The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 76 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 3 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Suster: SpaceX spin-outs exceed 100 companies raising over $10B
“So there's been more than a hundred spin-outs now from SpaceX, more than a hundred. They've raised more than ten billion dollars, and the vast majority of them are in Los Angeles.”
Suster: Upfront maintains $3.2M-$3.5M initial checks and 18-21% ownership
“Since 2009, if you take every one of our funds, they've been median between 3.2 to 3.5 million dollar first check in. And they've been median between 18 to 21% ownership.”
Suster: Upfront reserves 58% of fund capital for follow-on rounds
“So, we invest 40% of our fund, usually 42% of our fund, and we reserve 58%.”
Upfront portfolio company traded 40% contract discount for one-year extension
“One of the things I was involved in helping guide one of the portfolio companies of which I'm involved through their single largest customer renegotiating their entire contract. And what we were able to do, sadly, you know, we cut, I don't know, 40% off the an…”
Unprepared software startups face major revenue shock in Q4 2020
“So if you don't have a plan for that happening, both in terms of how you gracefully do it, what you're asking for in return, and how you size your cost base, you're going to be in for a huge shock, and that shock is going to come in Q four and Q one.”
Zoom grew from 10M to 200M daily active users in three months
“I mean, look at zoom going from. Ten million monthly actives to two hundred million or daily actives, two hundred million in three months time.”
Upfront has two portfolio companies closing $50M+ capital rounds in April 2020
“And we have two companies closing north of fifty million dollar rounds this month.”
Unrealistic valuation expectations will drive startup failures
“A lot of companies won't succeed because people hold on artificially to prices that are too high.”
M&A prices drop in downturns as acquirers prioritize cost-cutting
“Yeah, no question. Because if there's a limited set of buyers and a whole bunch of companies that want to be acquired and remember my mindset at the start of the podcast was people right now are not paid to innovate. They're not paid to innovate. They're paid …”
Special Purpose Vehicles are much harder to raise during economic downturns
“SPVs are much harder to raise now, and so your ability to protect not just your winners, But also your companies that are struggling and need to get from point A to point B to maybe someday be a winner, it's going to be much harder.”
Upfront has maintained a strict three-year fund deployment cadence since 2009
“And we've been religiously on three years since 2009. So our funds have been oh nine, 12, 15 and 2018.”
Venture capital industry average fund deployment cycle shortened to 2.2 years
“And the industry average right now is 2.2 years. And you have some firms coming back every 18 months.”
Longer fund deployment pace is necessary to capture platform shifts
“So being across time and time diversity is important for catching platform shifts And changes to a regulatory environment, changes to geopolitical environment, and changes to the economy itself.”
LP defaults won't be a major issue, but fund re-ups will
“So I don't think that's going to be a major problem. What'll be a major problem is people coming into your next fund, because if they find themselves in a bad economic situation, what they end up doing is cutting commitments to managers that they've had for a …”
Suster recommends Peter Zeihan's geopolitical books for predicting business shifts
“If you want to understand the world and what's happening around you, read The Accidental Superpower, The Absent Superpower, and Disunited Nations. And Disunited Nations is the most recent. Each one of those books Has predicted what was going to happen in the w…”
Great board members focus on granular work and difficult budgets
“The things that really matter are people who turn up, roll up their sleeves, have a point of view, will do the detail work, actually read spreadsheets. And be thoughtful and be one step ahead of the game on things that are harder that people don't like to do, …”
Suster: Startups should aim to raise 18 months of runway
“I mean, the ideal amount of capital, if you can raise it as 18 months.”
Suster: Investor trust requires rapport built in meetings, not presentation data
“There's no great presentation, there's no amount of data that can get someone to want to take that bet on you other than Trust, and trust is established through rapport, which is built in meetings.”
Suster: Seed and Series A investing relies on intangibles over traction
“There's all these intangibles that I'm trying to judge because I'm a seed or a round investor. So I'm usually not betting specifically on traction, which tends to be more of a B round activity.”
Mark Suster: Portfolio company CEOs provide the best VC introductions
“The single best introduction is a portfolio company CEO.”
Suster: Upfront Ventures maintains median entry valuation between $11M and $12M pre-money
“So our median valuation on entries between 11 to 12 pre”
Suster: Upfront Ventures is not doing a lot of generative AI investing
“We don't write right now upfront is not doing a lot of generative AI.”
Suster: Upfront Ventures is deploying significantly more capital into space
“We're putting way more dollars into space right now.”
Upfront Ventures favors $3M checks over $10M checks during economic downturns
“We're tending to fund a lot more, call it, three million dollar checks than ten million dollar checks in terms of new money right now.”
Upfront reserves roughly 60% of fund capital for follow-on investments
“So we're investing somewhere between 39 to say 42% Of our fund in first jacks, and we reserve the balance and then we pace ourselves.”
Upfront allocates 89% of fund dollars to Seed and Series A
“So we do 89% over the last several funds has been about 89% in seed and A. And of that 89%, two-thirds of it is A, one-third of it is seed. So we're actually pretty sizable seed investors, but we are, as you said earlier in the show, A investors. We do 11% of …”