Illai Gescheit’s Post

Matt Wan “we haven’t started selling anything yet…” 🤣

Extremely interesting panel on the mixed capital stack in climate tech venture investing. Working across the capital stack allows founders to plan their funding journey, and investors need today to make sure they build their network beyond VC, to help their portfolio companies to get access to all asset classes including dilutive funding, venture debt, project finance and more. The route to growth has become more complex, and VCs are expected to either build those skills, experience and networks internally, or develop relationships to amplify their core value creation mechanisms. A really interesting panel that includes Julie Blane and Carmel Rafaeli from The Table, an initiative to help increase the volume, number and frequency of climate tech investments in companies led by female founders along with Hannah-Mei Andrews from Climate Investment (CI), Sarah Bertram Smith from HSBC Innovation Banking, Pippa Gawley from Zero Carbon Capital and Chloe Z. from CPI Enterprises Limited. I'll be there too, come and say hi. Happening on the Concave (Vicki Yeo ) 2024 Summit: 📆 17 Oct '24 📍180 Strand 🎟️ https://lnkd.in/gPJRZsmt #VentureCapital #ClimateTech #CapitalStack #Investments #VentureFunding #FemaleFounders #Sustainability.

I believe there is too much emphasise on the Senior Partner levels when we talk about Venture Capital Success. We seek for the glamorous partners who will show on stage, or do a podcast. However, when I look at VCs, I look at the Associate and Analyst levels. What is the energy I get from young people in the firm, how entrepreneurial they are? are they eager to work in one of the portfolio companies one day? experience the operators life, or maybe build their own startup? I have heard many founders say "I only talked to that young associate, but I'm trying to get to the partners". While this is true, to secure an investment in some ways, and that most VCs are built as Hierarchical organizations, it is great practice to sense how it is to work with a certain fund by building relationships with the entry level. One of the biggest signal of a bad VC culture in my view is when a VC treats their associates as the ones who get only the dirty work, and they don't get ownership, or initiate anything. This is true by the way to any organizations I have worked with - corporates, startups, consultancies alike. #VentureCapital #EntryLevel #RaisingFunding #Success #Startups #VCs #PrivateEquity

When I am meeting repeat and serial founders I asked them about the startups they failed to scale or failed to raise money for. The reality is that most founders shy away and start sugar coating their experience. If that happens I open up and tell them about my failed startups, and then they open up. I have heard a trend in the European VC ecosystem that VCs would look only to invest in repeat exited founders. That limits quite significantly the pool of founder you could invest. It also makes the ecosystem a place where people would not take a risk to fail. What Hadley Harris describes as the uniqueness of the US ecosystem is the ingredient to build resilience. If there is something we need to do in Europe is fund founders who have bruises, and scars from failed startups and provide them capital, community and support to grow from their mistakes and teach us. #VentureCapital #Funding #Failure #Investment #Founders

If there is one thing I can assure you is that there are more Jews fighting Climate Chamge than you will ever imagine. A new conspiracy claims that hurricane Milton is caused by Jews and for the response of hurricane Helene. If there is one thing that I will fight for is this reckless claim which is full of hate. Israelis and Jews are investing, innovating, building and scaling tech and policies for fighting climate change. And we are doing this for the entire world: men, women, children, elders, Christian’s, Muslim and Jewish alike. Climate change doesn’t care what is your religion or what the colour of your skin. #ClimateChange #VentureCapital #Innovators #Jews #Environment #Hurricane #HateSpeech ✡️❤️🌎 Adi Vagman Yair Reem Guy Cherni Nadav Steinmetz Julie Blane Carmel Rafaeli Yehuda Borenstein Mike Bloomberg Bracha Halaf Zafrir Yoeli Jon Gray

In 2018, 51,302 new startup companies were founded in China 🇨🇳 . In 2023, only 1,202 startups were founded. 2024, show that this number of new startups is decreasing even more. This drop is followed by Covid-19 which hit China significantly, and hurt the economy along with many international investors pulling out of the private markets in China. This is in addition to political pressures by President Xi and the impact of the tech sector. Essentially, the great entrepreneurs lost their freedom, and the private market is not private at all but their money is the country's money. A few years ago, we all saw Jack Ma from Alibaba and companies as Tencent as inspiration, today they are not playing that role. I remember also, following how Sequoia Capital changed structure with their dedicate fund in China, and my personal work with companies in the Cloud Sector that were looking to put more and more people on the ground to capture the amazing growth of startups. One of my main areas of research is resilience of founders and ecosystems. I come from one of the most resilient ecosystems in Israel 🇮🇱 , and I see how startups continue to grow, raise capital no matter if there's war or pandemic. Yuliya Chernova of the The Wall Street Journal wrote about it lately. So to the question of how to build a resilience startup and VC ecosystem? it's exactly the opposite of what China is doing at the moment, which is limiting freedom, and capital from young inspiring and ambitious talent. Great ecosystems provide capital wit conviction and patience, and provide freedom for talent to build. In china, being a founder is way to risky at the moment - founders not only need to sell their business, but they are personally liable to return money to LPs. Founders put their house and personal savings for that. Founders are leaving the country, so even entrepreneurs that lived in the country go elsewhere. #VentureCapital #StartupEcosystems #China #Asia #Founders #Decline #Markets #Entrepreneurship

Matthew Heller reacted in the most creative and positive way you can to hurricane Milton in his house in Tampa. He decided to use his Kayak 🛟 inside the house to stay in the house and share it with the world. Shows how people can react in different ways to tough situations. #Milton #ClimateChange #Hurrican #behaviouralScience

How to start: Dream Big. Act Small.

I have exactly the same experience as Nihal Mehta from Eniac Ventures. One of the main thing I do both as investor as advisor is intros for founders in my network, and that could be to VCs, Corporate customers, or other experts who can add value to them. I like to tell founders and other investors two sentences which I developed as philosophy and leadership principle: 👥 "My network is your network" - once I work with a founder or with a VC, I will open my door to them, they are a part of the network and how my network behaves. 💪 "One small introduction, could change the life of a founder who will change the lives of millions" - intros are small bits of love investors can give to founders, and sometimes we misunderstand or appreciate the impact of such a warm introduction. This one intro, might be the one which will make or break a business, might make or break the commercial growth of the company. What people in my view don't understand is that an investor who makes great intros is both mindset and a skill: Most people think that a warm intro is a quick thing you do in 2 minutes, it might be operationally, but it is the result of years of building personal relationships, my personal reputation, thinking who would be the right person to connect, and then make sure to follow up in case it is needed. The other thing is that making great introductions is a skill that you gain with years of building your network and making lots and lots of intro - I actually got better at making the story I tell about founders clearer and sharper (don't know about quicker), but I get to pull from my memory who is the right person to connect and build the narrative, just like cold pitching is a skill for founders and executives. This is by the way a great point for founders to ask investors during their due diligence, who can you introduce me to and what doors could you open. #VentureCapital #Investors #Founders #Introductions #Network #RelationshipBuilding

This emotional reaction by John Morales who is an environmental and hurricane expert on hurricane Milton, turning into category 5, tells the whole story of the rapid growth of climate change. He shares the data that it has dropped 50 ml bars in 10 hours, and winds are 160 miles per hour and that it is gaining strength in the gulf of Mexico. He also shares that we all know what is causing the heat of the seas in the area and that is global warming and climate change. I don't think that what made that emotional reaction is the heat or the winds, but it's the pace in which this hurricane escalated. There's no other way but to accelerate the pace of innovation to stop, reduce and fight climate change. We have a lot of work to do! Yair Reem, Eshel Lipman, Sila Kiliccote, Julie Blane, Carmel Rafaeli 💯, Ashish Kumar, Jay Kapoor, Silas Mähner 🔍🌎, Djoann Fal, Ryan Panchadsaram, Shaun Abrahamson, Giulia Marzetti , Steven Zhang , Xavier Parkhouse-Parker #ClimateTech #Sustainability #GlobalWarming #Hurricane #GreenEconomy