Rebecca Szkutak

Want a front-row seat to the frontier of tech? We’ve got the role (or two) for you! We’re expanding our frontier-tech team at Blackbird by hiring a Frontier Tech Investments Associate and Foundry Fellows! Got questions? We've got answers... 1️⃣ What are the roles? 🧪 Associate = a full-time VC investment gig in our Blackbird Investments team, working directly with me. We’re looking for someone with a science and/or engineering background and more curiosity than they can handle. You’ll grow your own investment brand and practice, support our portfolio founders, and will help build Foundry, our early-stage frontier-tech accelerator. ✨ Foundry Fellow = a casual/contract gig in our Blackbird Investments team, ~15h per week for 3 months. The Fellowship is ideal for PhD students and ECRs who want to learn more about startups and VC. You’ll go deep on emerging areas relevant to your expertise (or curiosity!), get a front-row seat to groundbreaking companies in those areas, build out your non-academic network, and develop a solid writing practice. 2️⃣ Why are you hiring? We love frontier tech, and we’re ready to grow our team. 3️⃣ Wow, it’s so great that you’re starting to look at deep tech! Look, we get it: we don’t make a lot of noise about our frontier tech investing. Buuuut we’ve been deep-tech investors since we backed Tim Kentley-Klay to found Zoox back in 2014—we’ve been on incredible journeys with PsiQuantum (building the world's first utility-scale quantum computer right here in Australia!), Inventia Life Science (transforming drug discovery with high-fidelity cell models), Remedy Robotics (surgical robots for remote endovascular procedures), Opto Biosystems (minimally-invasive neural implants to treat cancer), and more. We believe that frontier technologies, and great frontier-tech investing, will be part of the solutions to the greatest problems humanity faces today. 4️⃣ When do applications close? May 31st at 11:59pm AEST. 5️⃣ I have more questions! I’m sure you do! Clare Birch and I are hosting an AMA to answer any and all questions about these roles. Want to know what a week in the life of our team looks like? What’s keeping us up at night? What our ideal candidate looks like? Come along and find out - registration link in the comments 👇 Apply for these roles: Associate - https://lnkd.in/gCfj4EUJ Foundry Fellowships - https://lnkd.in/gj6ATZVZ If you know anyone that we should meet, send me their details! Cameron Elise Ben Andrew Robin Joseph Adelaide James Olivia Lucinda Raghav Jesse Christie Mohamed Tom Amee Pablo Haya Loong Hon Joshua Benjamin Megan Harry Denzil Matthew Diana Daniel Tom Deanna Justin Amar Lilly Stone Thomas

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Look, things are bleak out there if you’re raising money. Let’s put some numbers to that: Quarterly investment values decreased by 70% compared to the peak year of 2021, marking the lowest fundraising levels since 2017. This decline is attributed to several factors contributing to a more cautious investment landscape. The crucial thing if you want to be an AI company: You have to really be an AI company. Every company will use AI, but that’s no longer a competitive advantage: You’ve got to add something to the data pool or the picks-and-shovels end of things. https://lnkd.in/gdeBpFRg

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Newcomer's VC Directory is updated with several new heavyweights! There’s a lot of marketing and spin when it comes to venture capital. VC firms’ websites and thought pieces often leave core questions unanswered: Who is in charge? How much money does that firm really have to invest? With our VC Directory series, we give you an easy-to-digest guide to some of the most important firms in the Valley. For this latest installment, we’re adding must-know details on six Silicon Valley heavyweights: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, Bain Capital Ventures, IVP, and Spark Capital. They’re joining eleven firms that we’d already entered into the directory: Benchmark, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel, and New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Their entries have all been updated as partners have joined and left, deals have been made, and funds have been raised. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/eQizqA8b

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Founders should avoid relying on committees for critical decisions. Full stop. Find out how to to avoid common pitfalls in forming a committee and hear how Founders can make better decisions in this episode of Startup Therapy: https://hubs.ly/Q02Bxh3P0

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“The funding landscape has changed during the time we have been involved in it, and continues to evolve,” “And we’re evolving with it, to ensure that there is even more flexibility for companies to access the specific capital they need for a given scenario. We’ve funded well over 180 technology companies across multiple industries and verticals, and we’re not slowing down any time soon.” Regarding the total addressable market for Tractor to operate in, Imam explains that the one-funding-product-fits-all approach has required tweaking, simply due to the totally different needs expressed by the financial decision-makers, related to time, total access to the capital itself, and looming milestones that require a more strategic approach to accessing capital. “If you’re a SaaS company, or an ecommerce company, or a hardware company, or operating in a particular niche or vertical like marketing tech for example, you will have a different set of needs for funding based on your revenue,” explains Imam. “We’ve moved to a scenario-based funding model, based on the most common queries we receive at this point in time. B2B Enterprise SaaS we will always be able to fund in an instant. Other scenarios arise when the financials require a bit more flexible and bespoke assessment.” “In particular, our Inventory product points to our capability to fund in some very very specific and founder-focussed ways, and that flexibility really excites us, now and for the future.” Thank you for this write up SmartCompany!

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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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NY friends! Please come see me at Tech Day on my panel discussing the future of the NY tech ecosystem and what I hope to bring to it!

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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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Calling all #Founders: Venture Capital Association of Alberta (VCAA)’s Deal Flow Calls represent a great opportunity for #PreSeed to #SeriesA companies to gain exposure to some of the countries most active Venture Capital #investors. If your company is raising equity capital, I strongly encourage you to check out the link below!

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More and more VCs are using AI to screen and evaluate pitch decks. Remember SEO for websites and keywords for resumes? You've got to do that for your pitch deck, too. Over on TechCrunch, I cover how: https://lnkd.in/gFY_kN45

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I know we just published our Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists, but I'm already thinking about our next VCs list. Who are the top solo VCs out there right now? Comment 👇🏽 for recommendations.

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Scoop: Podcaster and VC Harry Stebbings is raising a major new 20VC fund to target tech startups globally. Building on 2021’s $140 million fund, 20VC is believed to be bringing in around $400 million from LPs across investment vehicles targeting the early and late stage. Stebbings is hiring in new talent to help build out the fund’s investment portfolio. Previous 20VC investments include Remote, Hopin, Sorare and BeReal. You can read more in my latest for Business Insider: https://lnkd.in/eTDufTQF #vc #ai #fund #20VC #tech #startups

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AI investments are nosediving faster than a clumsy bird, folks. Stanford's HAI reports a 20% drop in funding from last year. But don't worry—those big ol' companies are still hoarding cash like it's going out of fashion while the little guys fight for crumbs! The age-old tale of survival of the fittest continues. Meanwhile, Airchat is here to revolutionize social media with its groundbreaking concept - wait for it - people talking to each other! Who'd have thought? It's climbing up the App Store charts, but remember, folks, you need an invite because, apparently, listening to strangers ramble is now exclusive club material. In other news, Noname lost its unicorn status and Humane is pitching a $699 wearable that might just replace your smartphone (but don't hold your breath). Also, Betaworks has launched nine AI agents designed to tackle mundane tasks because who wants to sort emails when robots can do it? All this and more in my TechCrunch Startups Weekly recap: https://lnkd.in/gU6nKFfh

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The state of venture capital is wild right now. We are witnessing a surge of innovation across the spectrum: - Funds merging - VC doing PE - PE doing VC - Secondary funds - Buyout funds - Spin-out funds - Debt funds - Continuation funds - Infrastructure funds - GP turnover - Hard Tech surging - Family Office uptick

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2,725 venture firms disappeared over the last two years. To be better than average, you need to be different than average. To make money, you need be right when others are wrong. The same applies to choosing fund managers, and understanding the fund models you’re investing in. Inception funds and pre-seed institutions are a different product for allocators than early stage VC funds. Different underlying math. Different nuances to understand. https://lnkd.in/eu5j4Dr4 #venturecapital #vc #familyofffice #fundoffunds Antler

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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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The job of a CFO in venture is "fascinating"... I've worked with the best!... Kim, Kristin, and now Mark Allen at GC. It requires precision, creativity and a collaborative spirit. Sasha Orloff captures it all in Mark's words... here in his latest podcast episode. 👇

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Climate tech startups raised $8.1 billion in the first quarter, near record amounts of money that suggest 2023’s quiet close might have been more of a blip than the sign of a protracted downturn. A deeper look into the $8.1 billion raised in the first quarter shows that investors focused their attention on materials, including green steel and battery materials and minerals. #climatetech #climateVC #climate

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📣 🔎 This an open call for #mergersandacquisitions insights from the #behavioralhealth industry. 🔍 📣 What would you call out as the most interesting deals of 2024 so far? I'm looking for insights from folks that work in... #venturecapital #privateequity #mentalhealth #addictiontreatment #autism #eatingdisorder #hospitals #psychiatry #healthplans #managedcare If you have insights you don't want to talk about publicly, DM here or email me at clarson@wtwhmedia.com

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