Last Money In Media

Get Your Deal Featured: Sydecar x Deal Sheet collab! This is for anyone syndicating a private market SPV! Here’s how it works: 1) Submit your actively investable deal for a chance to be featured in an upcoming Deal Sheet newsletter, a platform that delivers top startup investment opportunities directly to accredited investors seeking their next big opportunity. 2) Submissions will be personally reviewed by myself and Zachary Ginsburg, creators of Deal Sheet. 3) The most compelling investment opportunity will be selected and featured in an upcoming Deal Sheet newsletter, giving you direct access to a network of accredited investors w/high interest in startups. Submit your deal here → https://lnkd.in/eS-SYJtr

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We’ve canceled over 170 SPVs over the last five years. It’s worth noting that we never went to market for 90%+ of these canceled SPVs, but nonetheless the amount of deals we started and/or built partial/full materials on that we never went to market for surprised even me. But for the 10 to 20 SPVs that we did bring to market and ended up canceling, why did that happen? Interestingly, there is no singular source - sometimes it’s bad behavior from LPs (e.g. leaking information), other times it’s the company blocking the transaction or withdrawing allocation, sometimes it’s due to the GP not being able to raise enough capital or the round falling through, among other reasons. In this weeks Last Money In Media article, we’re deep diving on this topic, specifically covering:  - The 8 main reasons Syndicate GP’s cancel their SPVs  - Why new market conditions and fund admin changes have led to a rise in the number of canceled SPVs - The rise of phantom allocations in the SPV ecosystem  - Anecdotal stories on the worst instances that led to an SPV getting canceled  - And much more If you’re interested in reading this article, we’re including a link in the comments for full reading (completely free). Powered by Sydecar and Forge, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis, the global syndicate leaders with 800+ SPVs closed.

Should you scout for a VC Fund or a VC Syndicate? As someone who scouts for VCs and who has scouts source deals for Calm Ventures, my unbiased take is that scouts will likely see more carry and far faster distributions scouting for syndicates versus funds. As a scout, you should still take advantage of scouting for select funds, but the bar for them to take on a deal will be 10x+ higher - and not necessarily due to deal quality but due to fund constraints (stage, criteria, ownership requirements, etc.). Additionally funds usually offer a fraction of the carry percentage that syndicates do for scouts and have other terms that can limit or eliminate your upside in the scenario the fund doesn’t do well even if the deal you sourced performs. In this weeks Last Money In Media article, Alex Pattis and I are going to explore this, specifically uncovering: - The Power of Deal-by-Deal Carry for Syndicate Scouts: 📈 We dive deep into the mechanics of deal-specific carry and its profound implications for scouts. Learn why this model allows scouts to potentially see faster, more frequent, and ultimately larger returns – even in a portfolio with mixed performance. - High-Volume Syndicates > Selective Investing Fund: 🌊 We explore how syndicate leads, unencumbered by traditional fund constraints, can invest in a higher volume and broader range of companies, ultimately leading to a much higher % of your deals getting taken on and as such more carry in more deals to the VC scouts. - The Syndicate-Scout Symbiosis: 🤝 We reveal why syndicate leads are not just open to working with scouts – they're actively seeking them out. Understand the strategic imperatives driving this trend and how it's reshaping the venture capital ecosystem. Notably many VCs seek scouts as well - but with many caveats that make these programs unmotivating.  - Junior VC's Secret Weapon: 🆙 For early-career VCs, we unveil how scouting for syndicates can be a way to get direct ownership stakes in companies your already vetting. - When Scouting for a VC Fund should be Prioritized Over a SPV: 🔍there are some economical and also non-economical reasons you should scout for a fund over a syndicate including improving your job prospects, which we get into. We dive into this and much more in this week's article. We’re including a link to the article (completely free) in the comments. Powered by Sydecar and Forge, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis, the global syndicate leaders with 800+ SPVs closed.

Just send out an email and the funds come in… From the outside, I think a lot of people assume it is easy to put together SPVs. Just send out an email and funds come in. Let me tell you that SPVs is an extremely difficult business. If you’ve been an LP in a large number of syndicates over the last four years, hopefully this is clear as almost everyone leaves the ecosystem or moves to a fund model or reduces the number of SPVs they do. It’s reallyyyyyyyy hard to do at scale. You are constantly on the treadmill. As a syndicate GP, you spend a lot of time sourcing, trying to win allocation and putting materials together only to have zero assurance that your investors will even want to invest in the deal, and not because it’s not “a good deal” but rather because LPs have limited capital and their own criteria on what they’d prefer to invest in. LPs control the capital in a way that is VERY different from venture funds when you commit to a deal. You may be thinking well this is sales, this is how the world works. That’s partially true - if you’re a banker and taking on an engagement, there’s no guarantee you’ll get a success fee. If you’re a salesperson selling a product, you have to talk to a lot of leads to sell software, generate revenue, and win customers. The big difference with syndicate leads is that there’s no salary coming in for syndicate GPs, meaning your only opportunity at any income or upside is closing. At least bankers get retainers and salaried sales execs receive salaries (a big reason why many do SPVs on the side of a job that pays a salary etc). But of course there is a flip side, which is why we continue to do it… the paper markup of our carry today is significantly more than any job offering. -- Powered by Sydecar and Forge, Last Money In Media is the most actionable venture capital newsletter. Written by Zachary Ginsburg and Alex Pattis, the global syndicate leaders with 800+ SPVs invested.

Deal Sheet (pricing going up again) – Save Carry + Get Access In Q1, 2024 we launched Deal Sheet, a paid email offering that provides accredited investors: 1) Access to some of the best startup opportunities across the VC syndicate ecosystem (est. 150+ deals on Deal Sheet per year) and 2) All Deal Sheet deals come at discounted carry – all opportunities on Deal Sheet are listed at 10% carry (versus 20% standard) with select opportunities (at our discretion) at 0% carry. Pricing is going up again Thursday August 1st.  To date - Deal Sheet subscribers have received 0% carry opportunities (versus standard 20% carry)  in a large number of highly prolific startups and 10% carry on almost 100 of the most interesting startup opportunities YTD from pre-seed to pre-IPO from across the syndicate ecosystem. We leverage our 4 step Alpha Access process to provide you the best venture capital opportunities: 1) Insider Access → Curating the best investment opportunities from 50+ Venture Capitalists that we’ve built relationships with and co-invested with over the last decade. Tap into a decade of our cultivated relationships including Midas List members, to access the premier startup investment opportunities. 2) 365 Deal Hustle → 24/7 deal-hunting to uncover tier 1 VC co-investment opportunities across all stages and industries, extending beyond our established network. We relentlessly pursue tier 1 deals, ensuring you access many of the best venture capital deals from across the startup ecosystem. 3) The Midas Matrix → Investing alongside the top co-investors is important to syndicate LPs.  We leverage co-investments with Midas List partner funds, and gain early access to deals that have already passed through some of the industry's most discerning filters. 4) Carry Crusher → Deal Sheet members get their carry cut in half. We provide specific links to 10% carry on all deals as opposed to the industry standard 20% carry, providing a 50% discount in carry for all 150+ annual Deal Sheet deals with select opportunities at 0% carry. Get Deal Sheet: https://lnkd.in/eS9xPvHN On Carry Savings:  Invest in just 1 Deal Sheet deal out of the 100-200+/year, and Deal Sheet “could” pay for itself 3x over (example below): - A Deal Sheet customer invests $25k in one deal - The deal 5x’s (net dilution) - Capital Returned = $125,000 - 10% carry paid to GP (instead of 20%) = $10k (instead of $20k) - Savings from being a Deal Sheet customer = $10k - Deal Sheet Annual Fee today (pricing going up Aug 1) = $3.5k  - Savings post Deal Sheet fee = $10k (2.9x ROI) - Savings on a 0% carry Deal Sheet (we’re expecting around 12 of these a year) = $20k (5.7x ROI) And this is just the potential savings for 1 deal. We are offering 100-200+/deals a year with LPs investing as little as $1,000 up to >$5M into our deals. Get Deal Sheet at the $3.5k/year pricing before prices increase. Get Deal Sheet: https://lnkd.in/eS9xPvHN

Syndicate Learnings after Completing 500 SPVs - Part 2

Our latest Sydeletter is out, covering how emerging managers can leverage SPVs and pro rata rights to maximize their returns. Top VCs like Sequoia and Accel have mastered these strategies to maintain stakes in high-performing companies, and emerging managers can do the same. In this edition, we feature advice from Dave Sachse of Sachse Family Fund and Family VC, covering: -The power of follow-on investments: Learn why follow-on investments are crucial in today's venture landscape and how they can boost your fund’s returns. -Avoiding dilution: Understand the strategies to maintain your ownership percentage in high-potential startups, even as they go through multiple funding rounds. -Strategic use of SPVs: Discover how SPVs can help you pool additional capital for follow-on investments without draining your main fund’s resources. Sign up now to receive the full edition in your inbox today: https://lnkd.in/e7D_8uBJ

Did you ever want to to start angel investing but did not know how to get deal flow? I remember my early days, my deal flow sucked big time (it now sucks small time) Today I had coffee with Alex Pattis who has done 350+ startup investments through Riverside Ventures, although we had mutual activities on AngelList it was Hampton that brought us together. If you ever wanted to take your first step into angel investing I suggest to check out his profile and subscribe to https://lnkd.in/djt8Np7c

Last Money In Media continues to lead on explaining the venture SPV market and its nuances. They discuss here cyclicality in Syndicates and their leads and the wash out we've seen in recent years. I'd put it succinctly: ZIRPy tourist investors left (or were forced out) when investing reverted back to being a challenging job and and not merely a charming side hustle that was fashionable on twitter, insta, or tiktok. As with venture writ large, I think this has been a healthy reset aimed at committed, professional, serious investors. There is an analogy here to what happened in the the institutional venture and growth markets with a specific segment of player: cross-over hedge funds. They came in to venture, following the path blazed by the likes of Coatue ~ 10-12 years ago. Some call it "style drift", others call it "yield grab", as traditional long/short public equity hedge funds started looking for returns in riskier assets in a zero-rate environment. Other hedge funds started piling in, and thus a bubble was born. When your discount rate is zero, the multiple you will pay on a risk asset starts going up. Once rates started going up, and the early stage and late stage venture markets cooled off, these players retracted from the market, able to get yield in lower-risk assets (the "risk off" trade). Most famously, Tiger Global had a fire sale of its venture assets. Turning back to the syndicate market, I believe it is a good thing for emerging professional investors to have an easier path to "enter the arena" (written with a hint of snark). At the same time, I'm excited for those who have survived the tumult of the last 2-3 years and are long term players in the syndicated SPV market. Let's build together!