Trevor Mason’s Post

Start your Monday off right ☕ Per Axios Pro Rata newsletter: 📈 #PrivateEquity dealmaking is on the rise, bringing with it a resurgence of dividend recaps. These recaps involve private equity funds paying themselves through new debt on portfolio companies, managing investment risk but raising concerns about alignment of interests. 💡 The landscape has evolved with more equitable dividend sharing with limited partners, but these transactions remain a form of financial engineering impacting portfolio company health. 💼 In January, dividend recap activity reached $7.9 billion, making it the busiest month since November 2021. The trend has been steadily increasing, with a more than twofold rise in dividend recap loans between the first and second halves of 2023. Data provided by PitchBook and Leveraged Commentary & Data (LCD) 📊 Despite the surge, terms are currently less aggressive, with an average leverage of 4.67x in 2023. This adjustment helps balance the incongruity of rising dividend recaps in a high-rate environment. 🌐 As noted by Axios' Kate Marino, while debt-financed dividend deals may pose challenges for companies, they also signal investor optimism about the future path of the economy and markets. #PitchBook #LCD #WinWhatsNext #PrivateEquity #DealMaking #FinancialEngineering #InvestmentTrends #EconomicOutlook

I can never fathom how Matt Levine finds so many interesting stories every day- day after day. Today's story on Destiny Tech100 (Ticker: DXYZ) is terrific. DXYZ, a fund with stakes in 23 private firms valued at $52.6 million, recently went public on the NYSE. Despite the portfolio’s uncertain and dated valuation of $4.84 per share, the stock debuted at $8.25 and soared to $99.79. Currently, amidst volatility possibly linked to recent news, it trades at $75 per share, with a market cap nearing $1.1 billion. And then there is TMTG, the parent company of the social network Truth Social, trades at 1,250 times the reported revenue. Accredited financial consultants still recommend that people put the majority of their retirement savings in this casino called the stock market. #SEC #equity #irrationalexuberance https://lnkd.in/d67b2FG7

✦ TRACXN shares PLUNGED by 5.4% due to WEAK Q2 FY25 results, posting a net LOSS of INR 4.65 crore COMPARED to a profit the previous year ✦ The company's OPERATING REVENUE remained FLAT at INR 21.39 crore, reflecting a STAGNANT financial performance ✦ Tracxn issued 4.47 lakh EQUITY SHARES to EMPLOYEES under its ESOP; founded in 2013, the company TRACKS startups GLOBALLY and caters to VARIOUS clients #Tracxn #FinanceUpdate #StockMarket

Lucky to have the founder of Venmo with us at Antler last week, pictured below. Our talk reminded me of the humility and focus of great founders vs. the status games so many others are playing. I wrote about that reflection in this week's MMM, The Rise of the Residency: https://lnkd.in/eahnDgyb You can also read the summary and hear the full talk on the Jelly here: http://jly.co/to2MTY Antler #vc #founders #investing

67% of all Unicorns have not had a new round of financing since 2021, according to our friends at Scale Venture Partners. It is most certainly stale pricing! But as Scale points out, this is not necessarily bad news, as these are great companies, profitable and just staying private for longer. But since Unicorns account for up to two-thirds of VC market value according to Preqin, it may have profound effects. As a pension plan, IP must have an up to date valuation of our portfolio. In fact, Financial Services Authorities require us to adjust prices based on the fluctuations of the listed markets – but we need a ton of fairy dust to magically transform a 2021 price to current market. 

😔 Not every SPV closes 😔 Sharing 2 (of 8) different reasons below from this weeks Last Money In Media post on why SPVs get canceled. #5 We lost Allocation From time to time, we’ll be given an allocation in a round that towards close we’ll get cut out of. This could happen because the founder over allocated the round, aggressive VCs with ownership targets were pushing for as much allocation as they could get, squeezing others out, among other reasons. This almost happened recently. We committed early to a Series A round and weeks later were told that multiple large VCs came in with ownership targets that they required to invest, leaving very minimal space for other VCs, including us. Thankfully we worked this out with the founder and were able to maintain nearly our entire allocation. #3 Information Leaks I think I speak for every syndicate lead when I say that this is far and away the most frustrating reason we have to cancel a deal. Needless to say, we are dealing with extremely sensitive information that simply can not leak. Almost every LP is respectful and honors this, maintaining confidentiality, but from time to time, someone doesn’t. A few scenarios that have actually happened over the years: - An LP posted on LinkedIn that he was investing in Company A after he committed to an SPV for the deal - unfortunately the deal wasn’t closed and the company was furious and pulled the allocation  - An LP reached out to the founder asking to directly invest after seeing an SPV for the deal - the allocation was pulled  - A VC forwards sensitive deal information to the founder with no context giving the perception the SPV is public, which its not All of these scenarios are avoidable and unnecessary and thankfully it rarely happens these days if you run a tight ship. But when it does - it hurts and those LPs are immediately banned and every GP is notified of the LPs bad behavior. -- Powered by Sydecar and Forge, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis, the global syndicate leaders with 800+ SPVs invested.

Greater Cleveland is starting to be blessed. "Tech unicorns" are privately held tech companies worth >$1 Billion, and a "herd of unicorns" is called a "blessing". Over the last few weeks, I asked around to develop a list of Cleveland unicorns. Here's what's in so far: 🦄 Keyfactor (Last round valuation at $1.3B backed by Insight Partners, Sixth Street) 🦄 MRI Software (Last round valuation >$3B; backed by TA Associates, Harvest Capital, GI Partners) 🦄 OEC (backed by Genstar Capital) 🦄 Park Place Technologies (Just secured $2B debt from BlackRock) 🦄 OverDrive (backed by KKR) 🦄 Hyland (backed by Thoma Bravo) 🦄 Dealer Tire (backed by Bain Capital) Some are newer firms, others are older but going strong. Interesting that all are backed by PE funds. Who's missing? Greater Cleveland Partnership, OhioX, COSE, JobsOhio, JumpStart Inc.

We are excited to have you join us at Finovate Spring (Finovate), which will take place today at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco! Tomas Milar, the Founder and CEO of Eqvista and Cheqly, will be talking at FinovateSpring about company valuation topics, Real-Time Valuations, Cap Table/Equity Management, and Venture Debt products. After the presentation, we extend a special invitation to a demo session where you can learn more about our products and offers. #Finovate #fintech #startups #founders #VC #investors #banking

Do You Know, CRED acquires Kuvera to enter the wealth management space: - CRED has acquired Kuvera, an online wealth management platform, in a cash-and-stock deal to enter the wealth management space. - The acquisition includes cash and stock components, marking CRED's strategic expansion into wealth management. - Kuvera will continue to operate independently while collaborating with CRED to grow its network, ecosystem, brand, and distribution. - This acquisition reflects CRED's commitment to diversifying its services and enhancing its wealth management offerings. - Kuvera, known for its fee-free model and fractional investing choices, will maintain its independence post-acquisition, assuring customers that their accounts, portfolios, and investments will not be impacted. #wealthmanagement #investments #startupjourney #startup #technews

Defiance Capital just published an amazing report that does the deepest dive I've ever seen into the backgrounds of the founders of tech unicorns 🦄 between 2013-2023. The goal was to more accurately define the background of unicorn founders to educate investors on the types of founders that are more likely to produce outlier fund returns. Here are the top 7 correlations they found. I'm blurring the top 3 because I'd like to know what YOU think they are! Then DM me and I'd by happy to send you a copy of this fascinating report. #venturecapital #unicorns #customersuccess