Catie Romero-Finger

Coming soon on Aug 1: "Transformation to a Fresh Tomorrow." This is theme of our 3rd Annual Web3 Investor Day, as we welcome the innovators and investors convening in Chicago for these discussions around the next generation Internet. Our theme reflects the optimism, determination and commitment investors and innovators have solidified off the depths of the bear markets to drive success in the bull markets. Broader investor optimism suggests that fresh institutional funds into Web3 across both tokens and equity may endure.  Across adoption metrics, customer interest and developer activity, Web3 seems to have normalized. It’s refreshing to see the transformation and next evolution of Web3 and it’s refreshing to meet many of you on August 1.  And yet, even with the improved optimism from last year, there still remain open questions in the development and adoption of our next generation Internet:  1. the balance of speculative versus productive investor capital in this current cycle 2. the productive role of liquid trading capital in fostering Web3 innovation 3. the attractiveness of venture investments in follow on financings 4. the role of policy and regulation that may enhance innovation 5. the continued developer activity to improve the underlying infrastructure 6. other Web3 recovery characteristics in target customer use cases. We remain committed to navigating regulatory shifts, fostering investor optimism, and building the customer use cases for Web3.  Physical spaces enhance our innovation conversations.  In person relationships foster our collaboration.  Relationships drive breakthrough innovations.  Reach out to Rizza Torres at Decasonic if you would like to join us! #web3investorday #web3 #venturecapital

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I really enjoyed recording this episode of The Digital Industrial Podcast with Ty Findley. We talked about common misconceptions for deep tech, the "Why Now" for the category, and differences between investor diligence for deep tech and traditional tech. https://lnkd.in/eKtwjauu

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The Magnificent 7 "invest nearly $400 billion annually into frontier tech (comparable to the GDP of Norway), of which $20–30 billion is in VC rounds (comparable to UK’s total VC investment)." 🤠💰 Good stuff here from Dealroom.co on the tech giants. Their market caps are big, and there's a good chance they'll all just keep getting bigger. That greatly impacts R&D, CVC, M&A, HR, etc. in deeptech globally. https://lnkd.in/ehExX8sa #vc #venturecapital #tech #technology #innovation #deeptech #ai #artificialintelligence #nvidia #facebook #apple #microsoft #tesla #amazon #google #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #money #business

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⛳ Emerging fund managers pulse check. PitchBook tracks over 10,000 funds that are raising money, with 45% being emerging fund managers (defined as firms with less than 3 funds). Despite a dip in available capital—down to 16% from the pre-pandemic 23%—these managers are finding creative ways to stay competitive, like partnering with larger firms. 💼 Joanna Drake (founder turned investor) shared how "wildly different" it is raising a fund versus for a startup. One key datapoint she shared on the fund side was how little feedback you get along the way (and the years you can wait for it). The “long-winded and challenging process to raise capital” inspired Drake and Ben Black to create RAISE Global, a community for emerging fund managers and the “forward-thinking LPs” who back them. (A decade later, several hundred emerging managers with AUM under $200m are on the platform) They've found the newest emerging managers are more diverse and geographically dispersed than Silicon valley, and more were able to crack the ceiling and raise larger $100m funds (although this is still a small % of the market, requiring partnership with larger funds at the late stage). ▶ And not a hugely surprising datapoint: A lot of action is in the sub $49 million range, where roughly 50% of emerging managers are raising. Theresa Sorrentino Hajer, Head of U.S. venture capital research at Cambridge Associates warns that past success isn't actually a strong indicator on it's own to assess emerging managers. We've had a valuation reset. And newer managers with investments during the 2019-2021 "party days", need to build relevant track record and play to their strengths. A lot of emerging managers are specializing (70% who applied for Raise had a thematic focus), and betting on getting in as early as possible in the startup's lifecycle (Raise: 31% at accelerator/ pre-seed stages, and 47% at seed stage). “Emerging managers have to compete on a different dimension,” Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures. You're no longer just dealing with capital. Emerging VC's need to be as innovative and nimble as the startups they invest in, having a unique thesis and insights. They also play a role at the top of the deal-flow funnel: helping larger firms find promising companies, so finding a thesis, sector or philosophy aligned partner at a larger firm is helpful. Onwards! #EmergingManager #Startups #VC

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On May 2, 2024 REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund convened people from around the world for Supply Chain & Industrial Transformation: The Next Generation (Silicon Valley 2024) at the JP Morgan Chase Palo Alto Technology Center in Palo Alto, CA. In this showcase Constanza Gomez demonstrates how Sortile enables the sorting of post-consumer waste textiles and apparel using near infrared spectroscopy. Sortile is a startup in our portfolio at REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund. Our Thesis: REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund invests in early stage startups refashioning legacy industries through Data & AI, Advanced Materials, Advanced Manufacturing, & Next Generation Supply Chains; Defensible through economic moats. More in the video below. #SCITSV2024 #SCITSV2024Showcase

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This is what true venture funding is: about picking the winners qualitatively, and not out of FOMO; growing the venture with competence rather than with "coincidence"; most importantly- knowing when to exit. Thanks Sajith Pai for sharing this podcast Avi Eyal Entrée Capital #venturecapital #investing #vc

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Techstars State of Innovation Survey We’ve publishing the Techstars State of Innovation survey 2024 – our annual deep dive into how our global network of entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs and VCs view innovation and the startup life in their sector, startup community, and around the world. 1,550 people took part. Here’s a flavor of what they told us: IPOs ARE OUT (FOR NOW): Entrepreneurs are no less ambitious, but those ambitions are less likely to include an IPO. With fewer startups going public overall, just 15% of the founders we surveyed say their primary long-term goal for their startup is to go public. 34% say their goal is to be acquired, while 30% would opt to remain private. 60% OF FOUNDERS SAY “ACCESS TO CAPITAL” IS THEIR BIGGEST HEADACHE: When asked for the most important issues affecting their company today, 60% of entrepreneurs cite “access to capital” (respondents could select up to three options). The difficulty entrepreneurs have fundraising correlates with the ‘optimism gap’ we found between founders and VCs. Only 50% of VCs are “somewhat optimistic” (44%) or “extremely optimistic” (6%) for their firm this year, compared with 76% of entrepreneurs.  STARTUP CULTURE = LONG HOURS + LITTLE DOWNTIME: In a tight fundraising market, nothing less than utter conviction and a flat-out approach are required to beat the odds. This is reflected in the hours entrepreneurs work, with nearly one-third (31%) working at least 60 hours per week, and almost one in five (17%) working 70 hours or more. THE FOUNDER FLYWHEEL: A pattern of entrepreneurs going on to found other startups continues, showing how momentum within an ecosystem becomes self-sustaining. 79% of current entrepreneurs have worked for other startups, while 44% say that at least some coworkers have gone on to establish other startups. IT TAKES A COMMUNITY: When asked for the biggest innovation driver in their sector, answers are spread evenly between “VC/Angel investors” (22%), “Accelerator Programs” (19%), and “Community/Proximity” to Other Startups (18%). This dovetails with the Techstars’ approach where the accelerator itself is just one driver, and it is only when all those elements come together that the sparks of innovation fly. NEARLY HALF OF FOUNDERS HAVE EXPERIENCED ANXIETY IN THE PAST YEAR: How well can startups truly serve their customers if founders are suffering poor mental health? Long hours and an always-on mindset are clearly taking a toll throughout the industry. With respondents (entrepreneurs and VCs) able to check as many boxes as apply to them, 45% say they have experienced “Anxiety” in the past year, with 23% experiencing “Depression”. Download our full report for much more. https://lnkd.in/gFC47aHw #startups #VC #fundraising #VentureCapital #growth #founders #Entrepreneurs #preseed #seed #innovation

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Proud to be partnering with Sara Beykpour, Marcel Molina, and the Particle team as we announce today that Lightspeed is leading the $10.9M Series A financing! Particle's founding team helped build some of the internet's most innovative consumer products, including Twitter, Vine, Periscope, and Secret. At Twitter, they discovered the power of LLMs and became determined to reinvent news and media using these new AI superpowers 🦸 AI is reorganizing the way media is both created and consumed on the internet. Particle’s initial content focus is news – a category that is increasingly broken due to misaligned incentives between publishers and readers. But we believe AI can help to maximize value for both… 🗞️ The vision for Particle is to become the go-to destination people visit to be quickly yet deeply educated about any topic or story – with a highly personalized, efficient, and interactive experience, powered by amazing journalists ✍️ Michael Mignano & I are excited to be on this journey with the Particle team –and we can't wait to have you onboard as well! Head over and join the waitlist now ahead of our official launch ⬇️ particle.news

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Among the many inefficiencies weighing on the heavy construction sector, equipment maintenance management is one of the more costly, particularly for heavy equipment dealers who bear the primary responsibility for managing the maintenance of the equipment they sell. We are pleased to have Digital Iron join C2V's portfolio. Ditial Iron seamlessly integrates machinery manuals, CRM data, and customer ERP systems to create a centralized source of equipment specifications, maintenance parameters, and field usage data and provides a natural language interface for researching these issues (the gen AI piece). Once dealers have established the cause of each issue, Digital Iron will automatically check dealer inventory and third-party suppliers for availability, lead time, and price of the necessary parts. This information can then be instantly shared with customers for approval and immediate order of needed parts. In addition to saving hours (often days) identifying and sourcing replacement parts, Digital Iron’s AI models also compare equipment usage information to manufacturer useful life/replacement recommendations for each component and prompt dealers to proactively suggest parts replacements to customers, allowing them to monetize all of the additional (and substantial) post-sale revenue for each piece of equipment they sell. https://lnkd.in/e2QJeQut #ai #construction #investing

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Similar to the dot com #B2C and #B2B worlds, welcome to the era of "#M2M." Non-consensus: AI leads not to a singular AI but rather a plurality of AIs. In fact, consider the world of billions of billions of personal AIs working on your behalf. Michael Parekh stands as a legend in software and internet financial and strategic market analysis. His latest perspective in #AIagents, an optimistic perspective that AI enhances our human capabilities, in a world where each of us control 10+ more specialized AI agents acting on our behalf: "For every one of us soon will be 10 or more ‘m2m’ AI agents, representing us in every field imaginable, against other agents representing other parties from every field imaginable. We’re going from thinking about 3 plus billions users of Meta/Facebook /Instagram/WhatApp’, to 30 plus billions of Meta AI ‘Smart Agents’ that will be negotiating within and across networks on the behalf of the underlying humans. Same for the billions of Google users, Apple users, Amazon users, and most every tech and non-tech company as well." An inevitably, these M2M AI agents will leverage blockchain payment settlement layers to transact commerce on your behalf. He presents his AI tech value stack to put today's #AI and #web3 infrastructure in perspective and how this stack will drive end consumer applications, driven by AI agents. His Substack is a wonderful follow and related blog post here: https://lnkd.in/e-W9P7EQ

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It's now such a brute force capital game that you're seeing a shift in the composition of LP bases," one longtime LP tells me. "Many large VC funds have started turning to the sorts of investors they wouldn't have even met with 10 years ago." The bottom line: This sea change might be fine for venture in the short-term, particularly as fee-hungry firms raise larger funds. But it's also a major risk to dump your longtime partner for someone who might view you as a fling. #venturecapital #fundraising #Limitedpartner #generalpartner #Investments #LPs #GPs #VCs

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Join me as I share the secrets to gaining Angel Investment (being ESIC is one) and help you land your pitch and get your message across. I'm joined by experienced founders who can share their experiences and help you develop your own (survive the) Chasm Plan.

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What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

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New pod! Recorded an awesome IRL session with Michael True, co-founder of Prescient AI on the latest Turning Pro Podcast. 🔥 In March, Prescient announced its $10M Series A — backed by an incredible investor roster, including Headline and CEAS Investments, plus support from previous backers Blumberg Capital and Focal VC. In this episode, Ben Sharf and I sat down with Mike to talk through: - Key takeaways from raising venture (and how to run a process) - Prioritizing customer obsession from day one at Prescient - The outsized ROI of persistence and long-term thinking - Key lessons learned from setbacks along the way Link in the comments! Big ups to ShipPlug for joining us this season.

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Dan Primack had some pointed criticism for #VC yesterday in his Axios Pro Rata newsletter (a daily must read IMO 😤). In short, the model doesn't work if it can't produce exits for LPs. Don't blame public markets (which are at all-time highs) for the lack of liquidity either. 📈 💸 Instead, this is a "liquidity drought of your making" where "...swinging for the fences on every pitch, rather than taking the single or double that's available" is the only way out when you invest at "sky high valuations." 😰 "A whopping 37% of "unicorns" are being held for at least nine years by VC funds, including 13% that are past the 12-year mark." 😳 ⌛ Is he right? Is VC at a dire inflection point? Or is Primack prematurely hitting the panic button? 🚨 https://lnkd.in/dts92pXr

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According to Morning Brew, $12.2 billion in venture capital went into AI-related startups in the first three months of the year. According to SomosVC, Latina/os accounted for only 2% of all venture capital funding. Based on last year's numbers, that's roughly $3.4 billion. In other words, in the first three months of the year, AI has received almost four times as much capital as the entire Latina/o entrepreneurship demographic did in a whole year. Let that sink in.

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I'm excited to share that Antalpha Ventures has invested in the $17M funding rounds of Renzo Protocol, a Liquid Restaking Token (LRT) and Strategy Manager for Eigen Labs. The funding rounds were led by industry-leading funds Galaxy and Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Maven 11, Figment Capital, Protagonist, SevenX Ventures, Karatage, Bankless Ventures, 280 Capital, hermeneutic Investments, Consensys, and L2 Iterative Venture (L2IV). Renzo Protocol is a liquid derivative platform built on Eigen Labs that serves as an interface to the EigenLayer ecosystem. It secures Actively Validated Services (AVSs) and offers higher yields than traditional ETH staking. The platform is designed to simplify the process of Ethereum restaking, making it more accessible and potentially more profitable for users while navigating the complexities of multiple AVS combinations. For more information about the fundraiser and vision, including quotes from Lucas Kozinski, Co-Founder of Renzo Protocol, please refer to Margaux Nijkerk's CoinDesk article below. #Renzo #Restaking #Staking #Ethereum #Fundraising

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“You can have a great product, but a compelling story puts the company in motion” - Ben Horowitz Understanding your company’s narrative is crucial when looking for investment. 🚀🚀🚀 Particularly in DeepTech where a good narrative makes complex ideas easy to grasp and compelling to hear. It involves more than throwing together some facts and figures; it’s about finding a message that resonates with your audience on a deeper level. It should never be a one-off effort. It should always be a continuous process of refinement through iteration, collaboration, and honest feedback. 🔁 What problem are you trying to solve? Have you asked your customers? Have you solicited honest feedback? In the end, it's about answering the all-important question… Why should they care? 🤘 #narrative #venturebuilder #deeptech Cambridge Future Tech

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