Era Ventures’ Post

Today I'm launching Asylum Ventures, a new venture firm dedicated to the creative act of building companies. Asylum's first $55 million fund is an embodiment of my belief that founders are artists, not assets. In 2007, I was a trader at Lehman Brothers. It sucked. I didn’t know it then, but Lehman’s bankruptcy in ‘08 was a gift, and I left in search of a calling. A year later, I was fortunate to stumble upon a young, passionate group of creative misfits that folks were calling “founders.” Founders felt more like artists than assets, more obsessives than executives. I was in love with their fringe eccentricity, extraordinary craftsmanship, and wild ambition. For the next 15 years, I dedicated my life to founders in New York, first at betaworks, and then with three funds at Notation Capital with my partner Alex Lines. We did well serving founders. But a lot has changed. The startup ecosystem has gone from cottage industry outsider to institutional insider. Simultaneously, the creative act of making startups has turned into a credentialing factory, and the environment today feels eerily similar to the one I left on Wall Street. I’ve always believed the best founders have more in common with artists than executives. They’re obsessive about new and beautiful things, they're compelled to bring creation into the world, and they're often misunderstood for very long periods of time–even lifetimes. Our belief is that building businesses is its own form of creation–its own form of art. We look for founders that are building the unique, the misunderstood, and the courageous. When my partners Jonathan (Love) Wu, Mackenzie Regent and I sat down to think about what we stood for, we we tried to answer the question: What if we treated founders like artists rather than assets on a balance sheet? We think it means: A firm that’s small by design, making a handful of investments per year, eschewing board seats and administrative control. A team of partners moving mountains to help when asked and otherwise getting out of the way. A place where true craftspeople can tune out the noise and focus on making something truly great. A source of calm, trust, and support for founders manifesting beauty through one of the hardest things you can do: starting a company. The fund is raised and we're actively meeting founders. If this sounds appealing to you, reach out at hello@asylum.vc or from our website asylum.vc. Finally, we're hiring an analyst or associate who is obsessive about supporting founders. If you want to join a small team dedicated to the art of venture rather than the business of banking, contact us at hiring@asylum.vc. Read Erin Griffith's coverage from the New York Times here: https://lnkd.in/eyy-xqMR

Peter Thiel-founded Valar Ventures LLC raises $300 million for his latest fund #Valar Ventures, co-founded by Peter Thiel in 2010, has successfully raised $300 million for its ninth fund. This new fund is significantly smaller than its previous ones, reflecting the challenging environment for #VC fundraising. Andrew McCormack and James Fitzgerald, both of whom previously worked at Thiel Capital and Clarium Capital Management, currently lead Valar Ventures. While Thiel’s current involvement with Valar is unclear, his influence in the foundation of the firm is undeniable. The $300 million fund indicates continued confidence in Valar’s strategy and team, despite the broader trends in the VC space where even prominent firms are seeing reduced targets and slower capital deployment. Valar Ventures has a mix of investors, including institutional investors like Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement (PSERS), although specific names for this round have not been disclosed. Originally targeting startups in New Zealand, Valar Ventures now specializes in #fintech startups worldwide, including Europe, the U.K., and the SF Bay Area. Notable portfolio companies include Wise, which debuted on the London Stock Exchange with a market cap of $11 billion, Stash, valued at $1.4 billion in 2021, and Bitpanda, last valued at $4 billion. Despite facing difficulties with some investments, such as BlockFi and Breather, Valar Ventures remains a key player in the venture capital landscape. The firm's 2020 vintage fund is currently down by -2.3% in IRR, but it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions The article on TechCrunch in the first comment. Want to stay up to date with the market? Here my newsletter: - Linkedin: https://t.ly/s541W   - Substack: https://lnkd.in/dzfGJzmW

Venture, done differently... by founders for founders 😊 Pulling off a venture fund in this environment has not been easy, even with a track record that beats >95% of VCs. After a year+ of hustling, making many new friends, and launching Palette's SPVs, we're thrilled that we held our first close. It wasn't the last but it means we're out of "stealth" as a fund 🎉 cc Rana Taghdisi Argenio Palette Ventures is a founder-led & founder-backed fund investing at the intersection of consumer value shifts and tech at Seed. Here is our recent Mid-Year 2024 Friends and Family Letter. Enjoy 🎨 https://lnkd.in/gcbjK5_g We focus on a few simple truths: 1 - Consumer value shifts create massive opportunities - an earlier focus on healthy aging and 'longevity', leveling up family life in a tech-native world, clean efficacious products for our bodies and minds, affordability of better-for-you solutions... and many more. 2 - “Consumer” will create outsized venture returns when focus is:   a - bold and impactful ideas with defensible and lasting moats   b - raise less $, make more $$$   c - sexy metrics (even if "cash cycle" sounds boring)   d - strategic M&A can be *yay* (the things Goldman taught us) 3 - Founders enjoy raising from other founders (above all, it's the empathy) p.s. happy to share more info if you agree that buying the dip is the wise thing to do 😊 DM us. p.p.s. VERY grateful to the many folks who are on this journey with us in one way or another... and especially our founder peers & idols we got to back over the years including William Shu, Jen Rubio, Alissa Baier-Lentz, Steph Hon, Jannick Malling, Jordan Nathan, Babba (Canales) Rivera, Irene Liu, Louise Fritjofsson, Cyndi Ramirez-Fulton, Christopher Jane, Steph Korey Goodwin, Kari Morris, Kait Stephens, Justin Abrams, Katie Wilson, Courtney Boyd Rey (née Myers), Leif Abraham, Jake Duneier, Leonard Picardo and, of course, for me Meg He.

This will be a quiet announcement and then I'll get back to work. Ruck just closed a $5m Series Seed, led by SNAK Venture Partners and ANIMO Ventures. Both are funds led by fiercely people-first investors. It's not often that a VC investor's culture actually makes a founder care more about their team members. VSC Ventures also joined the round (we love their thesis-aligned slogan: "We make dirty jobs sexier"). VITALIZE Venture Capital's enthusiasm for our team, vision, and model, made it clear that Ruck had to get them on the cap table. The continued and increasing commitments from early investors, Hustle Fund, Gold House, Convoi Ventures really makes me very reassured that Ruck is on the right path. Originally, Ruck set out to raise $4m, but given the competitive oversubscription, we had to increase it to a $5m total raise and we still ended up leaving one year's worth of runway on the table. Committed insiders graciously gave up allocation to bring in the new investors. I never would have imagined oversubscription being such a stressful situation, having to disappoint both new and previous people with whom you've spent a lot of time building relationships. This was painful, as fundraising has never been "easy", at least, not for me. I'm very happy, but very, very tired. All in all, I held over 120 pitch meetings over a 60-day period. (Pandemic and zoom really democratized funding meetings.) (Also... my wife and I just had our first child, early and healthy, during the pitches.) A Q4 raise is not easy. Holidays, seasonal numbers, fully-deployed funds...I would highly not recommend raising at the end of the year. But we did it. All the investors also worked hard to help us put the round together in a timely manner, with extreme appreciation towards Sonia from SNAK and Eric from Gold House getting very sleeves-rolled-up with refining our narrative and pitch. I've texted both of them way past bedtime weeks on end, getting their inputs, expanding our understanding of the investor viewpoint, and strategizing the next week's pitches. A very special shoutout to Colin Gardiner. Just after leaving Techstars and also leaving Outdoorsy as their CRO, he spent so much time on the phone with me when I was a "nobody" cold messaging him on LinkedIn. He helped me understand our business model, trained our operations teams, made more than 20+ introductions to investors (that landed us investments), and so much more. He's just a good, thoughtful, quietly fierce person. If you are a marketplace, you need to meet Colin Gardiner. Honestly, I cannot over-emphasize the quality of this syndicate. Yes, there are and will be times where founders go head-to-head with their investors; however, if you choose the right investor-founder fit, you really minimize the chances of big blowups... and getting kicked out of your company after raising $100m and then shuttering all of a sudden. 2025 is going to be 'Ruck solid'. LRG.

In 2023, women-led VC firms raised a record $3.5B. While it's good news that this number grew, it only accounts for 3% of all VC funding raised. That's why it's important to spread awareness not only for our women-led fund, but for others as well. We encourage you to connect with these amazing women-led funds: Acrew Capital Alpaca VC Aspect Ventures Baukunst BBG Ventures Bond Capital Cake Ventures Construct Capital Cowboy Ventures Female Founders Fund FORERUNNER VENTURES MANAGEMENT, LLC Greycroft Halogen Ventures Lightspeed Venture Partners NextView Ventures Outlander VC Pear VC Redpoint Ventures Renegade Partners Revolution Ventures Rivet Ventures Spero Ventures The Artemis Fund Union Square Ventures https://lnkd.in/gd-24ci6 #FabricVC #WeaveWithUs #VentureCapital #ImpactInvesting

Thrilled to share: Jay Estefani C. of m]x[v has been recognized by NYC founders as a top founder- focused investor! Forum Ventures recently invited founders to nominate investors who've been pivotal in their entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing a founder-centric approach. Our deepest gratitude goes to: - Forum Ventures for championing a founder-first venture ecosystem - The visionary founders who took the time to nominate - All recognized investors for their unwavering support through highs and lows This recognition underscores our commitment to fostering symbiotic founder-investor relationships. It's about more than capital—it's about partnership, mentorship, and shared success. To building a venture landscape where founders and investors thrive together. Nick Adams - Differential Ventures, Lisa Burton O'Toole, PhD - Hearst Lab, Richard Odior - Zeal Capital Partners, Alex Hornick - Purple Sage Ventures, Lauren Reeves - MGV, Ashley Ryder - Vamos Ventures, Jeremy Kagan - Textbook Ventures, Jesse Middleton - Flybridge, Stephan Cizmar - Lorimer Ventures, Vivin Hegde - Zacua Ventures, Iynna Halilou - The MBA Fund, Owen Willis- Opal Ventures, Jeffrey Silverman - Laconia Capital Group, Shashi Srikantan - Level Up Ventures, Rachel ten Brink - Red Bike Capital, Moshe Bellows- Maccabee Ventures, Wyeth Coulter - Point72 Ventures, Claire Goldsmith- BoxGroup, Eric Ong - Lightbank, Adam G. - 640 Oxford, Ilan Abehassera - Origins Ventures, Megan Ruan - GoldHouse Ventures, Charles Hudson - Precursor Ventures, and Jenny Fielding - Everywhere Ventures #VentureCapital #FounderSupport #NYCTech #StartupEcosystem

MaC Venture Capital has now closed its third fund at $150 million, Fortune has exclusively learned. The firm currently has about $600 million in assets under management, and its initial check size is now between $2 million and $3 million, up from $1.5 million in 2023. To date, MaC’s notable investments include Pipe, Stoke Space, Chef Robotics and Wonder Dynamics, acquired by Autodesk this summer—a 5.4x exit for MaC. Adrian Fenty, Michael Palank and Marlon C. Nichols —an investor in MongoDB, Thrive Market and Gimlet Media, and previously Intel Capital investment director—came together in 2019 to found MaC. The name is a homage to the two firms that came together to create MaC, Fenty’s M Ventures, and Nichols’ Cross Culture Ventures. Seed stage-focused MaC announced its first inaugural fund in 2021. #venturecapital #fundraise #diversity #tech #news #entrepreneurship https://lnkd.in/g_cRtb8h

A must-read interview in TechCrunch! Keith Rabois is a legend in the realms of start-ups and venture capital. Returning to Khosla Ventures, after 4 years at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund is an interesting move. Yes, Khosla Ventures is a tremendously successful name brand led by a multi-decade legend in #siliconvalley who recently raised $3.1 billion for early through growth venture capital fund strategies, but LPs have indicated risks of being a dependent "one-person show" versus Founders Fund's partnership of several venture investment partners. Either way, it will be interesting to track this development, as I see Keith Rabois teaming up with Vinod Khosla akin to Luke Skywalker and Yoda. TC: Congrats on the move, though it was never crystal clear why you left Khosla Ventures in the first place after spending six years there. KR: The real reason is really simple. I hated coming down from SF to Sand Hill Road, and KV at the time — this obviously was pre-COVID — had a very strong in-person, one-office culture and it was pretty demanding from the top down that people should be in the office at least three or four days. And I just felt that the future of venture was more distributed. I remember talking to Sam Altman about the pros and cons of leaving KV for Founders Fund, which was in San Francisco; I was like, “Am I crazy to factor in this geographic commute stuff?” And he was like, “Look, every single study on human happiness suggests the single best predictor is inverse correlation to commute time, and you’re human, and you shouldn’t be shy about that.” #fundmanagers #siliconvalley #venturecapital #teams #partnerships #fundraising #founders #entrepreneurs

It's my absolute pleasure to share that I have joined Ada Ventures as a Scout. We have been in conversation for a little while, and during that time I have got to know Ada Ventures. Ada Ventures is values driven. The team's Inclusive Alpha approach towards inclusive investments embodies an inclusive lens throughout the investment process. In the work I do to empower inclusive perspective at the centre of technological development and advancement I meet phenomenal founders. Phenomenal as they are, access to capital still eludes them with negligible funding going to Black founders. In Q1’23 and Q2’23, venture only backed Black Founders with total investment of 0.74% of all venture dollars allocated. In Q3’23, investment was 0.13%, and in Q4’23 this was 0.20%, according to Dominic-Madori Davis TechCrunch. Quite clearly there is a need for me and many more - you who are reading this - to be champions for change, finding ways to drive capital towards Black founders. I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to the Ada Ventures team who are as excited as I am to be working together. Get to know Ada Ventures too. It is an inclusive venture firm, finding and funding extraordinary talent building breakthrough ideas for the hardest problems we face. It is investing out of it's second fund. £250,000 - £1.5m in UK technology companies across climate, economic empowerment, and healthy ageing. Check out the Ada Ventures Fund II investment thesis https://lnkd.in/e_NxPKnA If your startup fits this thesis and you haven’t been in touch with Ada Ventures previously please get in touch with me. Whether you fit the Ada Venture thesis or not, become part of 1000 Black Voices® family. We would like to get to know you. 1000 Black Voices offers services to connect to markets, social and financial capital. Check out some of our startups Sorair Technologies, PaySika, Slinger, E-Doc Online , Voltric, UfarmX ® COMESO PayAngel, Tech1M (Techstars ‘23) PRYNTD and so many more phenomenal founders. #vcfunding #adaventures #1000BlackVoices #funding #inclusion #startup #scoutprogramme Francesca (Check) Warner Camila Zattar Matt Penneycard Xun Ning Choong Diarra Smith

💸1Sharpe Ventures closes their inaugural fund, with $90m to invest in early stage PropTech start-ups. The new firm will invest in 30 to 40 early-stage companies, with check sizes ranging from $500,000 to $2 million. "We can help these companies who have really bright technologists that don’t understand capital markets and vice versa.” - Gregor Watson, Co-Founder and Chairman at Roofstock and 1Sharpe Capital Oakland, California-based 1Sharpe Ventures was born out of another of the pair’s endeavors, 1Sharpe Capital, an institutional asset manager with equity real estate investments and a credit fund, by co-founder and chairman Gregor Watson and real estate investor Rob Bloemker. Read more about the new PropTech fund, and how they plan to leverage their team's extensive industry experience to propel PropTech start-ups forward, via the article linked below. 👇 https://lnkd.in/d-xiDCrR #VC #fund #startups ---- 💡 Follow PropTech Connect for daily #RealEstate and #PropTech news and insights.