CVC Weekly Roundup
Hello folks!
Welcome to edition #23 of the Community VC Newsletter 🚀
In this week’s edition:
- Monday Poll Results: We've checked in with our community to measure interest in a new Tear-up series that delves into companies from an educational standpoint, especially those outside the typical 'Venture Scale' model.
- Tear-up series: We’ve wrapped up our Tear-up on Xailient! Below, you'll find our due diligence on the edge computing startup, including insights from the founder, industry experts, and our community contributors.
- Stackrank Pipeline Additions: We're excited to introduce two new additions to our pipeline - Zolve (a US neobank) and Grow it Local (a virtual community with over 30,000 members dedicated to promoting local food growth).
- Learning and Insights: Explore valuable insights into successful angel investing, including my top four lessons learned from my investment journey.
- For Founders & Funders: Access premium deal flow and submit your decks.
New to Our Community? 🌟
For those new to Community VC, CVC is your go-to educational platform for aspiring angel investors. We're all about unlocking the doors to the exciting world of venture capital, connecting you with extraordinary investment and talent opportunities.
Register as a community member here.
Member perks:
- 📖 Newsletters: A weekly snapshot into startup funding, deal reviews, and unique talent opportunities - sign up here.
- 💡 Stackrank: Get inside access to a world of vetted, top-tier VC opportunities.
- 🎙️Interviews: Gain insights through in-depth discussions on live retail and syndicated capital raises, supercharging your due diligence process.
Enjoy!
🗳️ Monday Poll Results
Every Monday, we gather insights from our community through a LinkedIn poll. Sometimes, the poll decides which company to feature in our upcoming Tear-up series, and other times, it's all about market trends and company-related topics.
This week’s Poll
We took into account your valuable feedback regarding potential bias in our company selection for polls and the Stackrank.
With approximately 1000 deck submissions annually, we are committed to refining our selection process to efficiently spotlight the most promising ventures.
In our continuous effort to better cater to diverse investment interests, we sought to understand whether our community would appreciate a Tear-up series focusing on companies that may not fit the conventional 'Venture Scale' model but align more closely with personal passions and specific investment interests.
Find out what our community thought here.
😍 Tear-up Series
Xailient Final Tear-up 🚀
Exciting news! We've wrapped up our Xailient Tear-up series and consolidated all the findings for you below.
For new members, Tear-ups are the community-driven due diligence process we conducted on selected companies from our Stackrank. We analyse the company's product, business model and future growth prospects with experts, founders, and our community. The goal is to provide our community members with a solid understanding of the investment opportunity, enabling them to proceed with their own due diligence.
We organise our Tear-up series into five stages, each focusing on different aspects of the venture. This approach allows us to prioritise key information and progressively dive deeper into our analysis as our interest and confidence in a particular company grows.
- Hype Reel Video: We start with a Hype Reel Video, giving you an initial glimpse of the venture.
- Deck Review: Next, we assess the startup's pitch deck, delving further into its strategic vision.
- Founder Interview: We sit down with the founders themselves, exploring their backgrounds, motivations, and vision for the company.
- Expert Interview: Field experts share their insights, providing valuable perspectives on the venture's potential.
- Community Session: We facilitate a community-led DD session where everyone can contribute their thoughts on the business and raise any questions.
At the end of this process, we gather all our findings into our 'Stackrank.' This serves as a comprehensive due diligence guide, answering your key questions about the company. It covers essential aspects such as the business model, funding history, and past performance, equipping you with foundational information for your independent due diligence.
🌐 Xailient Tear-up
Introducing Xailient: Revolutionising Edge AI
The spotlight of this Tear-up is Xailient, a deep-tech company specialising in developing edge AI tools for camera providers. One crucial lesson we've learned through this Tear-up is the importance of involving individuals from various domains to gain a comprehensive perspective on a company. In a multifaceted sector like Xailient's, no single person can possess all the necessary knowledge. This is why, given the highly technical nature of this venture, we've relied on the expertise of technical specialists. Massive thank you to the 20 community members who have contributed their insights to this Tear-up. We’d also like to shout out the experts, Jordan Duffy and Steve Allen, for their invaluable input.
Key Insights
Based on our findings, we recommend that your extended due diligence on Xailient should include a deeper dive into Xailient's IP moat and differentiation, as well as a comprehensive examination of their sales strategy to gain a better understanding of the velocity and targets.
Currently, Xailient is in the process of raising an extension round to demonstrate its go-to-market and product-market fit, laying the groundwork for a substantial Series A round scheduled for late 2024. If you're interested in obtaining more information or access to this opportunity, feel free to reach out to us at support@community-vc.com.
Tear-up
For access to the complete Xailient Tear-up, visit our newsletter here.
😍 Want to contribute to our next Tear-up?
We’re still looking for people to join our next tear-up on Sonnant and Grow it Local.
Expert DD
We’re after industry experts and investment professionals to access their insights on specific investment opportunities. If you're a top founder, team member, or investor in any of the following areas, please reach out to support@community-vc.com.
- Grow It Local: Agritech, Education & Community.
- Sonnant: Qualitative/Quantitative Data in Sound/Audio, Large Radio/Music Distribution Companies, B2B SaaS Businesses.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Community DD
Are you interested in participating in a Community DD session? Get involved!
❓ How does it work❓
We provide everyone with access to the Stackrank, where they submit their own assessments. We then aggregate all the Stackrank assessments and allow each person to highlight 1-2 key items they'd like to discuss. We wrap it up with a comprehensive Q&A session.
❓What do the Community-DD Crew get❓
For their participation, they receive priority access to contribute or invest in any deal we discover, along with credits and an invitation to join our contributor WhatsApp group for venture deal insights and Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions.
If you're interested in participating in these upcoming Tear-ups, simply share your details here, and we'll get in touch with you.
🦄 STACKRANK ADDITIONS
We’ve added two new companies to the CVC Stackrank:
Fostering community, sustainability, and tech-driven education, Grow It Local champions local food growth. With 30k+ members and $500k+ annual revenue in just three years, they're expanding both nationally and internationally.
🌍 Country: Aus
🎯 Type: Educational organisation
🎲 The Bet: Can this model replicate in other countries? Can it significantly extend customer lifetime value?
🌟 The Wow: Boasting 30k+ members, an exceptional team, and an incredibly loyal community.
Zolve 💰
Zolve empowers newcomers to the U.S. financial landscape, aiming to simplify complexities within the existing system. With global aspirations and solid backing, they're well-positioned for global success.
🌍 Country: US
🎯 Type: Neobank
🎲 The Bet: Can it achieve global scalability by leveraging its strong foothold and outperforming other neobanks?
🌟 The Wow: Impressive traction, reputable backers, and a top-notch team driving the vision forward.
If you know anyone looking to diversify their deal flow, refer them to Community VC.
📖 Weekly learning
During my journey as an investor, I've faced multiple challenges, each of which I've come to realise can be attributed to one of four key factors.
The Hard-Earned Lessons of Investing: Volume 1
👥 Founder Scuttlebutt: The crucial insights gained (or missed) about the people behind the business.
📊 Business Relevance: The importance of understanding and caring about the business's nature and operations.
💰 Investment Pressure: The consequences of yielding to external pressures in investment decisions.
⏰ Timing the Investment: The critical role of timing in the success or failure of an investment.
For the complete article sign up here.
📣 GET IN TOUCH
🎖Calling all current and future angels
Access global, pre-vetted, VC-quality deal flow and supercharged Due Diligence: pop your name down here.
🎯Calling all pre-seed/seed Ventures
Submit your decks for a free public or private review to support your capital-raising or improvement efforts: pop your name down here.
At the Community VC, we believe investing should be accessible to everyone, not just those in the know. We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to invest and contribute to vetted ventures that move the world forward.
Please do not take this as Financial advice or a guide of what any outcome will be. This isn't financial advice, nothing in this email is, I am not guaranteeing or recommending an investment or outcome in anything. I am simply just listing opportunities I believe should be accessible to everyone.