Cross Creek’s Post

Catch another episode of This Week in Startups where Upfront Managing Partner Mark Suster interviews Max Altman and Ben Braverman, two of the three co-founders of Saga Ventures. With Saga’s new $125 million fund, the trio talk about: ➡ Fundraising challenges the co-founders faced as a first-time fund and the playbook of how referrals can be the best leads for increasing the chances of success ➡ Nuances of determining a fund size to maintain competitive advantages in deal strategies ➡ Ben’s learnings from working with Ryan Peterson at Flexport as well as Max’s experience and unique advantages working with his brothers Jack and Sam Here's a short clip below about the attributes of successful founders that they look for, including those willing to take unconventional risks 👇

First funding round ✅ We officially closed an equity round with our VC and Angel Investors after 3 years building Kickbite. A huge thanks to the large pool of business angels (the backbone of early stage startups, you guys rock!!!!!!) and to our lead VC investor Backbone (that name actually makes sense Jan Claudio Muñoz 🤝) for the continuous trust and support! The last 3 years have been the most rewarding. Some quick facts: ✅ +150 monthly active users with a stickiness of +60% ✅ The trust of D2C category leaders such as Athletic Greens or Ankerkraut GmbH ✅ Tracked and analysed +60 Million website sessions in 2023 alone (What a crazy number) ✅ Achieved growth every year despite the challenging economics + a beta product until September 2023 To name a few, big thanks to: BackBone Ventures, Radboud Langenhorst, Ruurd van der Weide, Sjoerd van Berkel, Hugo Suidman, Daniel Schulz, Maren Frey, Andreas Burike, Matthias Frost, Mark Hoffmann, Daniel Offermann, Christian Terborg, Haike Spek, Dr. Hans J. Dohrmann, Nicolas Pless, Joris Willekens, Constantijn Weytingh, Ardan Bousché, Pawel Wierzbicki

Exciting News from Kickbite! We're proud to announce the closing of an equity round with our VC and angel investors, marking a key milestone after three years of hard work. A huge shoutout to our team in Kyiv, whose resilience has been the cornerstone of our success, especially through challenging times. Volodymyr Tereshchenko & Denis Tsvietkov Special thanks to our business angels and our lead VC, Backbone, for their unwavering support. Your trust fuels our journey. Some of our Innovations at Kickbite: AI Click and Impression Attribution Model 🚀 : Revolutionizing how upper-funnel channels are valued by merging data-driven attribution with media mix modeling. This integration acknowledges the true value of each channel. Profitability Module 💸 : We're advancing beyond traditional ROAS metrics enabling optimizing ad spend for profitability. This strategic pivot ensures that every dollar spent is an investment toward sustainable growth. Sidekick AI 🤖 : combining high-quality data with advanced AI to provide automated, actionable recommendations for smarter decision-making. #Kickbite #Innovation #AI #DataDriven #ProfitabilityFocus

The last LinkedIn post generated almost 40 sign-ups for the new GTM Syndicate I was overwhelmed by the number of people who want the opportunity to view startup investment deals, and by the number of VCs who want to work with GTM experts. VCs like Jerry S. from OIF Ventures, 😱 Rayn 🍇 Ong from Archangel Ventures, Stew Glynn from TEN13, James McClure from Antler, Taryn Pieterse from Rampersand, Ben Grabiner from Side Stage Ventures, and Steve Torso from Wholesale Investor will be working with GTM Syndicate. New GTM members include: Dailius Wilson 📈 , George Polyzos, Kieran Krohn, Landon Kahn, Luke Williams, Philippe V., Simon Hickox, Steve Sacks, Stuart Clout, and Daniel Ridd. I am opening up the next tranche to take this to 100 members. To sign up, follow the link in the comments and click “join syndicate.”

Meet Kate Spector. She hangs out in the earliest stages of our work at 1848 Ventures, co-leading our Venture Development capability. We asked Kate to explain the power of our venture studio model. Here's what she said: "At 1848 Ventures, we're customer-led and technology-enabled. Our studio model is focused on building a repeatable approach that is grounded in the customer while recognizing the realities of building B2B, SaaS startups. It sets the foundation and expectation for the work we do, allowing us to get better with every iteration, but it's the people who bring it to life. Building something from nothing isn't easy...it takes human ingenuity and creativity, and the magic of connecting dots that aren't always easy to connect. So while our studio model sets the foundation and provides the direction for the individuals within our organization, it would be nothing without every single person we work with." Learn more about our Venture Studio here! https://insde.co/41w9

Building a high-growth startup, and want an investor that can match your pace? Here's someone you should get in touch with! This week's findfunding.vc spotlight is on Julian Fialkow from 186 Ventures. He: 🗽 Just moved to New York from Boston 🥞 Is a massive foodie 💪 Started 186 Ventures as an Angel fund / "side hustle" with his best friend 🏒 Played D1 Hockey at Colgate and professional hockey in Copenhagen Amongst founders, Julian and his partner Giuseppe Stuto are known for going above and beyond when it comes to adding value and support as founders go from zero to one. On top, he and the 186 Ventures team recognize that fundraising isn't the endgame, but just the start for a founder. They make quick decisive decisions and are always just a call away when a founder needs them. To get in touch, make sure to: ✉️ Pitch him at julian@186ventures.com if you're building something new OR are looking to make the jump For more, check out our funder spotlight card below along with 186 Ventures' profile on findfunding.vc (link in comments).

Kicking off Startup Boston with a program on the ins and outs of term sheets with Jeff Knox from Innospark Ventures! Jeff’s colleague, Matt Fates, offers some wisdom on negotiating term sheets in the guide to negotiating VC term sheets in the "Featured" section of my LI profile page. Check it out!

Friends — the Cavela team is beyond excited to announce our $2M pre-seed round from a world-class group of investors including XYZ Venture Capital, Go Global Ventures, and Propel VC. We couldn’t be more thrilled to everyone who has supported us on this journey to reimagine the way brands and businesses create products. Cavela is about making it easy for anyone to make anything at prices — whether that’s a new product line for your brand or unique custom merch for your startup. With hundreds of thousands of world-class suppliers and AI-powered tools at your disposal, we’re bringing the entire global manufacturing ecosystem to your fingertips. The last decade saw the democratization of the creation of digital content — this next one will be about doing the same in the physical space. We’re just getting started so let’s get to work 🚀 Check out our exclusive feature: https://lnkd.in/gVmRS_yp in BusinessInsider (thanks to preeminent journalist Samantha Stokes) And watch this demo: https://lnkd.in/esJq3GX9 to learn more. Let’s make something great together.

I am absolutely thrilled to shared that Consensus has raised $11.5M in Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures! Alongside USV is an amazing group of investors joining the round like Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross (NFDG), Kevin Carter (Night Capital), lead seed investor Draper Associates and more. Scientific research is the most valuable source of knowledge humans have ever created. Yet - there is no easy way to search and consume it. We have built Consensus to change this and have been humbled by the over 2 million users who have used Consensus since launching our product. We want to create a world where expert knowledge is within reach of everyone. A world where scientists can get back to doing real science, not searching, and one where a generation of citizen scientists can be created via easier access to real research. This is one of the many reasons we are so excited to partner with USV. In the current USV fund thesis is a call to invest in opportunities that broaden access to knowledge. On top of that, they have been writing about and investing in the "splintering of search" long before anybody knew what an LLM was. It would truly be hard to find a better partner for us at Consensus than USV. We are also happy to share that Jared Hecht will be joining our Board of Directors. I want to give the BIGGEST possible shoutout to the entire Consensus team. Without you, we would be nowhere and it is a pleasure to work with such an incredibly talented, passionate and kind group of people. I cannot wait to keep building together: Megan Van Welie, Brett Nebeker, Chris Varano, Jimmy Longley, Ali Farid, Namrata Kundu, Sarah R. Wakeman and Pablo Garcés. I'll save my full sappy co-founder post for another day or another medium - but, working every day with my best friend Christian Salem has been the greatest professional experience of my life. Lastly, a shoutout to the previous seed investors who have doubled down on us not mentioned above like Alumni Ventures, Billy Draper (Path Ventures), Marc McCabe (Nomad Capital), and Nathaniel Manning. Consensus is just getting started 🏗 Onward.

🔔 Advice for VCs focused on early-stage startups from Kelly Graziadei, Founder & General Partner at f7 Ventures! Asked about how to partner with founders, she shared three key considerations:   1️⃣ Set clear milestones 2️⃣ Clarify who the customer is 3️⃣ Determine areas of market pull Discover more about the importance of these steps in the full conversation from Campfire. https://buff.ly/46EOIGF