Queen Elizabeth II

While I am not a royalist the Queen was clearly exceptional in her role as a figurehead and representative of the United Kingdom. She will be missed.

Morning update - 9 Sep 22

Yesterday I…

Had coffee with Rodney Appiah. Rodney is Managing Partner at Cornerstone VC which recently reached the first close of its fund to invest in UK tech start-ups led by diverse teams.
Met Tarig El-Sheikh of CINCHONA.
Had coffee with Jonathan Blausten of Sprout. Sprout is democratising access to VC by providing a curated selection of funds you would not normally be able to access.
Met Brian Snyder of Aide Health. Aide is a digital service to help understand and manage chronic disease.
Received one new video pitch.
Met Jamie Beaumont, Jonny Plein, Sam O'Connor ACA, Nicky Sugarman and others (sorry no name check) at James Pringle drinks.
Heard the Queen had died.

Ask me anything.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Newsletters and podcasts

I like to keep well informed and learn from others.

Newsletters I read:

Matt Levine's Money Stuff - https://lnkd.in/es_Nzy96?
Benedict Evans' Newsletter - https://lnkd.in/eVbuMNG9
Eric Newcomer's Newcomer - https://www.newcomer.co/
Kevin LaBuz's Below the Line - https://lnkd.in/e5d4-_JJ
Kyle Harrison's Investing 101 - https://lnkd.in/en7n5dNX

Podcasts I listen to:

Harry Stebbings' The Twenty Minute VC - https://lnkd.in/ejACuyrd
James Pringle's Riding Unicorns - https://lnkd.in/ebmvSbDZ
Paul Archer's Building Brand Advocacy - https://lnkd.in/eRHBGX5W

#venturecapital #founders #startups #buildinginpublic #investingunpublic

Morning update - 8 Sep 22

Yesterday I…

Had coffee with Philip Braham of Medimatch.io who is closing his round soon.
Met a friend, Seth Marks, for a Pret A Manger lunch and chatted about each of our plans.
Had coffee with Alison Metcalfe of Trybs Health which supports parents whose children self-harm. Alison and Trybs came out of Ella Goldner (Levy)'s ZINC venture builder.
Met Sade Amale of Physalis for coffee. Physalis helps businesses with video market research with AI-powered analytics. Sade is also closing her round soon.
Shared three businesses that were raising including one video pitch - Freyja XO, RWRD & Roomix.
Received four new video pitches.
Met Stuart Lewis and Sara Stephens and the team at Rest Less UK for a beer after work.
Had a cheeky Five Guys burger on my way back to my hotel.

Ask me anything.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Freyja XO, RWRD & Roomix

Yesterday I received video pitches from three startups.

Maria Allgaier at Freyja XO
Tim Silbermann at RWRD
Mark Apter and the team at Roomix.

Let me know if you would like an intro to any of the founders.

I have permission to share Roomix's pitch.

#venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Early-stage digital tech and why

I am an early-stage digital tech investor. Why?

Why digital tech?

It is easier to scale fast with great unit economics. This is the guiding star.

Why early-stage?

It is where my investment size is enough to matter so I have a chance of getting great deal flow.

Why early-stage digital tech?

It is where my expertise sits

Do I ever break this rule?

Occasionally. I will explain why when those investments happen and one is happening soon.

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

#founders #startups #venturecapital #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 6 Sep 22

Today I…

Had a remote site meeting for the house I am building.
Had a call with Jamie Beaumont of Playter about sales channels.
Met Raj Mendhir and heard about how wippd can help companies manage costs in a downturn by hiring talent out of Malaysia.
Met Riz Iqbal and chatted about the startup he is considering founding.
Spoke with Jonny Plein of Kuai Commerce about how to manage an oversubscribed round.
Spoke to a #founder whose Seed round I didn't invest in about participating in his pre Series A raise.
Received three video pitches one of which I have permission to share.
Met a founder to hear the first run-through of their Series A pitch deck. I love this business and will be investing.
Sneaked in a quick McDonalds on the way back to my hotel.

Ask me anything.

#venturecapital #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Why Landscape is so important to the venture community

Yesterday I said I would explain why Landscape is so important to the venture community, founders VCs, and investors.
https://lnkd.in/eE--_7qH

It is nice to have a good rating like I do but it's not the most important thing.

What is? Behind the scenes, there is an anonymous slack channel for founders. Any founder can ask for feedback on any VC and get brutally honest feedback on them almost instantly.

What does this mean?

• It doesn't matter if you curate the reviews on the main page only offering them to those who you know will give you good feedback (we are all a little guilty of this). Founders will get the honest opinion anyway
• Founders need to be on there to find out who they are dealing with. Hopefully you have choices of who to take the money from and to spend time engaging with and you can spend that time more effectively
• VCs with poor reputations will struggle to get into deals. Founders have options and will increasingly do so as venture gets more competitive (and it will despite the current environment)
• Investors into funds need to know how that fund is perceived on the landscape slack channel. The best deals will be competitive, the founders will have options, and VCs with poor reputations will not get those deals. If you invest in a VC with a poor reputation, no matter their historic performance, you will struggle

PS If you read this far and it's convenient, a 1pm slot has opened up for coffee with me in London. Shushhh
https://lnkd.in/eqrt7Jng

Ask me anything.

#founders #startups #venturecapital #investing #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 5 Sep 22

Today I…

• Woke up at 5 and headed to the airport

• Bumped into a friend, Matthew Falla. Matt is an exited founder and has a fantastic business, Parallel

• Took the 7am flight to London

• Set myself up by 9.15 at 116 Pall Mall where I am basing myself for the week

• Had a midday meeting scheduled with a founder they were unable to make at short notice

• Set unbundled vc up on Landscape and got my first five reviews you can see here - https://www.landscape.vc/investors/unbundled-vc. Thank you for the reviews, you know who you are!

• Shared Rafael Guper of UJJI's pitch

• Met Ioto Iotov of Capricorn Capital Partners UK for coffee to talk about unbundled vc and about the investment process and track record he is building at Capricorn Capital Partners UK. Ioto is very smart and is a deep thinker about the future of VC and what you need to do for success

• Checked into my hotel

• Had a quick call with Jonny Plein of Kuai Commerce

• Went to dinner with Aditya Nagarsheth. Aditya is a good friend and a fantastic investor whose opinion I respect greatly. He invests in early and late-stage venture and in crypto

Tomorrow I will post about why Landscape is becoming critical for founders, VCs and investors in VCs (LPs).

#venturecapital #founders #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

UJJI - public pitch

I have another pitch I have permission to share.

Let me know if you would like an introduction to Rafael Guper, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer @ UJJI.

Comments below please.

Powered by Willo®.

#venturecapital #founders #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Mission and vision

My mission is to generate wealth for my family by investing incredibly and to take joy in the journey by helping founders.

My vision is by making exceptional investment decisions, helping founders and being as open as possible about all I do, to build a brand that generates incredible deal flow and enables my mission.

Then, once I have built that incredible brand, to explore opportunities for unbundled vc.

Ask me anything.

#venturecapital #founders #startups #brandbuilding #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update - 2 Sep 22

Today I met a fintech founder to talk about his round and am introducing him to one of my founders, met a founder who wanted to discuss a partnership with unbundled vc, met an angel and adviser who has invested in and works with many startups, met an existing founder who is finalising his round, met a founder who will be raising his Series A later in the year, met another founder for a warm-up chat ahead of his Seed round later in the year and spoke to an Angel investor I met at the StatsBomb conference three years ago to talk about a new startup he is investing in.

I also got to share another video pitch from Pavel Gertsberg at Fluffy.

Now I have to go home and set up STARLINK so my family stop complaining about the poor internet 🤣.

Phew! It's been a hectic week. Now relax.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Photo by S Migaj on Unsplash (not my legs)

#venturecapital #investing #founders #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Fluffy - public pitch

I have another pitch I have permission to share.

Let me know if you would like an introduction to Pavel Gertsberg, The Fluffiest CEO at Fluffy.

Comments below please.

Powered by Willo®.

#venturecapital #founders #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

How Capdesk was sourced

Yesterday I talked about Capdesk’s exit to Carta. This is how we found the deal.

Ben James attended an investor meeting for another portfolio company. He met a fellow investor, followed up with them and they shared their portfolio. In that portfolio was Capdesk. We followed up again, met the team and invested a small amount in a mini-round that ended up being just for us.

Later that year I met a friend for coffee in Canary Wharf. His friend had a new startup with one of the original founders of Capdesk, Casper Arboll, who was no longer with the business. I heard that, off the record, he might be interested in selling his share in Capdesk.

Eventually, Casper and I spoke and the following year we bought him out in a much larger investment size.

Thoughts:

There was hard work involved in Ben James following up in the first place.
There was a lot of luck that I heard about the opportunity.
There was a huge amount of work between hearing about the deal, talking to Casper for the first time, agreeing terms and getting the deal over the line with the support of Capdesk and its board.
Casper was great to deal with at all times.
Casper and I never met in person and this was pre-pandemic.
He has put the funds to good use and is now Chief Marketing Officer at Perenna who are a newly approved bank that offers 30-year fixed mortgages.
Casper and Perenna are doing great so this is a good news story all round.

I have Casper's permission to share this story.

Ask me anything.

#venturecapital #investing #startups #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Evening update Thursday 1st Sep 22

Today I had breakfast with a friend who owns a fintech business, had a call with the wonderful Aisling Gray to talk about how PR might help unbundled vc, had a quick lunch with a friend who runs a financial services business, had an afternoon pitch, and was able to share the news that one of my investments, Capdesk, has exited to US unicorn Carta!

Then back down to earth to collect my son from football training.

Capdesk exit to US unicorn

Very excited that Capdesk has been acquired by Carta, a US unicorn!

I invested in Capdesk three years ago at 1818 Venture Capital in a deal I sourced for our investors. I can’t be precise but this is a great outcome for all investors and for the whole team at Capdesk.

I will post tomorrow about how I sourced the deal.

#venturecapital #investing #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic #startups

B2B vs Consumer-facing

Many investors are avoiding consumer-facing startups because they are worried about the cost of living affecting demand for their services. If the fall off in demand is that severe, there will be a recession and B2B startups will also find it harder to get and keep customers.

The companies, consumer-facing or B2B, that thrive in this environment will kill it when things normalise.

Bonus: James (original post linked below) is a great guy and you should totally listen to his podcast, Riding Unicorns. It's on my playlist!

#venturecapital #startups #investing #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

A lot of reports of UK startups finding it harder to raise money right now

Evening update - 31st August 22

Today I shared my first investment commitment as unbundled vc in Kuai Commerce, met Asa Rodger to talk about how he might help me with my brand, met Amit Jay Shah to talk about his new role at Expect™ and how unbundled vc can help founders, shared unbundled vc's first pitch, attended a Playter board meeting and Outfund announced their partnership with Clearco.

Now I'm going to a pilates class with Maria Jose Freeman (Fernandez).

Later I am going for a drink with my wife to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary!

#venturecapital #founders #buildinginpublic #investinginpublic

Photo by Oliver Sherwin on Unsplash.

Eldercate pitch

I have received two video pitches since yesterday. One is in stealth, one I have permission to share the pitch.

Let me know if you would like an intro to Mark Conway at eldercate.

Commitment to Kuai Commerce

Yesterday I promised to tell you the startup I had committed to. I am excited to say that business is Kuai Commerce.

Kuai Commerce helps ambitious international brands sell their products in China using the power of social commerce.

Why do I like it?

Very strong founders with founder market fit, an evidenced client need that is not met in the market and a ridiculously huge market.

What don't I like?

Geopolitics, Chinese economic situation

Why am I investing?

The most important factor in early-stage investing is founders. Here we have very strong founders with expertise in the space which means they know there is a gap in the market.

I have taken two client calls, one recorded so Jonny could share with other investors, and both wanted to be able to sell in China on the main local channels like WeChat. Nobody else can enable this.

There are potential negatives on any deal and you can always find a reason not to invest if you dig hard enough. You have to decide what is important to you.

While you are figuring that out, remember how important founders are. They should be at least 50% of your decision.

It is relatively quick to figure out if founders are strong. You naturally spend much more time analysing the business. That makes it mentally hard to stick to your founder weighting. Find a way that works for you.

If anyone would like an intro to the founders let me know, please.

Ask me anything.