Mitchell Jones

How can founders better prep themselves for early stage VC meetings? 🤔 Bill Georges partner at AlleyCorp tells me how founders need to PREP PREP PREP ✨ Address the top button early stage: 1️⃣ What's your founder story? 2️⃣ What's your go to market strategy? 3️⃣ What your product development strategy? 4️⃣ How big do you think this can get AND over what period of time? *Understand what your VC is looking for, and really try to understand their culture* ▶ https://lnkd.in/dZvciK2w Check out the entire episode of Digital Health Heavyweights Podcast and SUBSCRIBE ON YOUTUBE 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️💨💨

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Bold prediction for 2025: Investors will pay founders to access their venture data. Founders own their data and grant access to investors for a fee. This shift promotes transparency, trust, and efficiency in fundraising, while giving startups a new revenue stream.

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Imagine you’re meeting a VC today and pitching your company. Now, also imagine the VC goes home tonight and tells his or her spouse about the meeting with you. How do you think the VC would (or should) describe your product to the spouse? Remember, this is for someone who doesn’t have any context, and probably doesn’t have time to listen the whole story. If you can think of a story version that's plain and simple -- how you want the VC to describe your product to the spouse -- perhaps that version should be your pitch in the first place?

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Building on the data shared by Peter Walker, I've compiled a list of top VC firms and investors in CA to approach for funding your SaaS startup: 1. Accel Focuses on Seed to Growth Stage Ventures Sector: Enterprise IT, Fintech, Hardware, Healthcare, Media, Security, Services, Consumer, Cloud/SAAS, AI Notable Portfolio: Slack, Dropbox, and UiPath 2. 500 Global Startups Focuses on Pre-seed, Seed, and Early Stage Ventures Sector: 3D Printing, AI/Machine Learning, Accounting, AdTech Notable Portfolio: GitHub, Canva, and Udemy 3. Sapphire Ventures Focuses on Growth-Stage Ventures Sector: Enterprise, Sport, Consumer Notable Portfolio: DocuSign, Alteryx, and Monday.com 4. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Focuses on Seed to Growth Stage Ventures Sector: Consumer, enterprise, bio, healthcare, crypto, fintech and games Notable Portfolio: Asana, Okta, and GitHub 5. Scale Venture Partners Focuses on Early-Stage Ventures Sector: AI apps, Fintech, Infrastructure, Productivity, SaaS, Security, Verticals Notable Portfolio: Box, DocuSign, and HubSpot 6. Menlo Ventures Focuses on Seed to Growth-Stage Ventures Sector: AI, Bio + Healthcare, Consumer, Cloud Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Fintech, SaaS, Supply Chain + Automation Notable Portfolio: Benchling, Carta, and Scout RFP 7. IVP (Institutional Venture Partners) Focuses on Late-stage (Series B to IPO) Ventures Sector: AI, Consumer, Health, Fintech & Crypto, Enterprise Infrastructure, Gaming, SAAS  Notable Portfolio: Dropbox, Slack, and Mindbody 8. Greylock Partners Focuses on Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A Ventures Sector: AI, Consumer, Cybersecurity, Fintech & Crypto, Infrastructure, Marketplace & Commerce, SaaS Notable Portfolio: Workday, Cloudera, and ServiceNow 9. Redpoint Ventures Focuses on Seed, Series A, Series B and Series C+ Ventures Sector: AI, Application, Blockchain, Consumer, Fintech, Healthcare, Infrastructure Notable Portfolio: Twilio, Looker, and Stripe 10. Storm Ventures Focuses on Seed and Early-Stage Ventures B2B Software Notable Portfolio: Marketo, Talkdesk, and Algolia Stay tuned for the NY list. Looking to connect with the right investor for your SaaS startup? Drop a “LIST” in the comments, and we’ll send you a link to a personalized investor lineup. Know a top SaaS investor or VC firm we missed? Share in the comments! At Thunder.vc, we excel in pairing your startup with venture capital firms that align with your specific sector, growth phase, and objectives. #SaaS #startups #VC

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Want to know what metrics venture capitalists really care about? Aumni's latest analysis dives into 10,000+ data points from portfolio companies at all stages. Here's what we uncovered: 1️⃣ Revenue, net burn rate, FT headcount, and gross margin are the hottest metrics. 2️⃣ Most VCs request 6-9 specific metrics per quarter from each portfolio company. 3️⃣ Cash is king in the early stages but loses its throne as companies grow. 4️⃣ Operational metrics dominate at Series D+, taking up half of the top ten. Key insights: - Cash-on-hand and cash runway plummet in importance from a combined ranking of 3.5 in the seed stage to barely making the top ten by Series D+. - Metrics spotlighting operational efficiency, like gross margin, total OpEx, EBIT, bookings, and debt balance, become crucial as startups scale. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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Founders: VC associates are your best friends. Too many founders try to skip the line and go straight to the partner, thinking this will speed things up or give them a better chance to get investment. It's exactly the opposite! Associates get bonuses based on how many deals they source get through the investment committee. Associates know what the partners are looking for. Associates will help you to: - Change your pitch to more effectively convince the partners - Help you build out your data room to match partner preferences - Set expectations for round structure (valuation/paperwork) to avoid friction with partners - Save you time! They'll tell you if it's too early or if something is missing so you don't waste your time. They know other associates and can refer you to another VC that might be a better fit. If I were a founder again I'd make friends with all the best associates and meet them regularly.

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Rolling into another day of the Primary Summit. Hit me up if we should connect onsite. Kudos to the Primary Ventures team so far, as yesterday’s Pre-Seed Summit was on point. Mar Hershenson, Benjamin Sun, Chris Douvos, Zach Weinberg, and Graham Pingree all dropping helpful nuggets for fund managers. Some paraphrased highlights: - Chris Douvos (AHOY Capital) - Most fund decks are terrible. Start with your people (not your strategy) and know you have about 6 slides of his attention. - Zach Weinberg (Curie.Bio ) - beleives SF’s AI talent is a significant advantage over NY, wouldn’t build AI in NY. Also questions if VC exits can keep up with VC expansion (generally hilarious and smart Twitter follow) - Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) - VC is so much more competitive now. It’s not enough to be an ex-founder with a great network and domain expertise. Have a better “why you are different” or do something else! - Benjamin Sun (Primary Venture Partners)- still sees arbitrage in going long NY venture (vs. SF). Do the work to keep various influential networking nodes aware of what you’re doing and how you think.

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Couple of weeks ago had the pleasure of sharing my story to Alexander Benkendorf about starting CastPrint and later moving on to join Verge HealthTech Fund and the learning along the way. Some topics we discussed: 💡What does it take to bring innvation in healthcare 💡How did my startup background help me better prepare for VC work 💡How founders can better engage with VCs and what are the tips and tricks from the "other side" Thanks Alexander for having me!

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