Lindsey Grossman

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

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Sharing some insights/trends we are seeing in the first half of 2024: - The majority of startups HQ’d in NYC & SF founded in the last two years are hiring most if not all of their employees in the office (at least 3 days a week) - Less than 5% of those are mandating 5 days a week in office. - Most top candidates are optimizing for hybrid with remote up to 3 days a week - Compensation across the board for early-stage startups has remained relatively flat since 2023 - For startups located outside of core major tech hubs, there is more openness and even preference for remote to tap into broader markets and compete for top talent The overview is that local talent and teams are making a comeback and salaries are not rising as drastically as they have in the past 5 years. Make sure to choose your next move based on fit, impact, passion, upside, growth, and not purely on comp. #startups #venture #VC #seed #Engineering #Hiring

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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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At Forum we look at thousands of deals each year across our Accelerator and Pre-Seed funds but only end up investing in a little over 1% of those startups.  As an early stage VC, I am in the business of saying no to nearly every startup I meet, and while there is nuanced rationale for many of the startups I pass on, a vast majority of businesses that don’t meet the qualification to get funded typically fall into one of two buckets. ▪ First time founders have a tendency to go out to market too early to raise pre-seed capital ▪   I’m sure most founders have heard some iteration of this from VCs that ultimately pass on their business.  In some cases it's a blanket excuse covering up for other pass reasons- perhaps a VC doesn’t believe in a team or isn’t bullish on the market opportunity - but in many cases founders simply haven't proven enough to the market to warrant an investment. I meet many teams with an articulate vision for the product that they want to build, but they either haven't performed enough customer discovery to prove demand for their initial wedge product, or need to raise pre-seed capital to build out an MVP.  In those cases, pre-seed investors are unwilling to underwrite those risks.  To be default fundable, teams need to be able to keep costs low, perform extensive customer discovery, and ship some version of an early product - pilots and early paid customers are key. A huge piece of this is having founding engineering talent on the team. ▪Not every startup is a venture opportunity ▪ By definition, a venture backed business is solving a problem within a market opportunity so massive and so desperately needed, that its growth rate is off the charts.   It spreads like a weed, absorbing almost unlimited amounts of capital to fulfill demand within its customer base.   Each year there are maybe 20 companies launched that ultimately have venture scale outcomes. The bar to reach this rarified air is unfathomably high and the reality is the vast majority of founders simply aren’t building for opportunities that have the potential to be one of these generational companies. Many startup founders view VC as the only viable option for capitalizing their business, but not every great business is a venture business, and most successful founders never take VC dollars.  In order to reach an IPO/acquisition large enough to generate venture returns, a startup needs a credible path to $100s of millions in revenue. This is the standard by which early stage opportunities are evaluated. The flip side to this, and I share this feedback often with founders I meet that are building interesting business in non venture markets, if you are able to scale to $10- $20M in revenue that can be a massively successful outcome for a founder.  There are investors who focus on these type outcomes, namely lower middle market PE shops, and the typical path to those deals is a bootstrapped business or a friends/family capital raise.

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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.

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We believe in extreme vetting of our founders. You can't build a unicorn if you spend time on silly stuff, like seeing family and friends. Grow up, and focus on investor returns. #vc #startups #investment

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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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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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A System of Agents: Our view on how founders can jump on a $4.6T opportunity. 👇 When Foundation Capital partner Jaya Gupta and I first outlined the Service-as-Software framework months ago, we knew we were describing something transformative. Now, after engaging with hundreds of startups, the potential is even clearer: the way to put Service-as-Software into action is through a System of Agents. Unlike traditional software systems that passively wait for human input, a Systems of Agents approach reimagines how software operates. Groups of cooperating AI agents aren't just tools; they're autonomous workers—capable of capturing, processing, and acting on both structured and unstructured data with unprecedented intelligence. The agents understand context, make decisions, and continuously improve. The initial Service-as-Software shift was significant. But a System of Agents? This is the paradigm shift that will unlock new, previously unimaginable categories of work. Here are four tips for founders building with Systems of Agents: ✔️ Capture data at the source Traditional software relies on human input, but Systems of Agents thrive when they operate directly at the source of data creation. By owning the interface where data originates, you empower your system to orchestrate downstream actions seamlessly. ✔️ Reframe costs as workforce investments When a System of Agents handles an entire job function, think beyond software budgets—classify it as part of a company’s workforce spending. This positions your solution as something that aligns with personnel costs, rather than operational software expenses. ✔️ Expand workstreams with AI’s 24/7 capabilities AI agents never clock out. Builders can use this round-the-clock reliability and scalability to unlock new opportunities—think of offering constant support in healthcare or real-time operations in logistics and customer service. ✔️ Prepare for pricing and business model changes Embrace the shift from seat-based pricing to outcome-driven models. With Service-as-Software and Systems of Agents, your value proposition is tied not to the number of licenses issued but to the measurable outcomes and improvements your AI delivers. Read our full analysis in the comments 👓

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Interesting concept to rename rounds by milestones. But "Series Client Expansion Extension" just doesn't have the same ring to it 😋 . Maybe we can start incorporating it into a descriptor to add context, "Series Seed Extension: client expansion." #startups #venturecapital

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Thought for the day for Investors and Founders. Every startup needs 3 people on the team; Tech visionary, Sales missionary, Product designer. The CEO should be an expert at one of these roles. You might think that a Founder CEO can fill all three roles, but that is rarely the case. You might think the startup can fill those roles later in the evolution. Maybe, but you lose so much time, and risk getting too far off track if you wait. You might think not having deep domain experience in the market they are targeting, isn't important. Thinking smart thoughts, and having a crisp pitch deck is NOT the same as grinding at the problem for years. If you don't see 3 strong people on the team that totally get those 3 roles, and people who have deep domain experience... don't invest.

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Not all of the investments that Kindred Capital VC makes can be a 13 year sourcing process.... but... this is one of those very fortunate moments in which a relationship that started over a decade ago in the Bay Area where the brilliant A-H. Hleileh and I overlapped has now turned into an incredibly exciting opportunity for Kindred to lead his and Ron Holifield's first institutional round at Civic Marketplace. We believe: 1. Local government procurement is one of the most underserved areas in technology today, and has failed to keep pace with the private sector. They deserve better. 2. This is a huge opportunity, with US local governments spending alone amounting to over $1.5 trillion in annual spend, which is only going in one direction... 3. As the brilliant Kip Harkness shared with me in our diligence phase, "this industry moves at the speed of trust." And this is a unique founding team with A-H. Hleileh and Ron Holifield at the helm who bring together two critical ingredients: 1) decades of trust-building within this domain, and 2) a team who can build beautiful and scalable technology platforms. Onwards!! 🚀

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On my way to London to work with a portfolio company at their QBR and annual planning process. Another example where having investors on your cap table that understand how to build companies vs just show up and pontificate at your board meetings will help you to build world class outcomes. Remember why we do this - build world class organizations that drive meaningful economic outcomes for employees, customers, shareholders, and investors. Lead from the Front!!! #vc #growth #venturecapital

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Navigating the venture fundraising market is pretty hard. Add to this the additional barrier of being a women-led business, and the odds literally seem stacked against you. I'm thrilled to announce that 'Founded by Her' is BACK, and our second cohort is now open to applications. Applications for the cohort kicking off in September are open across July. Open exclusively for up to 15 women-led businesses, KPMG UK Private Enterprise: "Founded by Her" gives actionable advice to prepare and position your business for a Series A round.​ The 4-month fully-funded programme provides: - an understanding of the nuances of Series A (and how it differs from previous rounds) - ensures your business has the right foundations in place - gives direct access to top-tier Series A investors who share insights into their triage and DD processes - all whilst supported by your own peer group, industry experts, experienced entrepreneurs and, of course, KPMG.​ If this resonates with you and you’re looking to launch a Series A fundraise in 6-12 months, then this programme is for you! Read more about the programme, including the amazing feedback we’ve had from our first cohort, in the link below 👇 You’ve got until Wednesday, 31st July, to apply – good luck!​ And if it's not right for you, please pay it forward and share it with a founder for whom it might just be 💜 #FoundedbyHer #seriesa #programme #fundraising #KPEAccess ​ KPMG | Acceleris Patrick Molyneux Helen Werchola Amy Burnett Nicole Lowe Kirsty Smith Amy Todd James Whyman Nick Hawkins Simon Thorn Sam Luckett Jasnam Ghudhail ASCI Tom Bennett Jill Hilton Josie Hart Anna Purchas Graham Pearce Emily Aiken Shashi Prashad Mike Linter Greg Limb Christie Scarlett Walker Millie Pryke Sie Yin Poh Troy Wood Artem Fedosov Yasin Doodhwala

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When passing on an investment, most VCs rarely share the real reason and give a canned response that provides no value to a founder. VCs typically do this to (1) preserve right to invest in the next round or (2) avoid an awkward interaction The best founders seek authentic feedback and actually respect investors more when giving their honest opinion. If you got into venture capital to help make the world a better place through innovation, then these canned responses are a disservice to the entire ecosystem. Also, as Mark Ang shares - the founder wont come back to you for the next round!

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Fundraising isn't just about numbers—it's about storytelling, ambition, and resilience. Learn how to make your startup stand out 👇 Actionable insights from: ➡ Nakul Mandan (Founder and Partner at Audacious Ventures) ✏ “Nakul Mandan’s Blog: Some Thoughts On Early Stage Fund Raising” ⭐ 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀: 💬 "Your job in that first meeting is to get the VC emotionally excited about you and your startup. It's not enough to get them rationally excited. Whoever creates emotional excitement won that first meeting." ⭐ 𝗦𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀, 𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: 💬 "Be ready to sell the larger than life vision. Don't be shy about your ambition. Show the passion behind the vision and mission statement. Let the ambition come through. They're betting on you!" ⭐ 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 “𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗠𝗲?” 𝗼𝗿 “𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗡𝗼𝘄?”: 💬 "Two things drive investor excitement in most early stage fundraises: "Why Me?" or "Why Now?"" ⭐ 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀: 💬 "Be intentional about the entire process: pipeline of intros, which partner at which firm, who's making the intros, the scheduling… everything. It's an enterprise sales process. Don't be casual about any aspect of it." ⭐ 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗙𝘂𝗲𝗹: 💬 "Be ready to manage your psyche through the process: The No's come before the Yesses. The best No's can be an input to your thinking. But there are some people who will be dismissive of you or your idea - let those No's become fuel to your fire." ⭐ 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗩𝗖 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗹𝘆: 💬 "Don't underestimate the importance of quality of partner. Will matter a lot in the end. Do backchannel references and ask pointed questions." ⭐ 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀: 💬 "Fundraising is hard. Company building is harder. BUT... people like you and me have done it before and will do it after us. Just remind yourself: "If not you, then who?"" ───── 👉 Follow me, Alexander Small, for tactics and strategies for building startups from industry-leading Founders, Operators and Investors

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Did a fund raising workshop with a group of founders last week. Some of my messages were: 1/ Your job in that first mtg is to get the VC *emotionally* excited about you and your startup. It’s not enough to get them rationally excited. VCs are meeting 2-6 founders every day. Most of those founders are smart and driven. You’re competing for attention against all of them by the end of that day/week. Whoever creates emotional excitement won that first mtg. 2/ Be ready to sell the larger than life vision. Don't be shy about your ambition. Show the passion behind the vision and mission statement. Let the ambition come through. They're betting on you! 3/ Two things drive investor excitement in most early stage fundraises: “Why Me?” or “Why Now?” 4/ Be intentional about the entire process: pipeline of intros, which partner at which firm, who’s making the intros, the scheduling… everything. It’s an enterprise sales process. Don't be casual about any aspect of it. 5/ Be ready to manage your psyche thru the process: The No's come before the Yesses. The best No's can be an input to your thinking. But there are some people who will be dismissive of you or your idea - let those No's become fuel to your fire. 6/ Don't underestimate the importance of quality of partner. Will matter a lot in the end. Do backchannel references and ask pointed questions. 7/ Fund raising is hard. Company building is harder. BUT... people like you and me have done it before and will do it after us. Just remind yourself: "If not you, then who?"

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