Ihar Mahaniok

Our revamped newsletter, The Angle by Angular Ventures, officially launched today! We hope this new format will make it easier to read, share, and subscribe. Back to it, in this week's column, Gil Dibner covered the spirit of risk-taking that inspired Angular to venture into unusual spaces. While, of course, we invest in AI and SaaS, as of late, we have been investing in more and more contrarian spaces - from quantum, to spacetech, to energy, etc. in search of the supposedly impossible - the truly contrarian. Read the full column via the link.

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#AntiPortfolio - a self-reflection exercise that I run quarterly, analyzing the companies that I backed then failed, the companies that I could not close like Airalo, Loggi, and Multiplier, or the ones that I regrettably passed that are doing well. Frequent postmortem analysis is crucial for learning from my mistakes and understanding why I failed. Each misstep is an invaluable lesson that reshapes my decision-making. It’s through these tough experiences that I am learning to refine my investment criteria every day.

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I really like this PMF Framework from Sequoia. https://lnkd.in/gT2nWttx

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One of my proudest moments as an investor occurred today as Alaffia Health announced its series A because it shows how the Aperture® Venture Capital vision of multi-level, multi-generational #impactinvesting is succeeding in the marketplace. Here’s the model in its most basic form : ✅As diverse fund managers with meaningful capital to allocate, we are changing the VC landscape every day just by doing our day jobs. ✅As Black/Brown investors with ~40 years experience collectively, Aperture GPs have access to talent /excellence that others do not, so our portfolio *organically* is more inclusive by race, gender and geography even while optimizing for financial outcomes (all about the alpha). ✅Our most successful portco’s are using financial #innovation to solve market problems that impact underrepresented demographics and underserved communities. Alaffia Health is a shining example of the impact portion of our overall fund thesis, and we couldn’t be prouder of TJ Ademiluyi and Adun Akanni, MPH, PMP - the dynamic brother-sister founder duo whose vision we have steadfastly supported on their journey. Congratulations to TJ and Adun from William Crowder and myself, as well as the whole Aperture team- Marjorie King Philip McKenzie Yves Louis-Jacques Tanvi Lal Michelle Dhansinghani Lisha Bell Katie Kelly Amy Chung Cindy Chong, CFA Brian Fernandes-Halloran Monroe France Jayden Pantel Darren Herman Evan Wladis Neal Triplett Thomas Scriven Peter Ammon Irina Bit-Babik Tim Milanich Rob Rahbari

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A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

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📣 Free founders-only event below! I often see founders get a lot of early traction in signing customers and then hit a wall when trying to scale that repeatedly. Why?? Maybe it's because: 1️⃣ that 1st group of customers came through warm intros from your accelerator batch 2️⃣ you've already combed through industry connections from your previous career 3️⃣ you're just good at brute-force selling but you're only one person 4️⃣ you are still narrowing in on product market fit Next week I'm hosting a free, founders-only candid discussion with two people who have had to break through this wall out of necessity and now coach countless founders on this. More on our speakers: 📈 Ian Illig took his 1st job out of college at a friend's startup (employee #1). He quickly found himself trying to sell a product that was still finding its market fit. Fast forward years later and Ian had completely built out the sales team and revenue, allowing the company to get acquired. And then he turned around and did the same thing again with the same founding team. 👀 Sonia Baschez was one of the 1st employees at Atmos, a consumer & builder-facing product for homebuilding. She developed early marketing channels & helped the company grow from Pre-seed to Series A. Sonia optimized product launches to reach the right customers, a challenging feat given their core customers are actively NOT in the tech bubble (aka Techcrunch and a thread on X are not going to do the trick). Whether they know it or not, both Ian and Sonia have been secret superpowers for me as I've grown The Council Fund and supported portfolio companies. I'm excited to share their playbooks & expertise with founders for FREE next Wednesday. Join us 12-1pm Pacific! Link to RSVP in comments below ;)

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🌟 B2C AI Companies are not good (so far) 🌟 Talking to fellow VC Jonny Boyarsky few weeks back, and he asked me which type of companies Developer Capital looks at investing in. I replied “Everything related to AI, but so far we have only done B2B deals.” Why is that? I am not inherently against AI companies focused on consumers. But so far all their business models suck. Here are the characteristics of B2C AI companies I am seeing most often: 🔴 Lack of Stickiness: Most of the B2C AI ideas I come across these days are easily replicable, leading to high user churn. Just think of what happened to jasper AI in the past year. Without unique, compelling value propositions, users quickly move on to the next new thing. 🔴 No Moat: The barriers to entry in the B2C space are crazy low. Competitors can quickly copy and improve upon existing solutions, making it difficult for any one company to maintain a dominant position. 🔴 Unsustainable Business Models: B2C AI companies gain users quickly either through paid promotion or having a viral moment of “oh wow this is fun to play with”. 15 minutes lates the novelty wears off. Then users churn out chasing the next cool thing. This sucks as a business model. - Now lets contrast that with B2B AI companies - ✅ Extremely Sticky: The good B2B AI companies are using their clients data (hopefully within a good data privacy framework) to make their product better and customized for the client. The longer the client stays, the more value the product offers that client. That a big moat. ✅ Low Churn: These tend to not be nice to haves or small productivity boosters. The value proposition is clear, and we are often seeing 10x cost savings. The end results, unlike B2C, the churn is much more similar to pure enterprise SaaS in the 3%-4% range. Coupled with 90% gross margins, we get great long term fundamentals. ✅ Business Model Defensibility: B2B AI companies tend to develop significant competitive advantages over time. Whether it's through proprietary technology, data accumulation, or deep integration with client systems, these companies build moats that protect them from competitors and reward the incumbent for being first-mover. Even if a Microsoft or a Salesforce wants to roll out a similar product down the road, they would have a hard time competing. At the end of the day, just because a company is in the hot sector du jour (AI) doesn’t mean they can get away from core business fundamentals. For consumer facing AI companies, it’s still very early in the lifecycle. I am confident founders will eventually figure out how to build good businesses.

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Founders building from 0 to IPO effectively build multiple 'companies within the company' across the years: a seed company, a mid-stage company, a growth company, a pre-IPO company, a public company - all with different requirements, success metrics and, often, teams. I'm in awe of founders who manage to grow as fast and as much as their companies does over the years, and somehow transform themselves again and again -- from a visionary founder who can inspire and recruit those first employees and customers, to a savvy public company leader who can manage with a highly complex organization with deep operational rigor and predictability. Often this requires founders to learn multiple jobs on the job, and not just do them, but also fully embrace and love them. Daniel Dines, founder and CEO of UiPath is one such founder, and in this quick clip he describes his personal growth journey. https://lnkd.in/eYK5JV3X

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Hiring the right engineering talent to build your startup is one of the most critical pieces of a founder's early journey. Jellyfish founder and CEO Andrew Lau knows quite a bit about building an engineering team. We tapped him to author this piece in Founder Docs, about how to know if you’re ready to hire your first engineers, what characteristics you should seek, and how to avoid costly failed hires. Learn more on Founder Docs: https://lnkd.in/eSjpmf3E

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#hiring If anyone knows an awesome engineer that would be interested in joining an emerging #AI company doing important work in #healthcare, please drop me a line! Andy AI is backed by General Catalyst, YCombinator, Greater Ventures, and others, and they’re looking to hire a full stack engineer (US based) who's excited about using AI to improve healthcare and reduce nurse burnout. Andy is AI software that automates clinical documentation for nurses who do home visits. A nurse makes an audio recording of the visit and Andy automatically generates a form that usually takes nurses 90 minutes to complete. Nurses love the product because it potentially saves them 15 hours of charting a week! The founders previously built healthcare AI at Google Health and Apple, and are now building their vision to transform home health. More about Andy AI: https://with-andy.com/ Nurses love it: https://lnkd.in/g9XqZrUq #GenAI #digitalhealth #hiring #engineers #healthtech

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In the most recent episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I speak with Mikołaj Barczentewicz about the EDPB's recent opinion on the Pay or Okay model. We discuss the implications of the EDBP's opinion and the future of the Pay or Okay model for "large online platforms" in the EU. Find this episode wherever you consume podcast content by searching for Mobile Dev Memo.

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What does the future hold? 🤔 According to top VC Vinod Khosla, it's looking optimistic! In a recent article, Vinod Khosla at Khosla Ventures shared his views on our plausible futures in 2035-2049, and it's a nice counterbalance against the too-pessimistic doom thinking out there. ⚡ Khosla believes that entrepreneurs, with passion for a vision, invent the future they want. And if we allow it to happen, abundant, awesome, technology-based, “possible tomorrows” are likely ⚡ ----------------------- Are you interested in building the future with/ for your company? Take the first step here 📆 https://lnkd.in/e6kjakzF Let's make the future happen! 🚀 #Future #Venturing #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #Technology #Possibilities

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Key takeaways from VC Goat - Vinod Khosla podcast. - The firm cares more about working on interesting problems with large technical solutions rather than just maximizing IRR. The team is there because they believe in the mission. - Khosla assumes they've lost the money the day they invest, and then maximizes for the upside opportunity. He calls it "option value investing" rather than IRR investing. - Khosla has contrarian bets in AI (neuro-symbolic computing, probabilistic approaches), biotech, robotics, crypto, and more. - He believes aviation fuels, fusion energy, new transit systems, and other contrarian areas ignored by most investors will be huge opportunities. - Most large innovations come from outsiders, not industry insiders. Khosla looks for founders who can learn a business rapidly rather than have deep domain expertise. The Future Impact of AI - AI will be deflationary and increase productivity growth to 4% annually vs the typical 2% forecast. This will cause great abundance but also increasing income inequality. - Bipedal robots will take over most manufacturing and manual labor jobs within 20-25 years. This will free humans to be more creative and pursue their passions. - Education will shift from job training to creativity. Uniquely human elements like taste and curation will be most valued in an AI-enabled world. https://lnkd.in/gqBsmbks

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New AI research: we mapped 125 companies building in the Responsible AI space. https://lnkd.in/dcpVxmgt Having talked about what it is and the reasons you should care in Part I, this time our research team has dived into three categories: governance/risk/compliance, AI quality and security/privacy. We find that this remains a pretty early space, but with real enterprise buyer demand and over $1.3bn invested in the space so far. Check it out and see 'who's who'.

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As we dive into 2024, the Series A fundraising landscape is becoming increasingly daunting. Investment standards are soaring, and fewer startups are making the cut. Series A investors are finding many seed stage companies too premature. The median valuation jump from seed to Series A skyrocketed from $19.5 million in Q1 2022 to $28.7 million in Q1 2024. Investors now demand stronger revenue performance, targeting $2 million to $3 million in ARR, up from $1 million to $2 million. Alarmingly, only 12% of Q1 2022 seed startups secured Series A funding within two years, down from 31.8% in Q1 2020. #venture #earlystage #seedtoseriesa #seed #seriesa #inspireglobalventures https://lnkd.in/gW4bkcNy

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A good short practical list!

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The dumbest part of the whole post: "The best part? He spent $0 in paid marketing." Most of this is just fluff in order to drive signups to this guy's "strategy nerds" newsletter...and it works. While this guerilla marketing framework is indeed reproducible for many businesses and entrepreneurs, don't expect the same level of results and certainly don't expect it in the same amount of time (4 months). Most startups and small businesses have tighter capital restrictions and smaller teams to execute on this to achieve the same level of results. Maybe it's true Gas spent $0 on paid ads, but the whole guerilla marketing operation didn't cost $0. Keep in mind, this founder is flush with capital after a $100M acquisition from Facebook. With that amount of money, he can then hire a team of developers to build Gas and a team of guerilla and social media marketers to execute on the strategy. All of that costs A LOT OF MONEY. So maybe it's true he didn't spend money on paid ads, but he probably spent hundreds of thousands if not millions on a team to execute this guerilla marketing strategy. This didn't cost $0.

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Developing an investment framework was one of the first things we did when starting Silence. Nothing is set in stone, but having this set of principles has proven to be really valuable throughout all the changes in VC markets over the last years.

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Nice overview of how we're using data to inform how we invest in early-stage founders. We'll be announcing more this summer but we're seeing some really interesting early data. https://lnkd.in/exU_Juf5

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