Equal Ventures

My annual far East trek led me to a trifecta of elite Asian shopping cities - Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo. In the name of Equal Ventures research (aided by the weak yen!), I did some serious retail therapy - a few observations: Asia retail 🛍️ lives in the future - Folks are still hanging out at malls (or Asia's version of them)! While the US catches up on mixed-use and open-air retail, Asia has moved deeper into experiential retail with exclusive pop-ups / limited stores. Pop-ups were ubiquitous in high traffic areas like Shanghai's Xintiandi and Seoul's Gangnam Shinsegae and highly curated, limited stores thrived in hip neighborhoods like Daikanyama and Shimokitazawa in Tokyo. These formats get a bad rap for quality / consistency in the US, but Asia pop-ups / collabs are a consistent and cost effective tool for brands, esp. luxury ones, to engage consumers, localize offerings, and test products while maintaining exclusivity. The Louis Vuitton x Murakami pop-up in Shanghai drew insane lines and even required police presence! Only 7 cities (incld. SH, Seoul, Tokyo) got these pop-ups. The NYC one, the lone US city, is in Soho if anyone wants to drop by :) Consumer mobile 📱 as an utility - Seoul and Tokyo are both super convenient, but Shanghai is unmatched given the unique prevalence of Chinese super apps like WeChat and Alipay. My fave Hangzhou coffee spot had ~40 tables, but was manned by a single barista as every table had an unique QR code allowing customers to order, pay, and request services digitally. This technology is EVERYWHERE - not just fast casual foodservice. It extends to high end restaurants, shopping at formal retail locations like malls and department stores to informal commerce like street vendors and service providers like hair dressers and taxi drivers. The consumer has been well trained and the friction of transaction is close to zero. Collectibles 🎴 remain on FIRE! - With a budding reseller in my own household, I (was forced to) spent many hours in Akihabara, Tokyo where collectors, resellers, and enthusiasts of all ages / walks of life flooded the countless card and memorabilia shops there. The prevalence of English and a few other languages signs posted everywhere suggested that a significant number of visitors were foreign buyers, and their transaction volume pointed to professional resellers. Anecdotally, it seemed like prices for popular cards and products had skyrocketed over the past few months alone! Of course, not everything is transferrable to the U.S. but I'm looking forward to seeing how (and if) these Asian retail trends make it back to America :) Uncredit pics below are my own :) 1 squid game x malbon collab in Seoul 2 squid game x netflix popup at Gangam Shinsegae 3 urban outfitter popup at Xintiandi; Mika Osborn 4 beams limited store in Shimokitazawa 5 LV x murakami pop up in Shanghai; Pinto Gallery 6 Fejo coffee shop in Hangzhou 7+8 Hareyua2 in Akihabara #retail

GREAT read from Ali Afridi at Equal Ventures and has a lot of similarities to a talk that Brad Feld from Foundry gave to a group of SVBers back in October in Denver. While we continue to see more and more green shoots in the market its important to think (and prepare) for a potentially longer downturn in the venture funding market.

Everyone's talking about #inflation! It's no surprise that TJ Maxx and Costco are soaring but why are prominent chains like Family Tree and Dollar General struggling? 🤔 🤔 🤔 Learn more about how and why inflation is sparking the off-price boom 👇 https://lnkd.in/gGDFYVTv #retail #offprice Sophia Dodd Equal Ventures

So much learning and inspiration at the Equal Ventures Emerging Manger Circle Summit. The best part was nerding out in the front row with my Kauffman Fellows classmate Ashley Mayer and KF CEO Fernando Fabre. The Equal Ventures team brought in a stellar cast of speakers, including Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate (definitely read his new book Pattern Breakers), Gordon Ritter of Emergence Capital, Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson of Sapphire Ventures, Matt Auxier, CFA of University of Chicago, Melissa Richlen of the McArthur Foundation, Alex Pall from Mantis Venture Capital and too many other VC and LP superstars to tag them all. All in a stunning Williamsburg venue with an agenda that fostered community and connections in a really authentic way. Thank you to Rick Zullo, Ali Afridi, Sophia Dodd and the rest of the EMC team!

We're less than one week out from the 3rd Annual Emerging Manager Circle Summit! This year promises to be our best yet with some of the biggest names in the Venture industry. Speakers include many Midas Listers, the LPs behind many of the top venture firms, an F1 World Champion, and a Grammy winning Artist. We’ll be joined by over 150 LPs and 150 Founding GPs in a beautiful new venue overlooking the Manhattan skyline. A huge thank you to our co-hosts Silicon Valley Bank and Latham & Watkins and our sponsors Aduro Advisors and Frank, Rimerman + Co. LLP for making this event possible. And an additional thanks to our reception sponsors Fidelity Private Shares, Sydecar, Vouch Insurance, Pliancy, Bain Capital Ventures Seed Fund, Empire State Development, and Integrity Power Search. Annie Lamont, Gordon Ritter, Mike Maples, Jr, Chris Farmer, Alex Pall, Nico Rosberg, Adam Bain, Aileen Lee, AJ Vaynerchuk, Atul Rustgi, Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson, Brian C. Patterson, Charles Hudson, Daniel Dehrey, David Yuan, David York, Jesús Argüelles, Lisa Cawley, CFA, Matt Auxier, CFA, Melissa Richlen, Satya Patel, Scott Belsky, Semil Shah, Rick Zullo, Ali Afridi, Adam Chadroff, Chelsea Zhang, Sophia Dodd, Grace Penders.

What an honor! This week, I had the privilege of interviewing Tim Cawley, the CEO of Con Edison, one of the largest energy companies in the U.S. As one of our keynotes coined it, we are entering an "energy renaissance" period and have continually been impressed by the work Con Edison is doing to reshape the future of energy right here in NYC. Equal Ventures Rick Zullo Sophia Dodd

Wrapbook Raises Equity Financing at a $750M Valuation, Plus Launch of Secondary Tender Offer for Employees from Bessemer Venture Partners The entertainment industry is in transition. The stakes for production companies are the highest they have ever been. There is tighter budgets and greater scrutiny. Yet, production finance and accounting teams are held back by constraints of friction filled processes, fragmented data, and long waits for service. All of this has led to less work for crew and talent, especially in the USA. Wrapbook has emerged as force multiplier for production finance increasing the efficiency, accuracy, and output of teams without increasing labor efforts or costs. We modernize production finance with next gen technology, proactive service, and rapid innovation. We will be investing the money we raised into building community and tools to bring a faster pace of innovation to production in support of production companies, crew, and talent alike. I am extremely grateful to the ~250 employees who dedicate themselves to advancing our industry forward. I am also happy that they have an opportunity to have liquidity along the way.

We're excited to announce that David Energy has raised $23M in funding to transform the retail energy market and make a clean energy grid a reality. Led by Cathay Innovation, this latest round will support the expansion of our business in the Northeast and Texas markets. "The core challenge in operating modern grids is managing the volatility brought on by renewables. No grid operator, retailer, or vertically integrated utility across the globe has solved this problem and that's precisely what we intend to do. This investment gives us the capital we need to validate this opportunity and our approach to decarbonizing the grid.” said James McGinniss, our founder and CEO. "David Energy is completely redefining what it means to be a retail energy provider with a modern, tech-forward and vertically integrated approach designed for the clean energy era,” said Simon Wu, Partner with Cathay Innovation. "David Energy is primed to scale and we’re thrilled to support James and the team on the journey ahead.” Read the exclusive announcement in TechCrunch for more: https://hubs.ly/Q02QLfxF0

We’re gearing up for next week’s Climate Capital Summit, where the industry’s key players will be in one room tackling the future of climate innovation and capital deployment. Here’s what to expect: • $600 billion of climate capital managed by the speakers on stage • >$300 billion of the U.S. federal budget dedicated to climate managed by speakers • CEOs representing >$60 billion of market capital presenting • >$1 trillion of climate capital managed by attendees • 400 of the most influential players within climate innovation today • 4,000+ registrants Excited for the conversations ahead that will shape the next phase of climate investment. #ClimateCapitalSummit #ClimateWeek #CleanEnergy CC: Grace Penders, Rick Zullo, Sophia Dodd, Fenwick & West, Mercury, Earth Finance, Inc., Amazon Web Services (AWS), Climate Group, Climatebase

Today, we're highlighting a massive category within retail that still severely under indexes on ecommerce penetration - the $2T Consumer Packaged Goods segment. Our initial hypothesis that COVID would result in a mass digital grocery movement hasn't fully materialized as expected. Despite digital grocery’s strong growth off a small base, ecommerce adoptions for food & beverage (7%) and health & beauty (18%) still underperform that of other retail categories (41%). Learn about why ecommerce, especially DTC, economics simply do not work for CPG brands (and the Four Horsemen of Profit Destruction!) and why we believe CPG is one of the most exciting and underserved segments in the retail segment today. Equal Ventures Starday Foods Chaz Flexman https://lnkd.in/eCCVjNpz