AnchorZero’s Post

3 months ago I chatted to Jonathan Cor who inspired me to start posting on LinkedIn. He gave me tips and a guide to follow. Now I've gotten to meet contech investors & founders from all over the world. The latest of which was Vivin Hegde from Zacua Ventures. In 2023, Zacua was one of the most active early stage investors in ConTech. And we had a conversation which I thought was valuable. It was on the role of a ConTech focused Venture Capital fund and how they play an important role in the ecosystem. They both: (1) Provide value to startups in terms of investment and advice. (2) Provide value to the industry in understanding technological change. And point 2 (I believe) is often overlooked by industry professionals. ConTech VCs deeply understand the shifting technological paradigm and uncover market trends by speaking to both experts and founders before completing a deal. This wealth of knowledge and research should be utilized by both contractors & consultants to inform business decisions and solution adoption. And as we've seen a rise in Corporate Venture Capital funds - it's an important consideration. When should we build a corporate fund? And when should we instead learn from an existing fund's knowledge? Stay tuned... there could be a guest post on the way for Last Week in ConTech.

3️⃣ Early stage rounds to pay attention to this short week 🐣👇 (and a lot more detail in the link in the comments) 1️⃣ Belong 🇬🇧 (Fintech) - Revolutionizing long-term investment for the younger generation with 'Boost loans'. 💰 Secures €3.4 million in pre-seed funding from Octopus Ventures, Viola FinTech, Connect Ventures, Portage , January Ventures, and notable fintech angels like Ricky Knox and Gautham R.. 2️⃣ Buddywise 🇸🇪 (AI/Workplace Safety) - Proactively building safer workplaces with AI-driven real-time risk detection. 💰 Raises €3.5 million led by J12, Kvanted Ventures, Aligned Ventures, and Antler. 3️⃣ Picogrid 🇺🇸/🇪🇺 (Tech/Defense) - Enhancing military connectivity and system integration at a global scale. 💰 Attracts $12 million seed investment from Initialized Capital, Starburst Ventures, Credo Ventures, Giant Step Capital, DOMiNO Ventures, and Alumni Ventures.

🚀 We are very excited to announce that Moffin has successfully secured a seed round led by Accion Venture Lab! 🚀 This investment marks a significant milestone in our journey and we are more equipped than ever to bring innovative solutions to our clients and drive growth. #Startup #Funding #VentureCapital #Innovation #Tech #Growth #Moffin #AccionVentureLab

How was your summer, busy on the beach?! It was busy at Portfolio Ventures with 40% of our existing portfolio recently closing follow-on rounds. Here are the ones that we can share. Congrats to all the founders! - Tilt closed their $18m Series A led by Balderton Capital with co-investment from Earlybird Venture Capital, Seedcamp and sequel. - Passionfruit's closed their $9m Series A round, led by Seaya with follow-on from firstminute capital, Playfair , FJ Labs and Cornerstone VC. - Supercede | The Reinsurance Platform closed their $15m Series A led by Alven and Mundi Ventures. - LoopFX closed their seed round led by Augmentum Fintech. - Visibly raised a $7.5m Series A led by Creandum with participation from Seedcamp, Brighteye Ventures and Triple Point. Interested in receiving our dealflow? DM or email me at wb@portfolio.ventures and we can chat further. - Don't invest unless you are prepared to lose all the money you invest. These are high-risk investments and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more-https://lnkd.in/e5G5K5bV

Eric Newcomer over at his website (linked below) published a list of the top VC firms according to VCs: (1) Sequoia (2) Founders Fund (3) Union Square (4) Elad Gil (5) Benchmark (6) Daniel Gross & Nat Friedman (7) TIE: Amplify, IA, and Thrive (10) Ribbit (11) TIE: Addition, ex/ante, Basecase, Jack Altman (15) TIE: Conviction, Founder Collective, Sutter Hill, and Theory (19) TIE: Accel, Adjacent, Air Street, Basis Set, Blake Robbins, Contrary, Dave Fortenot, Dimension, Equal, Footwork, Kaszek, Kindred, Lux, Olive Capital, and Y Combinator. The investors also listed their favourite companies: (1) OpenAI (2) SpaceX (3) Anduril (4) Anthropic (5) Databricks (6) Rippling (7) LangChain & Stripe (9) Wiz, Midjourney, Figma, and Notion

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Exciting News! Bitrue initiates its very own venture capital division, offering funding of up to $200k for each Web3 initiative. Bitrue has announced the establishment of Bitrue Ventures, its new venture capital division, geared towards helping promising startups, with a particular emphasis on web3 projects, reach product maturation. Resources offered by Bitrue Ventures span from capital investment to product development expertise, industry connections, and marketing support. The firm is prepared to invest a range of $50,000 to $200,000 per project, with the addition of listing tokens on the Bitrue exchange and providing marketing services for products that successfully launch. Initial investments have already been made in AI and RWA projects, including in WingRiders and Liqwid Finance. The company will be discussing partnerships and showcasing its venture capital capabilities at the upcoming Consensus 2024 conference in Austin, Texas from May 29-31. #Bitrue #BitrueVentures #Web3 #VentureCapital. In other news, Bitrue has recently appointed Shruti Kohli as the new Head of International Business Development. Kohli, whose tenure at Bitrue started in December 2021, was instrumental in enhancing the firm's relationships notably within Cardano, XRPL, and Polygon ecosystems. In her new role, Kohli will identify opportunities for expansion into emerging markets and collaborate with a variety of business stakeholders. #Bitrue #ShrutiKohli #InternationalBusinessDevelopment.

So happy to finally share: Index Ventures has raised $2.3bn in new funds — an $800m venture fund and a $1.5 billion growth fund — to partner with founders from seed to IPO. We're at such a historical tipping point for founders to create new, category-defining businesses, and I'm incredibly excited to see who we'll meet with next. I don't think I can say it any better than Romain Dillet's piece in TechCrunch: "And when you look at Index Ventures’ investment portfolio, it includes some of the most successful tech companies of the past few years, such as Figma, Revolut, Roblox, Scale AI and Wiz. Over the past 28 years, Index Ventures has funded 108 unicorns, 23 decacorns and 57 companies that went public. There’s no reason to change a recipe that already works." Read more in our blog 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfavUhKx & TechCrunch 👉  https://lnkd.in/gGr3Vb8U

So, I think I said, going forward we would just be PSV. Actually, that’s no quite true. Having grown into a venture house, means we’re several independent venture funds, investment units and initiatives under one roof. In the process of finding the right name and narrative for such a house, Helle, Richard, Christel and I, were forced to also think about what actually makes our venture fund hashtag #PSVTech stand out. The answer was very liberating. We’re just another early-stage VC. Personally, I don’t think all of us generalist early stage VCs are all that different. A venture model is venture model, it’s not rocket science at least it shouldn’t be. We all try to stand out by becoming data-driven, being first movers on ESG or the favorite, being founder first. What makes us stand out is our experience, our craft and our ability to really connect with founders. At PSV Tech we’ve dedicated ourselves to backing founders pre-product/market fit. We get behind their vision before others do and based on more than two decades of experience our team knows the twist and turns of getting a software-focused startup from first proof to a repeatable model. We’ve tailored our setup to help founders through that exact stage. It’s the craft we know by heart. Christian, Sebastian

At the earliest stage, financial diligence for startups can be light. However, as a startup matures, collects historical data and generates growing amounts of regulatory paperwork, prospective investors’ diligence becomes more complex. Being prepared at all times, understanding VC expectations and maintaining transparency can help startups ace the VC due diligence process. Learn more from Bridge Bank and Kruze Consulting here: https://bit.ly/44Ez5j7