’s nothing quite like operator investors to bring valuable perspective and support when it matters most.

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Congrats to the Revive team for the latest fundraise led by Equal Ventures, as well as the new brand! I’ve had the honor of working with Allison Lee (Founder/CEO) and team for almost six years as their first institutional investor. My gosh, it’s been an incredible–and at times harrowing–journey… ‘Revive’ is such an appropriate name for this company, on multiple fronts. First, it describes the core business well, where this platform helps large retail apparel brands to upcycle garments and deadstock into new products, thereby substantially reducing apparel waste. But it also accurately describes Allison Lee herself. Allison is one of the most resilient humans I’ve ever met, and she’s gone through hell and back to create this outstanding company. When we were first introduced to Allison in 2018 (thanks Bebe Kim for that intro!), Allison was a solo founder experimenting with mall kiosks that provided on-demand hemming services for retail apparel consumers. Over the years, Hemster (the name of the co back then) scaled up to become a substantial business, with her own warehouses and staff to handle hemming for top apparel brands throughout the US. But then the pandemic happened. Brand clients budgets collapsed, along with her business model, and Allison had to reduce her team down to just one person. Herself. This was a dark time. I remember reaching out and attempting to check in with her during a six-month period where she was at her loneliest as a founder. She pretty much locked herself in her apartment, mulling new directions for her company by herself. But she figured it out. In 2021, she saw that the consumer retail market was shifting as Gen Z was strengthening their purchasing power. This new generation of shoppers were more climate and sustainability conscious, and wanted to hold big brands’ feet to the fire for products that conformed to their values. Allison saw an opportunity to retool Hemster into a top platform to help facilitate upcycled products for apparel companies. And it worked! Allison breathed new life into her company and business has been growing quickly ever since. Her business’ thesis is even stronger and bigger than the one she initially launched with. Beyond her being a skilled founder and operator, Allison is also a fantastic human being. She is relentless and un-killable as a founder. And also so warm, kind, and present as a friend. I’m grateful to call her a friend today, as well as a role model. Allison’s journey is still in the early days with Revive, and no doubt she is going to build something that has a huge impact on this world. Hustle Fund is nothing but grateful that she said YES to us, and allowed us to be part of this amazing and inspiring journey. Congrats again, Allison and team!

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