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Daniel Fetner
Here’s a question investors are often asked: When evaluating early stage companies, how much time do you spend on due diligence around future exits? It’s not surprising we hear this question a lot. Also not surprising: it’s got a wide range of answers depending on the firm. Some don’t spend much time here at all. Others make it a point to put meaningful time in as part of their process. Our current thinking: take the time to do the work on public market comps. At Alpaca VC, we spend significant time understanding how public market investors will realistically value a business based on margin profile, product, business model & TAM. In short, we want to know: how will this company be valued at scale when we get taken out? Yes, we can acknowledge that the journey toward exit is a windy road and that there may be pivots along the way, but there are still public market companies that have a business model similar to the early stage company you're evaluating. And you can always look at gross profit multiples if you think the margin profile will change over time. So we still do the work on the comps. Quantitative metrics we look at when making the comparison to public market comps include EBITDA multiple, revenue multiple, Gross Profit multiple or all of the above. As part of this process, it’s also important to factor in the public market company’s year-over-year revenue growth as this will also significantly impact the multiple it trades at. Simple example: if you have two public market companies with similar business models and similar margin profiles, but one's growing 100% year over year, and one's growing 50% year over year, then obviously the DCF (discounted cash flow) analysis is going to spit out a very different valuation for the one that's growing faster. Why this matters: When you take all of that information into account as you evaluate an early stage business, you can begin to create a realistic picture of how this company will be valued in the public markets at exit - or how an acquirer will value the company for an acquisition. Strategic acquirers may, of course, pay a premium, but we won’t underwrite for that. This allows us, for example, to form conviction around valuation based on revenue and gross profit predictions. If we think they can do $100M of revenue five years from now, we use this diligence process to form a thesis about whether the characteristics above (product, margin, business model, etc.) will cause the company to be valued at $200M vs. $500M vs. $1B at exit. Curious how other early stage investors think about underwriting an exit and how much time they’re spending on public market comps even though these companies are in their infancy.
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Santi Subotovsky
Thrilled to announce the launch of our inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks at Emergence Capital. This comprehensive report dives deep into the metrics and trends shaping the early-stage enterprise cloud market. A huge thank you to our VC partners and contributors for making this possible! Here's a sneak peek of our findings: --> 60% of companies have already integrated GenAI into their service offerings, with another 20% planning to do so this year. --> While most companies use OpenAI as their primary LLM, many are experimenting with multiple models. We’re seeing a trend toward intelligently routing GenAI inference requests based on cost, performance, and security. --> Companies that have implemented GenAI are showing promising results, with a 7% higher NDR compared to those that haven’t. Beyond Benchmarks goes further with more GenAI trends, insights on the current fundraising environment, and key performance metrics. Our goal is to provide founders and their teams with valuable benchmarks to help them make better-informed decisions. At Emergence Capital, we're committed to helping founders build iconic companies. Dive into the full report here: https://lnkd.in/g6bnvAZM
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Caitlin Panasci
Emerging managers are a key element to a diverse portfolio. Smaller emerging private market managers tend to offer access to lower middle market and creative roll-up strategies that may not be accessible through larger firms. Emerging managers in VC have consistently outperformed established GPs since 1997 producing a higher median IRR than established managers. With emerging managers representing a smaller share of capital raised in 2022 & 2023 vs 2021, what will 2024 have in store for emerging managers? #vc #emergingmanagers https://lnkd.in/gfdXuuu5
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Shubhankar Bhattacharya
In our latest episode on the Practical Nerds podcast, Patric and I talk about our earned learnings on how founders (and other VCs) should choose the right (Co)Investors for their startup (Construction-tech or otherwise). Which of these do you agree with ? What did we miss ?
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Asher Siddiqui
Super helpful article and accompanying doc with a #Startup #Equity Calculator to determine the equity for early hires, thanks to Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum! Thanks for sharing Pejman Nozad! 🙏🏼 You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires: https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y Google Doc: https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6
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Dan Trajman
Interesting new surrvey about the VC industry by PitchBook: 13% of VC firms are not planning to raise a new fund and 27% of VC firms have been pushed further thier plans to raise a new fund. That means a 40% decline. No wonder that startups are haveing tough time to raise funds. See article below. https://lnkd.in/exYYyCPu
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Pejman Nozad
Pear VC Startup Equity Calculator for Early Hires Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum created this calculator to determine the equity for early hires. You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6
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Asher Siddiqui
Super helpful #Startup #Equity Calculator to determine the equity for early hires, thanks to Pear VC head of talent Matt Birnbaum! Thanks for sharing Pejman! 🙏🏼 You can read more here How to structure startup equity for early hires: https://lnkd.in/ggmpT5-Y Google Doc: https://lnkd.in/gjsvths6
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Alok Goyal
As part of a recent #SaaSTalks session, I had the pleasure of speaking to two seasoned #GTM experts, Girish and Charanyan, and we had a very engaging discussion on GTM for SaaS firms focused on SMBs. Our discussion inspired me to put down a few thoughts of my own to guide startup founders venturing into the SMB space. If you’re a SaaS founder looking to get started on GTM, here are some suggestions! Arpit Maheshwari Sayantan Sarkar Naman Jain
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Zorian Rotenberg
PE - example of a simple investment criteria (i.e. from TNYZF, which aims to be the next BRK.A or CNSWF) Tiny (Andrew Wilkinson, CEO) specializes in buyouts, majority, and minority investments with a focus on investing in tech. When acquiring businesses - this investment firm looks for the following (source - Tiny Ltd.'s financial statements/investor letter): - Simple business model - Healthy profits - Consistent track record of profitability - Happy employees & customers - Unique advantage - Long-term record & good reputation - Fair price --------- #pe #privateequity #business #technology #saas
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Samir Kaji
🎙️ Amy Saper is a force of nature, having held senior product roles at Uber, Twitter, and Stripe, as well as being a partner at Accel and a Sequoia Scout, before joining forces with Jeff Clavier Tripp Jones Susan Liu Andy McLoughlin and team at Uncork Capital. Amy and I had a great conversation recently (Podcast in the comments below), but here are the main areas we covered: 1)Transitioning from product roles to VC: The adjustments that needed to be made and the similarities and differences of VC and working at startups. 2) Capital Constraints and Creativity: Drawing from her Twitter days, where the original 140-character limit spurred creative communication, she believes that today's capital constraints can be a large net positive for companies in unlocking creativity. 3) Being Client centric as VC: A strong parallel exists between operating companies and venture firms in their customer focus. What does being client centric mean in the context of VC firm and what is VC's version of Product-Market Fit? 4) Talent Attraction and Development: Her non-negotiable is a founder's ability to attract and develop top talent as it's a huge correlation to startup success. listen to the full conversation in the link in the comments: #VentureCapital #Startups #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #fundraising
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Fahad Najam
** This is not Financial Advice, so do your own due diligence ** I have been a long time Cisco bull --like forever -- but I was disappointed by CSCO's latest earnings call. I fear, Street is over-modeling FY26 rev growth of >5% Y/Y.. if the past is any indicator, CSCO just cannot sustain over 1% CAGR growth, let alone the 5+% CAGR over a 3 year period. Opinions aside, facts are CSCO 3 yr CAGR is ~1% (70bps to be exact) vs the 5 - 7% CAGR it guided, which btw the company lowered after first offering 7 - 9% CAGR they guided to--even with the backdrop of COVID-led enterprise refresh. Hard to see CSCO's campus opportunity growing here, I'd rather argue we just went through a peak cycle as is evident from the Peak Gross Margins for both CSCO and SPLK. Plus Jayshree Ullal and team at Arista Networks are eating away share in the Fortune-100. $PANW's pjatformization play will likely take a bite out of CSCO's security story, which frankly took too long for CSCO to right! integrating point solutions and stitching them together just doesnt work in security-- CSCO should borrow a page from $FTNT on how to organically grow in security. CSCO has a lot of work ahead of them, SPLK had been on the block for so long, its previous mgmt. significantly under-invested in SPLK and so now CSCO has to step up and drive incremental Opex. Beyond incremental opex, the higher interest rate expense is gonna eat away the EPS.. Streets ~$3.70 FY26 EPS is too high.. would be lucky if they get to $3.50. You know CSCO is in trouble when they got out of their comfort zone of tuck-in acquisitions (typically less than $3B) and bought SPLK for $28B! Remember, Harvard Business School wrote a case study on CSCO's "innovation through acquisition" untill John Chambers disastrous acquisition of Linksys (to expand into consumer market). History is clear the Linksys acquisition was a disaster. Look M&A is hard, Tech M&A is even harder and large tech M&A is next to impossible to be successful. To be fair, CSCO has out executed in the past, its track record in M&A is simply outstanding, one of the reasons why CSCO is still as relevant today as it was during the hight of the "dot com" bubble. CSCO rightfully belonged in the tech leader with the likes of $MSFT, $ORCL. But with the SPLK deal odds are against them -- i suspect this deal was dont by "financial heads" vs the "product leaders". Sure SPLK was big enough to drive a step function improvement in CSCO's software revenue story.. but it also comes with a set of challenges that CSCO is not accustomed to. Odds are against CSCO this time.
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Atul Tiwary
Great analysis by the AGC team on SaaS public company comps. It's worth a look as we recalibrate mid-way through earnings season. The analysis aligns with the broader Nasdaq equity performance, where the Mag 7 (or fab 4 now :-)) have shown more resilience than the rest of the market. #AGC #SaaS #EarningsSeason #Nasdaq #EquityPerformance
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Sean O'Connell
Are we witnessing the first signs of a resurgence in private equity-driven M&A activity? After an extended lull over the past two years, an intriguing leading indicator is showing an uptick – job postings at expert networks, which often presage an increase in deal flow. During my tenure in the M&A practice at McKinsey & Company, I found that expert network job postings were a good indicator of forthcoming activity. The chart below illustrates three quarters in a row of rising job postings through Q1 of this year. While it's premature to declare a revival, this data point could signal the green shoots of a recovery in private equity M&A. I'm cautiously optimistic and will continue tracking this metric as a potential bellwether. Date Source: Inex One #mergersandacquisitions #PrivateEquity
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Daniel Ingevaldson
Ross Haleliuk posted the fantastic article below. This is the world where I live day-to-day. At TechOperators, we invest mostly in early-stage cyber, but we do things a little differently, and we believe there are ways to invest successfully outside of pure Power Law math. The article argues that many security problems are too small for VC. I agree. I often try to convince bootstrapped founders not to raise venture because doing so can turn a successful, slow-growing bootstrapped company into a failed venture-backed company because, despite a large infusion of capital, it couldn't double every year. VC is not monolithic--not by stage, strategy, or style. Venture is often equated with "Tier 1 Venture". Ross argues that VC is not always great for early-stage cyber--and he is right. Bootstrapping AND VC work when incentives are aligned. Does it work for an early-stage VC with a <$200M fund to invest in several early companies at reasonable valuations, setting up the conditions for reasonable exits that pay off for both investors and founders? Yes. Does it work for $800M funds investing in seed stage at $100M+ valuations? Well, that depends! Power law says it does (for VC), but the unfortunate externality is that these rounds destroy companies and founder equity more often than not. There is a role for patient capital in this ecosystem to fuel successful companies that retain exit optionality as they scale--driving exit value for both founders and investors.
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Zorian Rotenberg
PE - what is a "GTM Strategy" & why it's a key driver in PE? GTM is one of the terms that gets mentioned a lot in different contexts - what does it actually mean from a PE context? Here is a good GTM definition: * "GTM Strategy: a fundamental business strategy to drive revenue; not a simple campaign or tactic." The 2 key strategic points are: 1. a "fundamental business strategy" 2. to "drive revenue" It's a "business strategy" - for the entire commercial side of a portfolio company and focused on the typical #1 business objective, which is: growing the top-line revenue. Note - it's the fundamental strategy covering the entire Commercial side & the Revenue Lifecycle: - People & Org - Growth Strategy - Pipeline Creation - New Customer Acquisition - Growth via Expansion & Retention - Customer Management, CX & CS - Systematizing & Operationalizing - Systems Thinking for Growing ARR - Process Engineering for Revenue Growth - Execution, Levers, Drivers & Metrics / KPIs And: - All the key strategic initiatives by the CEO, CRO and at the Board Meetings to grow the company's Revenue capital efficiently - Plus all the key programs, tactics and activities to support and drive and measure this strategy Who is responsible? - CEO & CRO (in alignment w/ the Board of Directors) Why is it a key driver in PE? - GTM is the key lever that drives your top-line revenue growth capital-efficiently affecting your EBITDA, and thus Equity Value (and ultimately higher IRR & ROI) * GTM definition - source: Engagio ------------------ #pe #privateequity #business #ceo #growth #arr #revenuegrowth
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Jeffrey Paine
Key takeaways from VC Goat - Vinod Khosla podcast. - The firm cares more about working on interesting problems with large technical solutions rather than just maximizing IRR. The team is there because they believe in the mission. - Khosla assumes they've lost the money the day they invest, and then maximizes for the upside opportunity. He calls it "option value investing" rather than IRR investing. - Khosla has contrarian bets in AI (neuro-symbolic computing, probabilistic approaches), biotech, robotics, crypto, and more. - He believes aviation fuels, fusion energy, new transit systems, and other contrarian areas ignored by most investors will be huge opportunities. - Most large innovations come from outsiders, not industry insiders. Khosla looks for founders who can learn a business rapidly rather than have deep domain expertise. The Future Impact of AI - AI will be deflationary and increase productivity growth to 4% annually vs the typical 2% forecast. This will cause great abundance but also increasing income inequality. - Bipedal robots will take over most manufacturing and manual labor jobs within 20-25 years. This will free humans to be more creative and pursue their passions. - Education will shift from job training to creativity. Uniquely human elements like taste and curation will be most valued in an AI-enabled world. https://lnkd.in/gqBsmbks
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Omar El-Ayat
Nic Poulos and I wrote an essay for Euclid Ventures, "An Era for Vertical Software." The TL;DR is that vertical SaaS is a distinct, enduring discipline that we believe is poised to dominate the software landscape over the next decade. "2024 will represent a turning point, perhaps even a new era for venture capital. While the fog feels like it’s lifting, the path forward isn’t yet clear. One includes a soft landing for the US economy and the continuing recovery of software multiples, with ZIRP-era behaviors continuing around hot themes. Another sees a recessionary period in which VC capital inflows remain stagnant and startup funding the year dips below $100B. Either way, a more measured VC market in 2024 is a certainty. For many investors, that will come with a rude awakening as their strategy becomes more difficult to execute or their thesis of choice is negatively impacted by tightening markets. We see this reversion of the venture ecosystem to its mean as a strong tailwind for Euclid and vertical software. As a category, Vertical SaaS is uniquely well suited to thrive in volatile market conditions and produce fund-returning outcomes. The sections below aim to answer the question: why is vertical software different? Our answer discusses the factors driving the natural market resilience we see in vertical software as a category–resilience that will help them thrive in 2024 and beyond."
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Jennifer Carnithan Choi
A few Friday thoughts... After several days in Chicago surrounded by 200+ LPs at the ILPA Members' Conference covering everything from AI to NAV facilities, I'm headed into the weekend energized by what's to come. That may come at a surprise after the week we've had as an industry. The decision from the U.S. Fifth Circuit on the SEC's Private Fund Advisers rules was handed down just moments before we kicked off ILPA’s AGM on Wednesday. All along, ILPA has viewed the PFA as addressing areas that pose risks to both LPs and the industry around transparency, governance and alignment of interest. It was disappointing—albeit not a shock—to see the PFA vacated. But ILPA is choosing to turn our energy to the compelling opportunity before us as an industry. Together, we can chart the path for how we'll work better together, on our own terms. Particularly around transparency. Just days prior to the ruling, we had debuted the next evolution of ILPA reporting templates on fees and expenses and performance for industry feedback. The templates were developed by a broad industry coalition over a three-month period, partly to comply with the PFA quarterly statements rule implementation deadline, but largely because this work needed to be done. We've temporarily paused the comment period. Now we have the benefit of more time to ensure that these minimum reporting standards have cross-industry buy-in to ensure wide support and adoption. Will you join us in this effort, in paving the way forward as an industry? https://lnkd.in/e-6hspU4
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