Laconia

At a VC dinner, a friend recalled how I once compared the early-stage investor-founder relationship to a high school romance. The room chuckled, but the more we unpacked it, the more it rang true. The Courtship: The pitch process is like asking someone out—nerves, rehearsed lines, and the silent hope they’ll say yes. Founders try to impress, investors assess potential, and often, the biggest mistake is trying too hard to be what you think they want instead of just being yourself. The Honeymoon Phase: Once the investor commits, excitement takes over. The founder feels validated, the investor feels like they got in early on something special, and optimism runs high. Growth looks strong, updates are filled with good news, and both sides are convinced this is the start of something great. The First Fight: Then reality hits—customers push back, hiring is tough, revenue projections fall short. The investor, once all praise, now has pressing questions. What’s the plan? Why isn’t growth faster? Do tough calls need to be made? Like a young couple facing their first argument, how they handle it determines if they’ll work through it or drift apart. The Drift: As the company scales, the founder raises a Series A, and new investors take center stage. Priorities shift, challenges grow, and the once-tight founder-investor relationship turns into a quarterly update. It’s not personal—it’s just the natural evolution of the journey. The Breakups: Not every relationship—or startup—lasts. Sometimes the investor-founder fit isn’t right. Other times, external forces—competition, market downturns, bad timing—force a split. Some breakups are amicable, leaving the door open for future opportunities. Others leave behind baggage that lingers for years. The best founder-investor relationships—like the best high school romances—are built on trust, honesty, and the ability to grow together. Some last, some don’t, but all teach valuable lessons for the next one. Written by Jeffrey Silverman For the full blog post, click here: https://lnkd.in/gCM-PmRY

Power laws seem to be ever-present in human endeavor, or at least in the conduct of rigorous due diligence (DD). Warren Buffet famously noted that a receding economic tide reveals who’s swimming naked. A view into the conduct of VC due diligence can be just as revealing. To be fair, there is some impressive DD being executed within our industry, but we learned early on that when it comes to how many firms actually conduct rigorous DD, let’s just say that the 80/20 rule is still very much alive and well. Early on as angel-investors-turned-VCs, we were inclined to be in awe with “institutional” investors. After all, they were the big kids vetted by LPs and empowered by fee-funded resources. We couldn't wait to be in syndicated deals with the pros, hungering for all that we would learn from them. And learn we did; the good, the bad, and ugly! Fortunately, it was an early deal that humbled our naivete. We were invited into our first syndication with some very established VCs; a pinch-me moment. Part of the syndication was an opportunity to see for the first time other VCs’ DD and deal memos. Holy grails of learning, we thought. Ouch! Where was the detailed P&L analysis, thoughtful bottoms-up TAM assumptions, investigative insight into the founders, prospective customer feedback, pro-forma org chart visualizing the functional and reporting to be built with our capital, a granular map of competitive risks; we could go on. So much was either missing or superficially commented upon. Our own analysis revealed some key concerns. And yet, these were the pros. They were intuitional investors with years of experience. Maybe we were missing something. We placed more weight on their reputation than we did on our own analysis and moved forward with the investment. And that was the last time we did that! Original and rigorous DD, and not following the VC pack, became our bedrock tenant, so much so that we have led more deals than not, even when we are not the largest check. We have learned that the value of sound DD goes beyond the identification of a good deal – it can build lasting trust with founders. The DD process, when done rigorously, can help a company create a more effective capital strategy and show a founder that we are willing to roll up our sleeves and work side by side with them. It also produces better ROI! Written by David Arcara

Laconia is excited to join 190 VCs for the Europe-wide Female Founder Office Hours on April 3, 2025, led by Playfair Capital in collaboration with @Microsoft for Startups. This initiative has already connected 2,800+ female founders with investors through 12,000+ one-on-one meetings—and we’re looking forward to meeting the next wave of incredible founders. If you’re a female founder in Europe we hope to connect with you!

Congrats to our portfolio company Bluefish AI AI and CEO Alex Sherman for joining Google’s Michael Burke at the Commerce Innovation Summit! AI is transforming brand discovery and shopping, and Bluefish is at the forefront of this shift. We’re excited to be part of this journey with them!

Last week, Mirit Lugassi Lugassi joined NYU’s Pitch Competition, where investors came together to mentor aspiring student founders. No funding commitments, no prior preparation—just pure insights, feedback, and a passion for paying it forward. Thank you Grace Gao, Parul Veda, Michael S., Sean Lai for inviting Laconia to join you on the Tech at NYU Startup Week 2025! It was wonderful meeting such brilliant founders and we loved learning more about the earliest stages of building companies -asking "Is this a thing" from our co-panelist Dana Mauriello! We look forward to keep track and follow this young talent!

If you’re an early-stage founder, this is an episode you don’t want to miss! Laconia’s very own Mirit Lugassi joined Sherveen Mashayekhi on The Feedback Loop podcast—and quickly became a crowd favorite (we’re biased, she’s always our favorite, but the crowd agreed with us) 👏. She brought her signature sharp insights, delivering unfiltered investor feedback that every founder needs to hear, weighing in on: ➡️ Saptarshi Nath's AI-driven data and e-commerce automation updates ➡️ Pari Patel's EEG-tracking earbuds designed to boost focus and productivity Want to know why everyone should be listening to Mirit? Watch below! As always, if you are a serious founder building “must have” technology for mission-critical industries, we’d love to meet you here: bit.ly/laconiapitch

Huge congratulations to Shauna Sweeney, CEO of our portfolio company tendercare, for an incredible feature on CNBC with Jon Fortt on National Caregivers Day, sharing her journey and mission to reshape caregiving. Watch the full segment below: https://lnkd.in/gcB4ETWp

When we raised Fund 1, it was fueled by the trust and camaraderie of friends and former colleagues. These were people who had seen David and me in action, knew our work ethic, and were willing to take a chance on us as we transitioned from angel investors to venture capitalists. For that, we will forever be grateful. But fast forward two years, and we were back in front of these same LPs, this time asking them to take another swing—not just because they trusted us personally, but because they believed in the vision we had for Laconia. By the time we began raising Fund 2, we had brought on Geri as our third partner and were ready to scale and grow a truly special venture firm. But there was a big hurdle: Fund 1 was still in its early days & venture funds take time to show results. While we had a few markups in Fund 1, it wasn’t enough to point to a proven track record. Asking Fund 1 LPs to reinvest without fully realized results was daunting. It’s worth noting that we returned Fund 1’s initial capital within those first four years. This performance underscores the strength of the companies we backed & the value we’ve created for investors, even in the early stages of building Laconia. To their credit, 85% of our Fund 1 LPs came back in for Fund 2. That kind of loyalty and trust is rare and speaks volumes about the caliber of people who believed in us from the beginning. But even with that vote of confidence, we needed to expand our LP base to build momentum. And that’s where the real challenge began. David & I are not natural self-promoters. The fundraising process for Fund 2 required us to stretch beyond our comfort zones. Networking became our daily reality. We leaned heavily on referrals and spent countless hours explaining our vision and strategy to potential LPs who had no prior history with us. This wasn’t just about pitching a fund; it was about selling the long-term vision for Laconia and the value we could bring as a concentrated, boutique venture firm. Through grit, determination, and a lot of late nights, we secured $13 million for Fund 2. By some measures, that’s not a large fund. But for us, it was significant. We’re a concentrated firm by design, intentionally working closely with fewer companies. Fund 2 allowed us to double down on our thesis and continue building something unique in the venture ecosystem. Raising Fund 2 taught us that being a good investor is only part of the job. Building a venture firm requires a strong LP pipeline, constant relationship-building, and the ability to communicate your vision in a way that resonates with others. It’s not easy, and it’s not natural for everyone. But for David, Geri, and me, it became an essential part of growing Laconia into the firm it is today. Looking back, Fund 2 was harder than Fund 1 in every way. But the challenges we faced during that time laid the foundation for everything that followed. And for that, we’re deeply grateful.

The Swisspreneur Podcast—known for sharing startup stories and lessons from experienced entrepreneurs—recently sat down with Geri Kirilova! In this episode, Geri and Silvan Krähenbühl spoke about: • Geri’s decade-long journey in VC spanning roles in Europe and in the US • How the Laconia team leveraged their outsider perspective to build a VC firm from the ground up • Laconia’s criteria for evaluating startups, processes for reviewing deal flow at scale (spoiler: they don’t require warm intros!), and investment deal breakers • The evolution of budding startup ecosystems, and what the Swiss startup community can learn from the growth of NYC as a startup hub • Geri’s love letter to Switzerland, her most memorable startup investment, and Laconia’s best ROI to date From actionable advice to tangible examples, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Thanks Swisspreneur for having Geri on! 🎧 Don’t miss it—listen here: https://lnkd.in/g_GXZDbd

NYC founders & investors—let’s grab lunch! No panels, no pitches—just great food and even better conversation. Join us for a casual lunch where the NYC startup community comes together over delicious Korean food. A huge thank you to Andrew Chang and Dorothy Chang of Lynx Collective for inviting our very own Mirit Lugassi to co-host. If you're a founder or investor looking to build meaningful connections, this is the place to be. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gnBAnBsf