Steve Ardire’s Post

This is the AI tool to use in 2024

Hi friends👋 Eugene here. Happy upcoming holiday season! Today I'm with a short summary of the year end wrap-up portfolio-wise. Turned out that not everyone is aware of our progress at AAL VC:) We’ve closed 9 deals🔥 this year so far with #10 coming in soon. That's 1.5x more than what we initially planned for the first year. We found ourselves in the same boat with such investors as Khosla Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Gradient Ventures, Nvidia, Thomson Reuters, Foundation Capital, Dig Ventures, angels from Huggingface, Matilion, Datadog, Stripe, Microsoft, Intercom and many more. All our latest deals were highly competitive and the allocation was scarce. So we’ve been learning a new skill of squeezing into crowded rounds=) What's the secret? AAL VC community that provides us with a flow of unique opportunities and helps us secure allocations in hot deals. Our ability to develop and leverage these connections is a key component in our investment strategy. https://aal.vc/portfolio best wishes, E

This is exciting news about our launch! If you're building hardware and want to improve your process, please contact me. Rollup is a comprehensive platform designed to simplify and accelerate hardware development. Our suite of tools covers systems engineering, modeling, requirements management, and more. By leveraging Rollup, you can create exceptional products while effortlessly balancing complexity and usability. Say goodbye to development headaches and hello to streamlined innovation!

RocketBoots confirms that it has received firm commitments to raise ~$832,000 via a placement to new and existing shareholders. Funds will be used for expansion activities, advancing trials and progressing contract negotiations with several customers. Commenting on the raise, Chief Executive, Joel Rappolt, said: “This capital raise, when combined with our SPP funds and forecast cash inflows in the new financial year, should provide RocketBoots with the opportunity to complete its current eight (8) international trials. Successful conversion of any of these trials to a scaled site, multi-year contract has the potential to make a significant impact on our business fundamentals. The capital will also enable RocketBoots to install a second wave of trials, due in mid-2024 & continue converting its growing pipeline to new trials. We look forward to updating the market on our progress in the near future.” Twyford Hawk Australia Pty Ltd acted as sole lead manager for the placement of 10,400,000 shares at $0.08 a share. Link to Release: https://bit.ly/3KarkIy $ROC #ROC #rocketboots #AI #machinelearning #computervision #nvidia #dell #software #technology #banking #retail #optimisation #insights ASX:ROC #invest

I used to report on data interoperability, the plumbing that makes digital learning possible. Certainly not the sexiest or easiest topic to write about! But it’s such an important piece of the infrastructure that makes #edtech possible. Now I’m investing in it! Reach Capital is excited to back Mick Hewitt Doug Weber and the team at Ednition as they unlock data flows for every part of the learning experience: from rostering to attendance, assessment, scheduling, interventions and more. We’re also thrilled to be joined by our friends at GSV Ventures Avalanche VC Long Term Impact Seamless, secure data flow in the edtech ecosystem is a precondition for AI to move from experimental and theoretical to truly transformational, especially as data demands and volume only grow.

💥 I'm stoked to share that Loft Labs has raised $24M Series A Funding Round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from existing investors Fusion Fund, Surface Ventures, Emergent Ventures, and Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. This funding is not just a financial milestone; it's a testament to the hard work, dedication, and vision of our incredible team. Some stats and facts that speak for themselves: 💸 4.6x ARR growth in past 12 months 🔶 vCluster surpassing 40 million image pulls ❗ Introduction of vCluster Pro - Commercial edition of vCluster 💻 Launch of DevPod - Reusable dev environments for any infrastructure 🚀 Customers including CoreWeave, Outreach, Lintasarta, Aussie Broadband and five Global Fortune 500 companies What an incredible journey it has been and we are just getting started...Super proud and humbled to be part of this team! Onwards 🚀 #ProudEmployee #kubernetes #growth #platformengineering #developerexperience #devops #gpu #gpus #ai

Every founder wants to reach PMF, but what are the paths to get there? Sequoia Capital’s ARC Accelerator team put together this framework for early stage founders that outlines 3 ways to reach PMF: Hair on Fire → You’re solving an obvious but important problem in, likely, a crowded market and do it better than anyone else (example: Zoom , during the pandemic). Hard Fact → You challenge a conventionally accepted fact, and demonstrate an alternative (example: Superhuman). Future Vision → You skate to where the puck is going. Your customers don’t even realize how much they need your solution until they use it (example: Tesla). Credits: Michael Houck

We're honored to be shortlisted for the Investor of the Year category at the Allstars Awards! Thank you to GP Bullhound for recognizing us among an amazing set of founders, innovators and investors reshaping the future of European tech. View the full list of nominees here: https://lnkd.in/dzY9ScrP    #allstars24 #softwareinvesting #growthinvesting #scaleups

Heading to ETHDenver? 🌐 Connect with the amazing Megan Nyvold 🌴 if you're keen on chatting with someone from BingX. I would invite you to the "Web3 Founders & Funders" panel but it's sold out! 🚀 #ETHDenver #web3 #blockchain Bing Ventures

Great session James Newell and thanks for hosting Jon Prentice and SVB! In terms of the answers and perspective shared from Voyager Capital and James…. The Good (for Seattle investing and VCs) —— * the opportunity in Seattle (and the wider PNW / Cascadia region) that Voyager is still capitalizing on, is that there is a ton of potential in Seed to Series A investing that isn’t as accessible elsewhere. * SF and other markets are saturated and less engaged as investors at this stage. * talent pool here is massive, especially on the engineering and product side. What would be a “Game Changer” for Seattle —— * there is a talent shortage especially in terms of sales and marketers locally. * Few sales and marketers want to do $0 - $1M journey again if prior successful. * Angels are more private here, and may not feel the need to give back to the start up community if that isn’t how they made their wealth Outside of Seattle specific feedback: —— * Founders need to be doers, not “leaders of leaders” (an issue with those coming from big tech); talent need to meet the stage and act accordingly. * AI as a tool and business foundation is only important in terms of delivering business value. * AI powered firms need to show they have an ability to access proprietary data or be linked intimately to workflows or both to be a sound investment [this is established consensus among investors] * Investing, especially very early stage, should be run as a process. Be your own best BDR for fundraising. And finally …. The top 2 pieces of advice most often given to founders…. 1) Try to avoid VC capital to the degree you can [which means you have a capital efficient business]. 2) find a co-founder to complement your skills vs doing it all on your own.