Thunder.vc’s Post

Hey Mate! We're continuing our VC List series but taking you across the pond to London! I've carefully picked 12 amazing VCs in London, each a leader in their field. If you know any blokes or birds seeking capital? Tag'em in the comments to help them out. (If you're British and take offense to my attempts to use British slang, tell me in the comments) 1. Seedcamp Focus: Early-Stage Ventures Sector: Agnostic Investment Range: £300,000 - £500,000 Top Portcos: Hopin, Wise, Revolut 2. Passion Capital Focus: Early-Stage Ventures Sector: IT,TMT, internet, mobile, infrastructure & SaaS Investment Range: £150K - £200K Top Portcos: Xelix, Native, FERTIFA 3. Firestartr Focus: Seed stage, Series A Sector: SaaS/Cloud Infrastructure, Digital Media, Fintech and E-Commerce/Marketplaces. Investment Range: £500k - £5M Top Portcos: Coins.ph, Chain, Korbit 4. firstminute capital Focus: Seed Sector: Blockchain, Fintech, Consumer Investment Range: $1M - $5M Top Portcos: Heist Studios, Stitch, Talktile 5. Episode 1 Ventures Focus: Seed Ventures Sector: B2B software Investment Range: £500k – £2M Top Portcos: Docker, Adsum, Carwow 6. SFC Capital Focus: Early-Stage Ventures Sector: AI & ML, Entertainment, Fintech, Healthcare, Media, SaaS, Productivity, Cybersecurity, Developer Tools Investment Range: £100,000 - £300,000 Top Portcos: Bot-Hive, Mayku, Onfido 7. Hoxton Ventures Focus: Pre-Seed and Seed Ventures Sector: Agnostic Investment Range: $500k to $5 million Top Portcos: Fluent, Baseimmune, Cogna 8. Fuel Ventures 🚀 Focus: Pre-Seed, Seed Sector: Marketplaces, Platforms, SaaS Investment Range: £250k - £3m Top Portcos: Volt, ContentCal, Heroes 9. JamJar Investments Focus: Seed, series A and growth stage Sector: Consumer Investment Range: £500k - £3m Top Portcos: Oatly, Many Pets, Deliveroo 10. 7percent Ventures Focus: Pre-Seed, Seed Sector: Deeptech, Transformative, Frontier technology Investment Range: £250k - £2m Top Portcos: Flexport, Archax, Earnr 11. LocalGlobe Focus: Early-Stage and Growth Stage Ventures Sector: Fintech, Ecommerce, Mobile Top Portcos: Qogita, Travel Perk, Sylvera 12. Kindred Capital VC Focus: Pre-Seed and Seed Ventures Sector: B2B Businesses Investment Range: £250k-£3M Top Portcos: Lottie, Pollen, Paddle Ready to connect with the perfect investor for your startup? Drop a “LIST” in the comments, and we’ll tailor a personalized investor lineup just for you. Who's your favorite London-based VC firm? Give them a shoutout in the comments!

Welcome to the 532 companies in the 2023 Unicorn Club! A decade ago Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon had coined the term Unicorn 🦄 for private companies who were valued above ⬆️ a $1bn and since then founders and VCs have been obsessed with the term. Correction - even policymakers, commentators and all sorts of folks. The profound impact it’s had on the overall startup scene has been immense - can’t say all positive but it’s not the mistake of the folks who coined the term…. Here is their last blurb on the State of the Unicorn Nation at the end of 2023 which at the time of writing has 532 inhabitants (some who I suspect would lose their residency if they were to value themselves now). Here are some takeaways for, with deeper explanation in the article link 👇: 🦄 Unicorns ballooned 14x in the past decade, from 39 to 532! They now serve a wider array of sectors (we’re tracking 19) from climate and crypto to vertical SaaS. 🦄 The pendulum swung hard to enterprise (78%), the inverse of 2013. It’s a bloated herd that will thin in coming years (likely to about 350) because… 🦄 A whopping 93% are ‘Papercorns’ - privately valued companies. 60% are ‘ZIRPicorns’ - their last valuation is from ‘20-22, when interest rates were near zero. Many are running out of runway. 🦄 Many are on the cusp: 21% are valued just at $1B (sorry?!) 🦄 c40% are trading below $1B in secondary markets.4 BUT. There is lots of substance in this herd and they see evidence of a Software Unicorn Power Law 🦄 The US will be home to more than 1,000 unicorns by 2033 🦄 There’ve been very few exits - only 7% (35 companies) vs. 66% a decade ago. 🦄 Capital efficiency declined significantly. This will be bad for exits, venture returns, founders and employees. 🦄 OpenAI looks to be the 1st superunicorn of the decade, and AI likely the megatrend. 🦄 The Bay Area gained in #s but lost ground as Unicorn HQ while other hubs grew. 🦄 More unicorns and geos, more co-founders with diverse backgrounds - but some things didn’t change at all. 🦄 Diversity still wanted - still lots of opportunity to improve founding team composition. If past is prologue, expect a mixed outlook for the current herd, and many more unicorns in the future. Amir Nooriala Tammer Qaddumi Nabeel Koshak Kushal Shah Sopnendu Mohanty Ron Shevlin Jason Mikula Efi Pylarinou Marcel van Oost Simon Taylor Sam Boboev Nicolas Pinto Mohamed Roushdy, MBA Vijay Shekhar Sharma Madhusudanan R #unicorns #fintech #saas #openai #valuations

Exciting news! 🎉 We've just published an article shining a light on the groundbreaking work of York-based business development startups who are leading their industries in the UK. 🇬🇧 Check it out now! 👇 https://lnkd.in/gM8gsCjj Featuring: Highbeam - Innovating the fintech industry with an online platform for understanding, investing, and expanding businesses. MelodyArc - Founded by Ashley Moser and James McHenry, this startup propels internet businesses by championing innovative consumer experiences. Operator Partners - A dedicated firm investing in early-stage technology companies and founders. Metrodora Ventures - Launched by Chelsea Clinton, this venture capital firm emphasizes health and learning businesses. Momence - The brainchild of Matteo Carroll and Vojta Drmota, providing cutting-edge internet services to help businesses thrive online. Primetime Partners - Co-founded by Abby Levy and Alan Patricof, this venture capital fund focuses on investing in companies that transform the quality of life for older adults. Avid Ventures - Pioneered by Addie Lerner and Tali (Vogelstein) Miller, this venture backs exceptional founders building transformative fintech, consumer internet, and software companies. Meritus Gas Partners - Providing insurance and finance services to packaged gas and welding supply distributors. Fortinbras Enterprises LP - Operating under the expertise of Ben Black, providing strategic business development and financial services. These startups exemplify tenacity, drive and innovation. Make sure to follow their journey! #Startup #BusinessDevelopment #Innovation #UKStartups #YorkbasedStartups

"Investors would have been better off investing in public superunicorns like Salesforce, Amazon,and Microsoft, up 8x, 9x, and 9x respectively in the decade, than in many companies in our current unicorn herd." 🦄 Good read from Aileen Lee & Allegra Simon on 10 years of "unicorns" in tech, when the herd grew from 39 to 532. It's packed with good info and tidbits. "Adjusting the current herd to 350, future unicorn growth to a less bubbly 15% y/y, and improving current capital efficiency a bit - we’ll have 4x more, or ~1,400 US unicorns in 2033." More money will go into tech companies, that's for sure, but the exit market can't sustain returns on the current crop of unicorns, so the market will have to evolve rapidly if there's going to be 4x more $1B+ companies. Look for PE firms and other financial players to do even larger acquisitions, and at a higher pace. https://lnkd.in/ecxV6Kd3 #vc #venturecapital #startups #entrepreneurs #entrepreneurship #tech #technology #innovation #unicorns #investing #investors #investment #money #business

April Funding Round-Up The UK continued to lead Europe in early-stage funding, with France and Germany following in second and third place, respectively. British startups secured €314 million from VCs in April, a decrease from the €470 million raised in March. French startups attracted €272 million, down from March’s €301 million, while German startups raised €211 million, an increase from the €148 million they garnered in March. In terms of verticals, B2B SaaS, ClimateTech, and HealthTech were the top three, raising €345 million, €333 million, and €315 million, respectively. Within HealthTech, drug discovery and biotech led the sectors, pulling in €138 million and €135 million, followed by digital lending with €79 million. The most active investors in April were Y Combinator, Antler, and Bpifrance. For Usurpo's clients... Enterprise Software Sales and customer service tech, particularly AI-driven improvements, emerged as significant themes this year. Madrid-based Indigitall raised a €6 million Series A from Data Point Capital, GoHub Ventures, and Adara Ventures. Their AI-driven SaaS platform enables businesses to engage clients across digital channels, tailoring messages for different demographics. Stuttgart's Markt-Pilot, a pricing platform for machine manufacturers’ spare parts, secured a €40 million Series A from Insight Partners and Capnamic Ventures. London-based Swap Commerce raised €9 million from Cherry Ventures, QED Investors, and others, offering a tech stack for e-commerce logistics, returns, and inventory management. FinTech Berlin's Finmid, which provides deferred payment options, credit lines, and cash advances to businesses, raised a €35 million Series A from Blossom Capital, Earlybird VC, and N26 Co-Founder Max Tayenthal. Following the US approval of a bitcoin ETF earlier this year, investor interest in Crypto and Decentralised Finance remained high, contributing 15 of the 58 fintech rounds in April. Swiss startup Wisdomise, an AI-driven crypto investments platform, raised $9.5 million from Chainlink Labs, SingularityDAO, and others. In London, X10 Exchange, founded by ex-Revolut employees, secured $6.5 million from Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, and others. Summary April saw a slight slowdown in early-stage dealmaking across Europe. VCs invested €1.4 billion across 312 pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds, down from March's €1.5 billion across 381 rounds. Nonetheless, deal activity remains robust! #venturecapital #funding #fintech #enterprisesoftware #recruitment

Here are 16 VCs that you should probably try to raise capital from if you're in the Bay Area. I've handpicked these VCs for you, each honing in on unique niches from technology to healthcare. Some are obvious, and some are not. Let me know who I missed. 1. UpHonest Capital Focus: Early Stage, Seed, Pre-Series A & Series A Ventures Artificial Intelligence, Ecommerce, Healthcare Top Portcos: Wyre, Scout, Node 2. Sequoia Capital Focus: Early-Stage Venture, Seed & Growth Ventures Software, Information Technology, Internet Top Portcos: Google, NVIDIA, Apple 3. Andreessen Horowitz Focus: All Growth Stages Ventures Software, Social Media, Back-End Infrastructure Top Portcos: Coinbase, Lyft, GitHub 4. Accel Focus: Early-Stage Venture, Late Stage & SeedVentures SaaS, Software, Internet, Ecommerce Top Portcos: Meta, Razer, Animoca Brands 5. GSR Ventures Focus: Early-Stage Venture & Seed Ventures Software, Artificial Intelligence Top Portcos: Didi, ELEME, Protean Electric 6. Sapphire Ventures Focus: Early-Stage Ventures Software, Enterprise Software, SaaS, Analytics, Information Technology Top Portcos: Square, Monday, Box 7. Tribe Capital Focus: Early-Stage & Late-Stage Ventures Fintech, Cryptocurrency, Software Top Portcos: FTX 👀, Bolt 👀, Carta 8. Norwest Venture Partners Focus: All Growth Stages Ventures Software, Information Technology, Enterprise Software Top Portcos: Opendoor, Jet, Plaid 9. Lightspeed Focus: Early-Stage and Late-Stage Ventures, Private Equity Software, Information Technology Top Portcos: Epic Games, FTX 👀 , 1Password 10. Greylock Focus: All Growth Stages Ventures Software, Enterprise Software, Information Technology Top Portcos: Groupon, Wealthsimple, Ribbon Home 11. Runa Capital Focus: Series A, Seed & Series B Ventures Software, SaaS, Financial Services Top Portcos: NGINX, DrChrono, Zype 12. Autotech Ventures Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B & Series C Ventures Transportation, Automotive, Logistics Top Portcos: Lyft, SpotHero, Outdoorsy 13. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) Focus: Early-Stage & Late-Stage Ventures Software, Healthcare, Biotechnology Top Portcos: Robinhood, Databricks, Uber 14. Innovation Endeavors Focus: Early-Stage, Seed & Series A Ventures Software, Analytics, Information Technology Top Portcos: Uber, Dynamic Yield, 15. Draper Associates Focus: Debt, Early-Stage & Seed Ventures Software, Fintech, Information Technology, SaaS Top Portcos: Ledger, Webflow, Coinbase 16. Outliers Fund Focus: Early-Stage & Seed Ventures Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Software Top Portcos: XREX Inc., Syndicate, Unum ID Want your own targeted list of investors? Drop “LIST” in the comments, and I'll send you a link to get a tailored investor lineup just for you. Got a favorite Silicon Valley VC firm that deserves a shoutout? Let us know in the comments below. Also, I left some controversial portcos listed to see if people actually read these lists 😅

The 2024 venture capital landscape has been marked by a strategic "flight to quality", where investors are concentrating their capital on a select few high-growth start-ups with strong teams, business models, and revenue. Key insights include: - 2021 Investment Bubble: In 2021, a record £5.25bn was invested globally in startups, doubling the amount from the previous year. This period was later recognise as a bubble, where companies could raise substantial capital without having solid revenue, customers, or business models. - 2024 Investment Shift: In 2024, venture capital (VC) is focused on a "flight to quality," concentrating large investments in a select few high-growth startups with strong founding teams, solid business models, and revenue traction. This trend is creating pressure on these startups to succeed and could limit their future exit opportunities. - Recent Major Deals: Helsing (defence tech) raised £385m at a £4.24bn valuation after securing £179m in the previous year. Mistral (AI startup) raised £401m in June, following a £330m round in December. Monzo (UK neobank) raised £474m at a £4.04bn valuation across two funding rounds in 2024. - Valuation Trends: Valuations for high-demand sectors like AI and SaaS are rising again, with companies being valued at 15x to 20x annual recurring revenue. European Series B and C deals saw median size increases of 15% and 2%, respectively, while pre-money valuations increased by 23% and nearly 10%. - LP Pressure: Venture capital firms are under pressure from limited partners (LPs) to deploy capital, especially after raising large funds in 2022 but holding back in 2023. Clearly, this is a significant change to the investment bubble we saw in 2021, where start-ups could attract vast funding rounds without solid fundamentals. However, rising valuations and the concentration of capital are placing significant pressure on these "quality" start-ups to deliver, despite uncertain future exit opportunities. VCs are also facing pressure from LPs to invest more, which is fuelling the rising valuations, especially in competitive funding rounds. The success of these investments are likely to depend on the return of a strong IPO market, we hope happens soon. #Investment #VC #Growth #Startups https://lnkd.in/dchG7Sbu

Southeast Asia’s funding winter is not necessarily bad news, says Hian Goh, founder of Openspace Ventures in an interview with MONEY FM 89.3 presenter Tian Tian C.. “I think it’s a healthy sort of change in the temperature. I certainly found it very difficult to invest in 2021 because I couldn’t get into great companies at great prices, but needless to say, it’s a different story today.” What are the most promising startups? Share your thoughts in the comments. #IOTD #startups #funding

I speak to early-stage founders who are looking for investment. I saw this post from Alex Pattis that I wanted to share with my network. #funding #earlystage #preseed #seed #vc #venturecapital

What can we takeaway from Cowboy Ventures' Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later? Yes it's US focussed, but there's some really intriguing themes that have emerged since Aileen Lee first coined the term 'Unicorn' a decade ago - perhaps most starkly that the number has ballooned 14x, from 39 to 532. With 3x more capital flowing into VC funds in the '13-23 period, a huge 93% of these are privately valued over $1bn: the ‘Papercorns’. And if one term wasn't enough, we also have 'ZIRPicorns' which is used to describe the hundreds of companies who were crowned Unicorns in the zero-interest-rate-period from '20-22 who may well see some of their bloated valuations pared back. Some other key takeaways we can learn from: - The pendulum swung hard to enterprise (78%), whereas 80% of the 2013 list were consumer companies; this could well swing back - Average capital efficiency fell away greatly, especially in enterprise which is down from 26x to 7x on valuation / equity raised - Increasing diversity of founders: 20% went to a “top 10 school” vs. two-thirds in 2013, but there's a long way to go other factors like gender - And 40% of co-founders are ‘non-technical’, whereas in 2013, 90% of CEOs had technical degrees So what's next? Cowboy Ventures predict we’ll reach 1,400 unicorns by 2033 and will crown our first superunicorn (>$100B) of the decade with OpenAI, ending the report on an highly optimistic tone: "We see miles of green fields for more unicorns in years to come." Here's to that. https://lnkd.in/gTRhqhGe