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Listen Ventures raised a $75 million fourth fund #Listen Ventures, a Chicago-based #VC firm dedicated to investing in founders building consumer-centric brands that drive behavior shifts, is raising up to $75 million for its fourth fund, Listen Ventures IV, LP. This new fund, as disclosed in a recent SEC filing, aims to support innovative startups poised to transform their industries. Founded in 2010, Listen Ventures has consistently focused on early-stage investments, leveraging its team of investors, consumer-insight experts, and creative capitalists to identify and nurture brands at the forefront of cultural and behavioral trends. Key figures leading this fundraise include Jeff Cantalupo and Rick Desai, who are instrumental in steering the firm's strategic direction. The fourth fund will continue Listen Ventures' mission to back consumer-obsessed founders across diverse themes such as End of Excess, Mental Health, Cannabis Stigma, Off Devices, #FinancialHealth, and Food Fight. Their impressive portfolio includes notable brands like Calm, Factor_, Kiwi Crate, Miss Grass, Black Buffalo, Own Up, and Raise, all of which are making significant impacts in their respective markets. The article on #VCwiretech in the first comment.

At Whales Ventures, our team operates precisely, always several steps ahead in identifying market opportunities. We drive growth by leveraging deep market insights and strategic execution. It’s about investing capital and partnering with founders to build scalable, high-impact ventures. #venturecapital #growthinvestment #scalableventures #startupgrowth #founderspartnering #capitalinvestment #businessstrategy

Thank you 🙏 Omri Hurwitz for taking the time to dig into Jumpspeed Ventures in your latest podcast episode. In this short interview we covered: ⁃ Why does Jumpspeed focus only on Jerusalem-originated startups? ⁃ Do Jerusalem startups tend to cluster in any specific categories? ⁃ Benefits/drawbacks to being a solo GP ⁃ Time management when you're self managed ⁃ Book recommendations

🎃 This Halloween, at Portola Valley Partners, we’re reminded that in the venture capital realm, much like in the ghostly spirit-world of Halloween, there’s a thrill in venturing into the unknown 🛸. 🦇 Just as trick-or-treaters knock on doors with excitement for what’s next, we partner with founders to explore uncharted markets and promising innovations👾. 👻 While Halloween may bring ghosts and trepidation, we’re here to exorcise founder's fears and turn the spooky stuff into rewarding investments👹. 👽 Here’s to the founders who dare to disrupt, the investors who believe in them, and the exciting surprises the future holds🔮! 🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡 BUILD😱>GROW🎃>FUND😈>EXIT👻 venture@portolavalleypartners.com #venturecapital #innovation #future #technology #creativity

🎉 I’m proud to announce Hue’s $4.5M seed round, led by Fika Ventures and Underscore VC. This isn’t just a milestone for Hue. – it’s a strong vote of confidence in our mission and vision to turn real customers into brands’ most powerful marketing channel. Since day one, we’ve been driven by a passion to make shopping online easier, more authentic, and more inclusive for all. From classmates at Harvard Business School to now working with 45+ leading brands and retailers including Tatcha, Laura Mercier, Credo Beauty, Kate Somerville Skincare, Ceremonia, and more who have put their trust in us to help their consumers - I’m so proud of what our small yet mighty team has been able to accomplish. And we’re just getting started. ✨ Full story in the comments from Beauty Independent. 🙏🏽 HUGE thank you to our lead investors, Arteen Arabshahi from Fika Ventures and Richard Dulude from Underscore for being true believers in our vision. And we wouldn’t be here without all our early supporters - Nicole Clay, Sylvan Guo and I are so grateful for your support: 💜 Our amazing advisors and newest angel investors: Amory Wakefield, Brett A. Hurt, Chris Hobson, Dawn Dobras, Debra Perelman, Elaine Rubin, James Kirk, Jennifer Goldfarb, Jillian Smith Chisari, Julia Austin, Jodi Bricker, Kristopher Scott, Marcy Zelmar, Nital Patel Scott, Rachel DelGrande, Ross Miller, Tennille Kopiasz, tristan walker, Sneha Narahalli 🤝 Our early brand partners: Annie Jackson, Lydia Kandel (Credo Beauty), Rachel Shelowitz, Michael McNeil (Lawless Beauty), Andrea Carver, Markus Willhite (TATCHA), Gladys Castro-Rezabek, Stephanie Friedlander(Laura Geller Beauty) 🙌🏽 And our pre-seed and seed ongoing investors: Ali Mahmoud (Glasswing Ventures), Jeffrey Bussgang (The Graduate Syndicate), Chloe Breider Anthony Valente (Phoenix Fund), Bruno Sanovicz Xan Wood (Courtyard Ventures), The MBA Fund, Google for Startups 🚀 Want to be part of the journey? We’re hiring! Check out our Jobs page on LinkedIn or reach out to me directly. #FundingNews #WomenInBusiness #DiversityInVC #seedround #harvard #poweredbyhue

The recently crowned Investor of the year by Estonian Startup Awards, Helery Pops needs no introduction in the Baltic ecosystem. A true jack of all trades, successfully navigating the different hats she has worn, and seems she is a master of many of them! As one of the first recordings in our series, we sat down with Freddie to understand what is means to learn on the job in VC. With her earlier career in commercial roles in Pipedrive and Ampler bikes, Helery truly took on a huge learning curve in co-founding and leading investments at Honey Badger Capital. Where do you start when learning about VC? How to be successful in starting from scratch? And what does it all have to do with impact and sustainability - have a listen! https://lnkd.in/dN8EB6Qi

👻🎃Wishing everyone a Happy Halloween 🎃👻 🦇 I've recently started looking at Halloween as a day that celebrates the value of having a little grit and the thrill of transforming wild ideas into reality - this healthy dose of creativity and chance-taking should inspire startups. 🦇 Just like we can temporarily reimagine ourselves as superheroes 🦸, aliens 👽, or robots🤖, startups get to reinvent the world through innovation, creativity, and a fearless 😱 willingness to try new things. 🦇 Startups must embrace uncertainty and think outside the box📤—whether it’s testing new ideas or taking on risks others shy away from. 🦇 And, just like Halloween is made possible by community, the startups that succeed typically embrace the same - sharing, collaborating, and working together. #venturecapital #innovation #creativity #entrepreneurship #startups Portola Valley Partners

Last night at our member dinner we were joined by Chris Adelsbach, one of the most active investors in Europe (or as he described himself, the guy from Detroit who ended up in Upper Beading!). He has invested in 220+ startups over the last 10 years and now has an ‘evergreen’ portfolio. He shared his lessons learned over his time in venture investing with some of the biggest takeaways including: • Give first (you don’t know what will come back to you) • Embrace serendipity (some of his top investments came from a chance encounter) • Stay in your lane (have a thesis!) • High risk = high reward: the most successful investors have the highest rate of failures (70% of their portfolio companies fail) but their winners are significant, returning a higher return overall Outrun Ventures Techstars

The who/why/what/when of 7percent Ventures - from Maddyness’ profile this week. Who? A team of ex-founders, which has backed over 150 startups - including first money into Oculus VR, MagicPony, Flexport, Gensyn, and Universal Quantum. We back founders with a passion to solve a huge problem, the determination to make it happen, and with a clear narrative about the stepping stones along the way. These founders must strike a balance of self-confidence and coachability. Why? Technology is the future of everything - and governments are underestimating this. The technologies we invest in today will disproportionately determine economic growth, international influence and military strength in the long term. We founded 7percent to bring a silicon-valley mindset to Europe back in 2012. The startup scene has flourished since, but we’re still far from the alignment we need on a national and geopolitical scale. What? Two core buckets: Frontier techstartups where the challenge is primarily technical, but if built can serve a huge latent market. Example: Vaire Computing Transformative startups that redefine a big, old, often very backward sector. Example: Flexport When? We’ve been invested in ‘deeptech’ since before it became fashionable. We look to invest in companies as early as possible. This puts us on the same side of the table as the founder. Later in the start of the journey, what’s good for the founder is usually good for us.