Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Ball: LPs should select core managers rather than attempting to time vintages

Jamin Ball · Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jan 10, 2024 · at 1:10:52

Jamin Ball, Partner at Altimeter Capital, discusses venture capital vintage timing strategies for limited partners on 20VC.

0:00 / 0:34exact quote · 34.1s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And I would say picking vintages from the LP side is, is really hard. The, you know, the, in my opinion, right? Like the right approach is pick a manager and pick managers and manager selection right now is more important than ever and invest across those kind of that small set of managers, like across vintages and kind of like, that's the better way to diversify versus let me try and pick a vintage you know, and manage around that. I think that generally leads to kind of like missing some of the best vintages, right? Market timing is very hard in any asset class.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

More from Jamin Ball

Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2029
Ball: Most 2021 mega-round startups will never reach their peak valuations
“I think there's the vast majority of companies who raise these mega rounds in 2021. Will probably never be worth at any point in time, right? The valuation that they were given in the public markets.”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 20:34 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Ball: ZIRP-era funding rounds lacked ratchets blocking down-round IPOs
“The reality of the moment we live in today is a lot of these zerf rounds, they didn't have ratchets. It was the opposite. They were very light on terms and they were very light on structure. So you don't have this Dynamic of super heavy ratchets, anti-dilution…”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 54:36 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ball: Down-round IPOs will become normal despite the current taboo
“I think kind of down rounds or down round IPOs will be the same thing. There'll be a taboo on them, but they'll be normal.”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 1:01:48 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Ball: Regulatory opposition will block large-scale tech M&A in 2024
“From a regulation standpoint, it is really hard to see any large-scale M&A.”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 44:10 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Partly supported
Ball: Software venture funding fell 90% from peak to 2016-2017 levels
“Really, twenty-twenty-one and probably the first half of twenty-twenty-two, and now in twenty-twenty-three, we're down 90% from where we were at the peak, but we're really just back to the 2016, 20 17 trend line, right?”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 5:59 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Ball: True founder-friendliness requires investors to have hard conversations
“To be a truly founder friendly investor and board member. It is about having those hard conversations. It's not about shying away from conflict.”
Jamin Ball Jan 10, 2024 ▶ 14:38 Ed Sim & Jamin Ball: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets & 3 Requirements to IPO in 2024 | E1101 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.