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 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Rampell: Led Rillet's Series B just 60 days after its Series A
“I'm on the board of Rillet. I did the Series B, and it was 60 days after the Series A, and that's unfortunate.”
Rampell: Recently led a Series A in a startup with $10M ARR
“I just did a Series A where the company had, like, ten million dollars of ARR when I invested in it.”
a16z Passed on Company That Later Reached $1B Valuation
“There was a deal that I guess we should have done, candidly, because, like, this company just raised it, like, a billion dollar plus valuation, but we turned it down. The company had, like, less than a million dollars in revenue, and they wanted, like, a two h…”
Rampell: Haggled over $5M on Plaid's Series B, later invested at $2.4B
“It probably was one of the first rounds of Plaid, which I subsequently corrected myself for by doing the Series C of Plaid. So I think we invested at 2.4 billion for the Series C, and I was debating a five million dollar difference with Zach for the Series B. …”
Rampell: a16z wants small stakes in proven winners or high ownership early
“We either want to buy any percent, right, of something that is absolutely working, or high ownership of something that could work.”
Rampell: Nearly $7 Billion of a16z's Latest Raise Is Growth Capital
“If you look at the money that we just raised, you know, almost seven billion of that is for the growth fund.”
Rampell: One of his personal seed investments is marked up 200x
“For a single deal, there's a seed deal that I did that it's probably marked up at like, 200 X right now.”
Rampell: Passed on Stripe's seed round when it was called Dev Payments
“Obviously I passed on doing the seed round of Stripe, because I'm a genius. It was called Dev Payments at the time.”
Rampell: a16z orchestrated the initial meeting between Plaid and Visa's CEOs
“We hosted a dinner for the CEO of Visa, and I sat Zach at Plaid right next to Alec Kelly at Visa.”
Overpricing TrialPay's Funding Round Impaired Subsequent Fundraising and M&A
“One of the things that I learned at trial pay was that we raised one of our rounds of funding at way too high of a price, and I paid for that because then, guess what, I couldn't, it was hard to sell the company. It was hard to raise money after that”
Alex Rampell Passes on Great Founders Solely Due to Overvaluation
“I've turned down a number of companies on valuation, not because I didn't believe in the team, not because I didn't believe in the founder, but I just didn't think that there was going to be a sucker that would pay an even higher price next time”