ArcticStartup’s Post

Great to see Oxx (Venture Capital fund focused on b2b SaaS) have raised €172 million second fund generation to power the growth of European SaaS scaleups. Mikael Johnsson emphasizes the success of the European Software as a Service (SaaS) industry, highlighting its ability to generate substantial returns compared to other technology sectors. In the third quarter of 2023, the majority of the top 10 venture-backed exits were in the software industry. The European SaaS ecosystem is characterized by a significant number of serial founders and a deep pool of engineering and tech talent. The quote suggests that the potential for digitization across various industries and the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) indicate that the European SaaS boom is still in its early stages. https://lnkd.in/e58cMveC

Vanta, a San Francisco-based company offering a trust management platform, has raised $150 million in Series C funding at a valuation of $2.45 billion. This round, led by Sequoia Capital, brings Vanta's total funding to $353 million. New investors include Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives and J.P. Morgan. Existing investors such as Atlassian Ventures, Craft Ventures, CrowdStrike Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Workday Ventures, and Y Combinator participated. Vanta plans to use this significant investment to strengthen its global presence and accelerate its AI product innovation. This substantial funding and high valuation highlight the growing importance of trust management solutions in the tech industry and indicate strong investor confidence in Vanta's potential for continued growth and innovation. https://lnkd.in/dSh4AEDp

“Doubling Down” is a new series where we hear from top B2B SaaS investors on their most recent activities and takes on the current market. Kicking us off is Jay Levy, Managing Partner at Zelkova Ventures. #1. What’s your most recent disclosed investment? Why did you do the deal? We recently invested in Respondology. The company provides a platform for brand and audience protection via social media comment moderating. The company focuses on moderating and removing hate, toxic, damaging, and spam comments from a brand’s online presence across the major social media platforms. Foremost, we invested in the company as they put together a world-class team with experience and knowledge in the space. Secondly, they built a product that is in the market with significant traction. #2. What’s your sweet spot for investing — check size, stage, type of deal? And how big is your current fund? Our sweet spot are companies that are raising between 1-3M dollars, early stage, typically between 100K and 1M ARR Our typical check size is 200-300K with reserves of 2-3x that We are solely focused on B2B SaaS companies and tend to focus on horizontal products that can “help businesses do business better”. Our current fund is 15M. #3. What’s the #1 bit of advice you’d give to SaaS founders today? Focus on the customer and drive revenues – sales solve all issues. In today’s market investors are keen on companies that can be incredibly capital efficient and have significant runway to get to break even. #4. What’s your pulse check on the venture markets right now, today? Deals are still happening, but the cadence is significantly slower than in previous years. Deals that are being syndicated across multiple investors are taking several months to get done. The FOMO by investors we saw in 2019-2021 no longer exists. Obviously, this is both challenging and frustrating to founders but ultimately, they will wind up with investors who have really done their diligence and are fully committed to helping them succeed. #5. What’s different about your fund / how you invest and support founders? Unlike other early-stage funds, we do not take a spray-and-pray approach. We typically invest in 6-8 deals a year and reserve significant follow-on capital for these companies. On average, we’ve invested 3x in each of our companies, with the highest being 6x an initial investment to one company. #6. What’s an “exit” you’re particularly proud of? Obviously, the exits that we’ve made over 100 our money are incredibly exciting, but realistically, we’ve had over 35 exits, and they have all been exciting in their own way. Building a company is extremely hard, and being able to see founders succeed and have life-changing outcomes for their teams is incredibly rewarding, especially when the odds are against you.

What Does it Take to Build a Great Software Firm? Founders need 3 things: 👇 ⌚ Great product + technology. 🚀 ⁠ ⁠Robust go-to-market motion. 🤝 The right funding from the right partner at the right time and a legal structure to support growth. Your investor and type of financing matters. A lot. You will be working with them for a long time, through the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly. That's why we want to give B2B SaaS founders the opportunity to meet a broad range of experience software investors face-to-face. Here's a selection of investors at ARRtist SUMMIT: Verdane, Goldman Sachs, Pointnine, Senovo, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, Blackstone, The Carlyle Group, Cavalry Ventures, Cherry Ventures, DTCP, Earlybird Venture Capital, FLOAT, General Catalyst, HV Capital, HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds, KKR, Oxx, PSG, Partech, Riverside Acceleration Capital, re:cap, 10x Founders, Alstin Capital, Altor Equity Partners, Armira, AtScale, Blue Cloud Ventures, Bregal Milestone, Bregal Unternehmerkapital , CCAP Investments & Advisory, Capnamic, coparion, Dawn Capital, EMH Partners, Eight Roads, Endeit Capital, Eurazeo, FLEX Capital, InfraVia Capital Partners, Lightbird #ARRtistSummit #b2bsaas #software

What is the ideal equity dilution at pre-seed stage for $500k investment?   #StartupEquity #PreSeedFunding #SaaS #StartupIdeas 🚀 Hey everyone! We are in the early stages of our SaaS startup and considering raising some initial capital for our venture. We want to ensure we strike the right balance when it comes to equity dilution at the pre-seed stage. So, we're curious to hear from the community - how much equity do you think is ideal to give up for $500k in pre-seed ... Source: https://lnkd.in/guXfu7aB #mymetric360

EUVC newsletter | 05.08.2024 This week, we feature insights from: 👉 Foundamental 👉 Broadhaven Capital Partners 👉 Eka Ventures 👉 Inflection.xyz. 👉 Nodes Ventures ....and many more legendary European VC firms that we invite you to discover below. https://buff.ly/4dnFNgK #venturecapital #startupfunding #Europe #EUVCInsights

What is the ideal equity dilution at pre-seed stage for $500k investment?   #StartupEquity #PreSeedFunding #SaaS #StartupIdeas 🚀 Hey everyone! We are in the early stages of our SaaS startup and considering raising some initial capital for our venture. We want to ensure we strike the right balance when it comes to equity dilution at the pre-seed stage. So, we're curious to hear from the community - how much equity do you think is ideal to give up for $500k in pre-seed ... Source: https://lnkd.in/dMmgDC_D #mymetric360

EUVC newsletter | | 23.07.2024 This week, we feature insights from: 👉 Broadhaven Capital Partners 👉 Acadian Ventures 👉 Angular Ventures 👉 VentureFriends 👉 Underline Ventures 👉 Nodes Ventures 👉 Siena Secondary Fund ....and many more legendary European VC firms that we invite you to discover below. https://buff.ly/3Yefnty #venturecapital #startupfunding #Europe #EUVCInsights

What is the ideal equity dilution at pre-seed stage for $500k investment?   #StartupEquity #PreSeedFunding #SaaS #StartupIdeas 🚀 Hey everyone! We are in the early stages of our SaaS startup and considering raising some initial capital for our venture. We want to ensure we strike the right balance when it comes to equity dilution at the pre-seed stage. So, we're curious to hear from the community - how much equity do you think is ideal to give up for $500k in pre-seed ... Source: https://lnkd.in/ga7PVkwN #mymetric360