Phil Chen

Summary: The article discusses the current challenges faced by VC firms in attracting new capital, but highlights how established firms like Kleiner Perkins are still able to raise large funds. It also touches on the potential impact of AI on investment strategies. Key takeaways: Many VC firms are struggling to secure new capital in a tepid IPO environment. Established, brand-name firms like Kleiner Perkins are still able to raise significant funds. AI is emerging as a potential game-changer in the investment landscape. Counter arguments: It may be premature to attribute Kleiner Perkins' fundraising success solely to AI; other factors could also be at play. The article may overlook smaller VC firms that are also finding success in fundraising. #venturecapital #vc #venture #startups #artificialintelligence

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This San Franciscan has landed in the Big Apple for #NYTechWeek! Here’s why it was important to me to be out here this week and I view NYC as a sister city. ((scroll down for 2 events The Council is hosting today!)) 🏭🏥 Reminder: The Council Fund invests at Pre-seed in Software’s Third Act, the transformation of the essential economy. Our investments span healthcare and industrial sectors like manufacturing, logistics, construction. 🐂 I’m eternally bullish on NY & SF and hate how many pit the two cities against each other. The reality is that a lot of capital and talent flow back and forth between the cities. They need each other to thrive! 🗽🌁 Cities like NY & SF attract young and mid-career talent because of their population density, transient nature, beauty, and reputations as cities where someone new on the scene can make a name for themselves. For the areas we invest in, I’m *specifically* excited about NY because of: 🏗️ Closer proximity to industrial hubs which are scattered across the Midwest / Rust Belt 🏛️ Closer proximity to DC where a lot of regulation around VC, startups, healthcare, onshoring initiatives, and industrial sectors takes place 💰 Many of the large financial institutions that are backing hard tech focused funds and major healthcare initiatives are also headquartered here in NYC 🎯 We’ve got several startups here who are hitting it out of the park, like Dirac and Siena. This has further validated my belief in this ecosystem to support young companies! Today we are kicking off with 2 events on Day 1 of #NYTechWeek 👉 AI Demo Day: The Council, Next Wave NYC, Lynx Collective, Flybridge will host 8 founders and 200+ investors and founders for a pitch competition this evening! Luma: https://lnkd.in/gbdYiJMw 🔜 Can still join the waitlist! Small & Big VCs in Hard Tech: The Council joined General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Iron Prairie Ventures, AlleyCorp, House Of Ventures, Steel Atlas for 2 back to back panels on industrial innovation & collaboration across the capital stack Luma: https://lnkd.in/gj6D4-Au ⏰ Event has passed

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The new quarterly review is live! Each quarter, I dive into the latest trends and shifts in the venture capital market, covering both the broader macro perspective and the unique insights we’re seeing at Florida Funders. Check out my latest article to stay informed on what’s shaping the VC landscape and how we're navigating it at FF. Always eager to hear your thoughts – let’s keep the conversation going! #VentureCapital #FloridaFunders #MarketInsights

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this is amazing news for the entire ecosystem - Y Combinator might be the most significant and successful capital allocator in the world. It's a bold move that should come as no surprise, and creates that much more competitiveness in #preseed VC. . With how successful VC accelerated startups raise in the era of AI, it's no surprise that YC can raise a $2 billion fund. if ~1.5% of startups reach unicorn valuations in AI, and if they own and approx. average of 2.5% of diluted equity for each of these companies, they could on paper be able to return tail-end 10 companies each year with a 75-125X RoI. Their current intake is 400 startups 2x a year batch, and they’ll spread it across 4 batches and increase throughput 25% to 1000 startups each year. They will need to deploy $500 million a year to fund solely the initial $500,000 check to their startups. For such ambitious capital deployment, they could develop a well-oiled strategy to sell secondaries in the meat of their startups. They'll need well-executed secondaries pipeline to liquidate, even assisting the series B & C investment rounds in facilitating equity liquidity. Could be value moving up the chain for investors and #startups in the pie, if the role of Y Combinator financing ratchets up their presence across the ecosystem, network of strong companies participating in their seed-round raising springboards at stable seed valuations in the $15 million Post Money range, which is probably the healthiest valuation for many practical entrepreneurs in their trajectories. It's all a bit bubblish, but it's never been more democratized to create such tech, innovation, and value across all products and markets.

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Just touched down in Miami for the VC Platform Summit Here’s what I’m most interesting in discussing with peers (and press!)… - hybrid VC service models & the Dragonfly SLA - platform’s role in the future of fractional work - a16z sizing themselves out of the early stage game (and the opportunity that creates) - the marginalization of crypto founders in the startup vendor ecosystem - the difference between platform in APAC and the US Reply or DM to link up!

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Super fun way to start the morning at the Everywhere Ventures #NYTechWeek pre-seed founder breakfast bringing together some of the best early stage builders in the ecosystem. Always a joy to team up with Tai Hutchinson, Richard Kerby and Scott Hartley - who are long time supporters of NYC tech. A few themes we heard from the founders: ✔ Fundraising benchmarks are a moving target and that makes runway and planning tough. ✔ Stacking Safes and cap table mess keeps on getting messier with VCs less inclined to actually price rounds. ✔ Hiring is getting slightly easier as early employees have reset expectations on comp and equity. ✔ NYC is still super expensive and the city / institutions can be doing more! #LongNYCTech

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As an investor who moved from New York to South Florida two years ago, I’m often asked about the tech ecosystem here. After spending much of my time in the region since then, one thing is abundantly clear: 📈 The tech ecosystem in the region is growing - and rapidly. More and more founders and investors are operating from South Florida. In addition to me, Alpaca VC has two full-time team members based here, David Goldberg and Sophia Delgado. We also maintain a regional growth tracker that currently sits at 150+ GPs and counting. And the growth is not limited to Miami. We’re seeing the presence of founders and funders stretch throughout the Tri-County area, from Miami Beach to Palm Beach. Amid the growth, we’ve had the chance to connect with many people from the South Florida tech landscape during our Venture, Tech & Capital Markets dinner series (we’ll likely continue this fall). From conversations at those events, it’s clear most people in the ecosystem agree that the growth is obvious and palpable. Here are a few stats to back up the anecdotal: 🌴Miami (and surrounding area) jumped 7 places in 2024 in Startup Genome’s ranking of global startups ecosystems to become 16th on the list ahead of Chicago, Seattle, Austin and San Diego and Atlanta, as well as Delhi, Sao Paulo, and Toronto. Notably, while Miami is not in the top 10 (yet) it had the most growth year-over-year. ☀️Three of the top 10 investors from the recently released Midas Seed List 2024 (which Forbes and TrueBridge Capital Partners started in 2022 and ranks Top 25 seed stage investors globally) reside in Miami-Dade County. 📊There are more than 3.3K funded companies, 373 investors and nearly 140K startup employees in the region, according to the Refresh Miami Innovation Ecosystem dashboard. No surprise: we continue to be super excited about the South Florida tech ecosystem, so much so that we’ve chosen it as the location for our 2025 AGM in January, which will coincide with a massive ecosystem event we will be sharing details about soon. Check out the comments for the links to the sources above and get in touch if you’re an investor or founder in the ecosystem interested in upcoming events and opportunities to connect. #venturecapital #southflorida #miamitech

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For the past year (and then some), I’ve been working closely with my Partner Will Rayner to build and launch something that we’re super excited to now make public - Lookout Ventures: a new seed stage fund, backing infrastructure and B2B software startups outside of Silicon Valley. We’re building on almost a decade spent sourcing and leading deals at TDF Ventures. While there, we saw the majority of the VC industry chasing and bidding up the same set of SaaS deals - based in a few select ecosystems like the Bay Area - and demonstrating the same set of well established go to market benchmarks. We’re not here for those deals. What we are looking for: *Regions*: The days of needing to be in Silicon Valley to succeed are over. Startup culture has spread to many metropolitan areas from Raleigh-Durham to Washington DC to Houston to Chicago. Those cities have a combination of great universities, major corporate headquarters, and local accelerators and incubators, which are the key ingredients for startup creation. We’re particularly focused on the Southeast, Midwest and Texas. *Stage*: Founders are probably sick of big brand investors telling them that their traction is too early but they’d love to stay in touch for the next round. While Lookout won’t often invest pre-revenue, we do invest before product market fit. Whether it’s called a seed, seed prime, or early A, we want to work with founders as soon as they know they have a solution ready to scale. *Sectors*: We’re comfortable investing early because we’re staying focused on topic areas in which we’ve built our expertise and networks during our past decade of investments around infrastructure software and vertical SaaS. Within those areas, we have more specialized interests ranging from MSP (managed service provider) tooling to cybersecurity serving the small business to SaaS focused on field workers in various verticals. We’re actively writing checks and are excited to already be working with great teams from Arpio, hotglue, inforcer, and CloudCapsule. If you’re building or investing in these areas, drop me a line and let’s catch up.

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Attention early-stage founders raising – excited to announce open applications for PEERLESS 2025! Led by AlleyCorp and Management Leadership for Tomorrow, curated programming will culminate in 5 founders pitching at Google's NYC headquarters in April, where one winner will receive a $1M investment from AlleyCorp. This isn't only about creating a more equitable tech ecosystem, it's about backing the next generation of exceptional founders who are uniquely positioned to shape the future. Applications opened on October 15th and close on December 6th 2024. While they welcome all early-stage founders with exceptional ideas, AlleyCorp is encouraging applications from startups that: Have raised less than $2M Are technologically innovative Have a strong go-to-market advantage Have identified a large market opportunity Are led by Black, Latine, Native American, or female founders All applicants will be invited to various ecosystem events with top founders and VCs. Learn more and start your application at peerlesspitch.com. #startups #funding #competition Meredith Meyer Grelli Melanie Simko

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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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Summary: Harlem Capital, a venture capital firm focused on backing diverse founders, is raising its largest fund to date of $150 million. This would be its third fund and is a testament to the industry's continued support for diverse communities. Key takeaways: Harlem Capital was founded in 2015 with the goal of supporting diverse founders. The firm has $174 million in assets under management and has made investments in over 80 companies. The successful raising of the $150 million fund would be a show of success for both Harlem Capital and the industry's continued focus on diversity and inclusion. #venturecapital #vc #venture #diversity #dei

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Putnam and Ben Lerer, the founder and managing partner of venture firm Lerer Hippeau. They discuss Putnam's previous company, Mirror, which was sold to Lululemon for $500 million, and her new startup in the gaming space aiming to improve social relationships. Key takeaways: Putnam's decision to sell Mirror to Lululemon was initially seen as premature, but ultimately proved to be a brilliant move as the home fitness craze peaked and then sharply declined during the pandemic. Lerer Hippeau was an early investor in Mirror and is now participating in Putnam's new startup, indicating their belief in her as a successful entrepreneur. Putnam's new startup is focused on creating technology that enhances face-to-face social interactions, as she noticed a decline in quality time spent with loved ones due to the use of devices. Counter arguments: It could be argued that Putnam sold Mirror too soon, as the trend of home fitness may have continued and provided even greater success for the company. The success of Putnam's new startup remains to be seen, as it is still in its early stages and faces competition in the gaming industry. #venturecapital #marketinsights #vc #consumertech

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WE DID IT! After 2 years of pushing through the biggest downturn in VC in decades, Matthew Stotts 🌐 and I made it to the finish line with Fund I! We couldn't have done this without One Small Planet (Will Peterffy and Jack Wielebinski 🙏), Regen Network and Regen Foundation (Austin Wade Smith Gregory Landua and Will Szal), and a dozen other family offices and angels who believed that we can build a nature-positive economy utilizing our eye for software and our history as founders from day 1 A shout out goes to all of our founders (only four announced today, but watch this space - there are multitudes!) who trusted us enough to give us a spot on their cap table for this 10-15 year journey. This is the best job in the world, and it's because we get to work with people like you who have weird ideas in the best possible way. Using Bitcoin as anchor base load to decarbonize residential housing in America's most expensive energy market? Make every complex supply chain legible to machines so we can find and eliminate deforestation in commodity supply chains? Build deeply liquid environmental asset markets to price ecosystem services, on a blockchain, that no one needs to know is a blockchain? I'm so excited to get to work on this stuff for the next 10-15 years minimum, and to see what we can accelerate with our tiny fund in the next 5-6 years as we approach 2030 Onward! https://lnkd.in/gy3B-DFe

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⛳ Emerging fund managers pulse check. PitchBook tracks over 10,000 funds that are raising money, with 45% being emerging fund managers (defined as firms with less than 3 funds). Despite a dip in available capital—down to 16% from the pre-pandemic 23%—these managers are finding creative ways to stay competitive, like partnering with larger firms. 💼 Joanna Drake (founder turned investor) shared how "wildly different" it is raising a fund versus for a startup. One key datapoint she shared on the fund side was how little feedback you get along the way (and the years you can wait for it). The “long-winded and challenging process to raise capital” inspired Drake and Ben Black to create RAISE Global, a community for emerging fund managers and the “forward-thinking LPs” who back them. (A decade later, several hundred emerging managers with AUM under $200m are on the platform) They've found the newest emerging managers are more diverse and geographically dispersed than Silicon valley, and more were able to crack the ceiling and raise larger $100m funds (although this is still a small % of the market, requiring partnership with larger funds at the late stage). ▶ And not a hugely surprising datapoint: A lot of action is in the sub $49 million range, where roughly 50% of emerging managers are raising. Theresa Sorrentino Hajer, Head of U.S. venture capital research at Cambridge Associates warns that past success isn't actually a strong indicator on it's own to assess emerging managers. We've had a valuation reset. And newer managers with investments during the 2019-2021 "party days", need to build relevant track record and play to their strengths. A lot of emerging managers are specializing (70% who applied for Raise had a thematic focus), and betting on getting in as early as possible in the startup's lifecycle (Raise: 31% at accelerator/ pre-seed stages, and 47% at seed stage). “Emerging managers have to compete on a different dimension,” Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures. You're no longer just dealing with capital. Emerging VC's need to be as innovative and nimble as the startups they invest in, having a unique thesis and insights. They also play a role at the top of the deal-flow funnel: helping larger firms find promising companies, so finding a thesis, sector or philosophy aligned partner at a larger firm is helpful. Onwards! #EmergingManager #Startups #VC

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🚀 Calling all fundraising Boston Metro B2B tech startups! 🚀 Are you currently fundraising and ready to pitch in front of Boston's top angel investors and early-stage fund managers? On November 19th, Venture Lane | Startup Hub is hosting our exclusive Pitch Night 👉 - a rare opportunity for Boston Metro’s early-stage B2B tech founders to present their investor pitch live and connect directly with key decision-makers in the local investment community. We’re on a mission to showcase the next wave of standout B2B tech companies from Boston. If you're ready to elevate your fundraising efforts and make meaningful connections, don't miss this opportunity. ⏰ Apply by October 22nd to secure your spot! 📲 Find the application link in the comments below. #B2BTech #Startups #Fundraising #BostonStartups #PitchNight #VentureLaneStudio

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Summary: This article discusses the challenges and opportunities facing emerging venture capital fund managers in the current market. Despite a decrease in the percentage of capital allocated to emerging managers, many are adapting and finding success through creative fundraising strategies and the support of communities like Raise Global. However, past success is not always a reliable indicator of future performance for these managers. Key takeaways: A decrease in available capital for emerging managers has resulted in a competitive landscape for fundraising. Some emerging managers have had to revise their fund targets and work with larger firms to secure deals. Communities like Raise Global have emerged to support and connect emerging managers with potential investors. Counter arguments: While some emerging managers have been successful, past performance is not always indicative of future success. The decrease in available capital could potentially hinder the growth and success of emerging managers. #venturecapital #vc #fundraising

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We gathered dozens of operators from the MGMT Boston Operators Club and local founders alongside the 186 Ventures team this October to discuss the evolution of our dear software markets, the status of some predictions for 2024 (all looking good!), and what’s on deck for next year. General Partner Giuseppe Stuto led us through the following predictions for 2025 to share with you all.. ↕ We will see more vertical AI applications manifest themselves within the Enterprise in a similar ways that SaaS moved from horizontal to vertical use cases 🔔 We will see services business models more common and software budget purchasing models less common - SaaS may even be given away for cheap/free as a “way in” ⚖ Capital efficiency, on a relative basis, will almost be required to create enduring & compounding defensible enterprise value. Details like procurement cycle lengths and creativity with non-dilutive financing, like leveraging revenue based financing tools for example, will all matter 💡 Specific to AI, premiums will be placed on applications that can actually get “reasoning” right. All purpose LLMs still have a ways to go and there are multiple approaches with the “jury still out” on how to get context and reasoning right. Infrastructure solutions that use general purpose or customizable knowledge graphs to help application developers get to 100% (enterprise acceptable accuracy) will emerge OR savvy application developers will fill the gaps themselves. We will likely see both, depending upon the specific case! Thank you Giuseppe, Julian, and Sophie for a great discussion and evening!

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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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A huge congrats to the Tactyc by Carta team!! You've built an amazing product and have been great partners to those using the platform. I routinely hear from users that are impressed with the speed and quality of help that Tactyc provides to their partners. VC is changing (slowly) and managers need to build better data-driven decision making systems. The market operates on 'pirate rules' - fall behind, left behind. If you're Tactyc Curious, I'd be happy to share how I integrate it into Fund workflows. #VC #emergingmanagers Coolwater Capital #datadriven #VentureFinance #VCfundmanagement #Venturecapital

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