A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 22, 2020

The “incumbent provider” of English proficiency tests, Test Of English As A Foreign Language (aka TOEFL), has had all of the companies and universities who accept it locked up for many years. But in some markets, incumbency matters more than better. It is two sides of the same coin. It costs less ($49 vs $205).

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

million Series A investment in June from a group of investors that includes Archer-Daniels-Midland Company’s venture arm ADM Ventures, Cavallo Ventures, Genoa Ventures, Lever VC, Thia Ventures, iSelect Fund, Stage 1 Fund, Lifely VC and Satori Capital. The move is buoyed by a $17.5 The move is buoyed by a $17.5

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

” Despite the VC flurries of 2020 creating an ecosystem of seemingly endless equity, it’s important for entrepreneurs and founders to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all model for raising capital. People tend to think that category creation is less risky than incumbent disruption.

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strategy incumbents VC disruption 95

TechCrunch

APRIL 18, 2023

But it also could be the worst of times for founders thinking about launching an AI startup, especially one that can grow and be defensible against incumbents in a fast-changing environment. CB Insights compiled data from 2021 and 2022 to understand where VC investment money has been going when it comes to generative AI startups.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

In a sign that national security tech is a safe bet even during troubled economic times, defense- and security-focused VC firm Razor’s Edge Ventures today announced the closing of its third startup investment fund at just under $340 million. For example, Razor’s Edge recently invested in Corsha , a Washington, D.C.-based

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TechCrunch

APRIL 20, 2023

The trio had made early investments in more than 50 fintech companies, including the likes of Stripe, Plaid, Melio and Trulioo. In other words, it wants to invest in early-stage fintech and enabling technology companies “where opportunities for early partnerships with financial incumbents exist.” It plans to invest $1.5

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TechCrunch

APRIL 20, 2021

“Challenger” startups in banking and insurance have upended their industries, and picked up significant business, by building more customer-friendly tools and services — more personalized, easier to access and usually competitively priced — than those typically provided by their bigger, incumbent rivals.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 25, 2016

The questions that a VC mulls before writing a check are precisely the questions you should be asking yourself. But this isn’t likely to be a VC-backable business (which to be clear is totally ok). What would it take in investments to acquire and retain traffic to support these businesses? Market Size. Market Structure.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 9, 2023

But these disclosures carry significant financial costs for small, private companies — and they carry the extra risk of exposing sensitive financial information to competitors and large corporate incumbents. Consequently, they are seen as riskier than investing in real estate or the public markets.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 13, 2019

Using the proliferation of newly GPS-enabled mobile devices to enable taxi hailing and beat out stagnant incumbent providers was always going to be a big win for consumers. Does any fund that invested in Uber fear not being able to raise their next fund because their underlying companies might not perform well around these other criteria?

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 1, 2022

The former commercial chief (Product, Sales and Marketing) at PayPal, he now leads fintech investing at Matrix Partners, where he also invests in consumer marketplaces and enterprise software. VC funding into private fintech companies crossed $134 billion in 2021, rising by 177% from a year earlier, according to Crunchbase.

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incumbents VC accelerator investment 107

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

Any VC will tell you that the ones they said yes to, they mostly got there right away—and that there are very few “maybe” deals that get tipped over the fence. Here’s the way I look at the math: Let’s go over the structural bias first—the “pipeline” that happens before you ever even get near a VC. First is network bias.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 6, 2022

Founded initially back in 2015, Santa Barbara, California-based Bitwarden operates in a space that includes well-known incumbents such as 1Password, which recently hit a $6.8 Moreover, people can contribute back to the codebase and expedite development of new features. Password hygiene.

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incumbents VC investing investment 99

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 6, 2022

406 Ventures and Energy Impact Partners with participation from Cisco Investments. Investing in identity security is a must-have for enterprise security teams.” VC firms poured $2.3 Oort , an identity threat detection and response platform, today announced that it raised $11.5 million in a Series A round co-led by.406

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

But China and the United States are far from the only technology markets with developed startup and incumbent cohorts, strong venture capital activity, and capital markets able to translate early-stage ideas into public companies. China issue. China issue. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. To start, a few caveats.

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TechCrunch

JUNE 8, 2022

Embedded finance — where financial services companies and others bring in different kinds of fintech technology by way of APIs to enhance their own offerings with more data and functionality — remains a growing opportunity, both to help fuel new business and to help incumbents get up to speed with their disruptors.

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incumbents financing finance technology 87

Haystack

DECEMBER 26, 2018

There are many reasons for that, such as private equity and crossover investors investing earlier, or the fact that LPs in VC funds are affected by public market swings and could, theoretically, hit some VC firms to feel the pinch. could become even more attractive regions for investment.

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opportunity incumbents VC culture 76

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 7, 2021

Dragoneer and Echo Street are investing in the startup for the first time, and many of Lydia’s existing investors are putting more money on the table, such as Tencent, Accel and Founders Future. But now, many VC firms have raised huge funds. Hedge funds are now investing in venture rounds.

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peer-to-peer incumbents VC financing 83

TechCrunch

JULY 14, 2022

Lightyear is one of several burgeoning stock trading companies to emerge on the scene, promising an easy inroad for the general public to invest their money in some of the world’s biggest companies, from Apple and Alibaba, to Spotify and Tesla. Launching out of stealth initially in the U.K. launch plans back in 2020.

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incumbents venture capital VC investing 86

TechCrunch

JULY 25, 2021

Incumbent giants therefore could lose a sizable chunk of market share if a company could just manage to weave together China’s manufacturing proficiency and agility with the modern tech startup philosophy of “moving fast and breaking stuff.”. He soon began to invest in everything from ramen and hotpots to bottled beverages.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 24, 2021

million Series A round — led by Silicon Valley VC firm Ribbit Capital — in early April. For its part, Patrick Backhouse of Greenoaks Capital believes that Brazil has an “enormous” SME economy that has historically been “underserved by incumbent banks.”. It’s also notable that São Paulo-based Cora only raised its $26.7

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

-based last-mile delivery provider, has raised £4 million in funding, as it looks to invest in its product off the back of 300% revenue growth during the last 12 months. The company had previously raised £1 million in two rounds, including £500,000 from publicly-listed Auctus Alternative Investments. I don’t see how the incumbent U.K.

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incumbents VC enablement sustainability 89

Ecosystem Builder Hub

MAY 21, 2021

It is incumbent upon those of us working to build vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems to put inclusion front and center, at the heart of everything we do. This approach has selected entrepreneurs to evaluate one another on key due diligence criteria (team, product market fit, etc) to determine overall investability.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 13, 2022

A flurry of fintechs emerged in hope of meeting that demand while incumbent banks clamored to step up their own digital games. an investment that it says has paid off. Battery Ventures led NorthOne’s $21 million Series A in March of 2020 and is doubling down on its investment with the new raise.

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capital incumbents education financing 98

TechCrunch

JANUARY 12, 2021

I started off with several introductions that one of my friends from college and a former VC made for me to several of his previous colleagues. But when going to pitch meetings and VC events, I got the same feeling that I would get when you go to a high-end country club or a luxury store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

We led a $4 million investment along with Thrive Capital, GLG and Sound Ventures. Incumbents launch products, VCs throw cash at other competitors, team members quit, the economy dips — whatever. But only truly talented entrepreneurs show the grit required to respond rapidly to a changing environment.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 24, 2016

Incumbents became increasingly annoyed with our successes in the country’s largest market – NYC – that they started even taking out ads against us. It’s no wonder incumbents don’t want us to exist. Fragmented markets can be a great target for disruption. Public Storage does about $2.4 Little old us.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

Try to imagine if you *didn’t* already know Amazon and the company walking into VC meetings telling people they were going to disrupt the selling of all goods starting with books but then extending into electronics, apparel, toys and so forth. And they have. Innovation. MakeSpace set out to reinvent the whole category.

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real estate startup disruption incumbents 364

Haystack

JANUARY 24, 2019

More often than not, I believe it is largely impossible to predict the shape of an outcome when making an initial venture investment. The insight and data venture investors have to work with increases as a company matures — the earlier the investment, the more unknown the outcome is. Seed is what I know.

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incumbents VC ventures investing 83

TechCrunch

JULY 13, 2021

Additional investors in the newest seed round and expanded credit facility include Village Global VC, Flexport Ventures, Tresalia Capital, 342 Capital, Struck Capital, Antler LLC, Antler Elevate, Florida Funders and Fox Ventures. Miami-based Marco Financial is launching a revenue-based lending service for Latin American SMEs.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 29, 2023

“Insurtech startups that do not offer embedded insurance, and rather provide other innovative solutions will still attract VC funding this year, especially if they can show cost-efficient and sustainable growth,” said Nina Mayer, a principal at Earlybird. And the current market is rather reinforcing our investment thesis.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Today, Akeyless is thriving, Angel tells me — despite fierce competition from incumbents like Hashicorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager and Google Cloud’s Secret Manager. Hareven didn’t mention during our conversation, but Akeyless is also likely to benefit from the continued broader VC interest in cybersecurity.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

One reason it attracts the most VC dollars is how expensive building a fintech product can be when factors such as integration, compliance and licensing are considered. When it comes to ‘bets,’ a reminder that we don’t invest due to the sector/category/idea; solely the founder. The most funded sector in Africa is also fintech.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 11, 2023

. “We are coming off of 5x growth last year and the market is strongly calling for our solutions … We opted for equity because alongside capital, we want strategic partners to help us scale to the next level and we have both VCs and clients and partners investing. This brings value far greater than even the cash.”

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real estate energy incumbents sustainability 86

TechCrunch

JUNE 29, 2022

” Countless vendors offer online tax prep services, including incumbents like TurboTax and H&R Block. Borodach claims the company has commitments of tens of thousands of tax filings ahead of next year, which was apparently enough to convince VCs to invest. The tides might be turning.

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incumbents financing finance advice 87

TechCrunch

JANUARY 13, 2022

The company said it plans to use the investment to launch neobanks in eight countries over the next 24 months. Digital banks, neobanks, challenger banks or whatever you may call them, are among the biggest recipients of VC investments in fintech. Investing in Fintech Farm was a strategic investment to that end.

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incumbents financing finance investing 104

TechCrunch

MARCH 3, 2023

Startups and VC While most established automotive players call the shots from sprawling, corporate palaces, Scout bases much of its operations — at least for now — out of a WeWork near Washington, D.C., Basically, it’s Uber’s attempt to follow the Instacart model, which is working well for the incumbent grocery delivery company,” she reports.

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