Every money-making company describes its bottom line in the same way: profitable.
Every unprofitable company, however, seems to have its own metrics for putting the most positive spin on financial results. READ MORE
VCs Plow Money Into Indoor Farming
When a hurricane in Florida and a virus in California killed a promising lettuce bounty late in 2022 and earlier this year, some hobbyists turned to indoor farms to supply their winter fuel of hearty salads.
Indoor farming is something venture firms have deemed the future of agriculture. Armed with temperature control, hydroponics and controlled environments, indoor farms can better shield crops from weather disturbances and pests. READ MORE
Why bankers are bracing for more private equity failures
The country’s biggest banks are bracing for more highly geared, private equity backed businesses to collapse as operating conditions continue to deteriorate amid surging borrowing costs.
Last month, Anchorage Capital Partners, a specialised private equity firm, placed Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics into administration. READ MORE
Why some VCs bet on people over businesses
It’s been tough to raise funds in the last few years for most sectors, and many VCs will tell you that a startup needs to have a killer product-market fit before getting that check. But Eric Tarczynski of Contrary Capital believes in investing in people over businesses, and the wisdom to this approach has been proven out with AtoB. READ MORE
How to create a successful pitch deck, according to a VC and entrepreneur
Lea-Sophie Cramer founded Amorelie, a leading e-commerce company that sells sex toys.
She's now one of Germany's most active angel investors, investing in a wide variety of startups through her venture-capital firm, Pink Capital. Alongside this, she advises companies like the global investment firm KKR on identifying new investments.
Cramer has dealt with a huge number of pitch decks in her time as an entrepreneur and VC. READ MORE
What the end of the bull run means for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs
In recent years, the low cost of capital allowed record amounts of dry powder to be raised and dispersed into the venture capital and startup ecosystem. As the landscape began shifting last year, we started to see a course correction by investors who had been freely pouring money into VC-backed startups. The recent bank failures introduce another hurdle into a rapidly shifting environment and dramatically highlight the challenges of our high-interest-rate, inflationary climate. READ MORE
Upheaval in venture banking can help us get back to basics: efficient growth
With the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, founders find themselves in a predicament when looking to raise either equity or debt. Most companies run their business on equity capital alone and have access to a venture debt facility. Access to venture debt is a “break glass in case of emergency” facility in that it enables companies not to be as hardened when they must raise rather than raising tied to business milestones. When a majority of the venture debt market is slowing or pausing new loan originations, one thing’s for sure, this loss of runway capacity will inevitably drive behavior change on all sides. READ MORE
Startups and investors must come together to restart the flow of VC
As the US economy grapples with the effects of higher-for-longer interest rates and tightening financial conditions, the venture capital market is down but not out.
Our latest Quantitative Perspectives report, Putting the Pieces Back Together, offers an in-depth analysis of the current state of the US VC market and provides key insights for GPs, startups, and service providers to make informed decisions. READ MORE
Why A Recession Can Be Good Timing For Corporate Venture Capital
After years of rising real estate prices and a robust stock market, the economy started to slow down last year. Some experts say we are already in a recession; others say one could arrive soon. News headlines cite an increasing number of layoffs in the tech industry. Despite the negative environment, a recession may be a good time for corporate venture capital to thrive. READ MORE
How Venture Capital Can Avoid the Next Silicon Valley Bank Fiasco
In the public imagination, venture capitalists are often seen as independent wealthy actors seeding early-stage companies with their personal money. But the vast majority of VC capital is from “LPs”—or limited partners—including public pensions, university endowments, hospitals, and wealthy families. In other words, venture capitalists manage large sums of other people’s money. This makes them de facto gatekeepers of innovation, deciding what gets built and who benefits. When this system works, we end up with world-changing companies and technologies. When it fails, as in the case of Silicon Valley Bank, we risk setting ourselves up for stagnation and decline. READ MORE
Private Equity vs Venture Capital: 6 Key Differences
From looking at the risk acquisition to seeing the fund size, here are six answers to the question, “What are the key differences between private equity vs venture capital?” READ MORE
Biotech startups face ‘Series A cliff’ as venture capital stays cautious
The rapid demise of Silicon Valley Bank put an unwelcome spotlight on the financial position of many small biotechnology companies that relied on the storied lender.
But to the people who form and build startups, SVB’s collapse is a sidebar to a longer-brewing threat: a tightening cash crunch for a generation of young drugmakers. READ MORE
Venture Capitalists Put $16.2 Billion Behind Clean Energy In 2022
Earlier this month, analyst firm Pitchbook published its analysis of venture investments into clean energy in 2022. The firm found that 2022 was a record year for the sector, with investments hitting $16.2 billion for the year, just barely topping 2021’s $16 billion. A driving factor behind part of the surge in investment was the war in Ukraine, which highlighted the need for energy resilience. That said, as the year went on and the energy sector looked more stable, the fourth quarter saw a year over year drop of 46.5% in terms of venture capital raised in the sector. READ MORE
Are solo GPs screwed?
Entrepreneur Ankur Nagpal raised a $70 million venture fund last year, called Vibe Capital, from over 200 investors. But now, as the market shifts and LPs are less interested in venture capital, the Ocho founder is shrinking the fund side by roughly 43%, canceling capital calls, and, ultimately, sending back money that had already been wired to the fund. READ MORE
Here’s What Every Founder Should Be Asking Their VCs Right Now
During times of economic uncertainty like those we currently face, founders must overcome numerous challenges in managing their businesses, teams and investor relations.
Cash flow becomes critical, sales may be declining, and fundraising can be more difficult. In such situations, founders need support from their VCs to survive and thrive in the long run. READ MORE
How Early-Stage Startups Can Survive and Prepare for the Investor Winter
The investor winter is here, and it is hitting both industry moguls and early-stage companies hard. No sector remains unaffected, with layoffs spreading from tech to consulting, and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sending the banking industry scrambling.
What varies, however, are the approaches businesses take to stay in the game and survive in the bear market. Half of the companies I work with take the “freeze” strategy, biding their time to see what will happen next. So far, these companies are losing — their capital efficiency metrics continue to plummet, making them less attractive to investors. READ MORE
Getting To Series A Has Gotten Harder
For seed-funded startups, the odds of graduating to a Series A round have never been particularly favorable. But as venture funding contracts, the chances have gotten even slimmer.
That’s the broad finding from our latest perusal of U.S. Series A funding, which shows that investment is on track to hit the lowest quarterly total in over two years. READ MORE
Credit Suisse Also Played An Active Role In Startup Financing
When it came to startup funding, Credit Suisse was no Silicon Valley Bank.
That said, the troubled Swiss banking behemoth, which was just acquired by rival UBS, was no slouch in the venture investment and debt arena either. READ MORE
Here Are 3 Big Areas Where AI Is Cropping Up In Agtech
While Silicon Valley has transformed every industry from health care to banking, agriculture has remained largely untouched — until now.
Ever since OpenAI’s breakthrough with ChatGPT, the term AI has been thrown around so many times it’s starting to lose its meaning. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence has seeped into every industry from enterprise software to autonomous vehicles, taking around 10% of global venture dollars in 2022. READ MORE
Skin In The Venture Capital Game
Venture capital (VC) is a complicated business with probability theory at its heart. Basically, you are swinging at the fences with a wide dispersion of potential outcomes and returns, just like in baseball—from home run to strikeout. READ MORE