The Ledger
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Emerging Market Startup Deals Require Higher Integrity Screening and Local Diligence
“I do think you sometimes have to screen for integrity a little bit higher and I'm Indian, so I can say that, but like, I do think, you know, like from a diligence perspective and stuff, the one thing I try and do is a little bit of local diligence because ther…”
Nagpal Asserts That the Majority of VC Investors Detract Value From Startups
“I think the majority of investors take away value, not a ton, take away value.”
Vibe Capital Charges Zero Management Fees to Invest 100% of Capital
“We also charge zero management fees. So a hundred percent of the capital we raised ended up being invested.”
Founders Should Optimize for Median-Case Outcomes, While VCs Optimize for Best-Case
“I think founders should optimize for the median case outcome, like a case where the company could do relatively well and you can still end up wealthy versus the very, very best case outcome while investors should always optimize the very, very best case outcom…”
Founders Should Accept Preemptive Series A Rounds but Reject Series B
“I think a preemptive A, you do it. A preemptive B, you don't. Because I think at an A, you already have a roughly infinite amount of money. Like, you're pre-product market fit, and you have five million dollars in the bank, that's more than enough. The differe…”
Nagpal Advises Founders to Take Secondary Liquidity When Offered
“But as a founder, I've multiple times given multiple of my companies, the advice, the founders rather advice that Go ahead, take the secondary, because if I was in your position, I would have done that.”
Middle 80% of VC Funds Will Get Squeezed Out by Top Firms
“I think there's, like, this, like, 80% of everything else in the middle, I think, is who I think will compete it against from both sides. Like, if you're not amongst the best firms, or if you're not an operator that thinks like a founder, moves at the speed of…”
Good Businesses at Cheap Prices Are Often the Worst Venture Investments
“My worst early investments were things that were frankly good businesses at great prices, and as a founder, you know, get trapped into being like, wow, this is actually a really solid business or profitable, the price is incredible, but then you realize this m…”
Nagpal Considers Teachable's $250M Acquisition by Hotmart a Middling Outcome
“I think the teachable outcome was a middling outcome. I mean, I'm obviously very proud of, you know, what the team accomplished and all of that, and big fans of the company Hotmart that we ended up being acquired by. But yeah, I would classify as very much as …”
Vibe Capital Will Slow Down Investments in Overheated Markets Like Pakistan
“But yeah, so right now, a lot of those markets are too heated, and we're going to slow down a little bit.”
Venture Capital Investing Is Vastly Easier Than Operating a Company
“Having operated a company for seven years, there is nothing that we do as investors that is even remotely close to, you know, how hard actually running and operating a company is, which is why I know it's a cop out of an answer, but like literally nothing I do…”
Nagpal Personally Funded 33% of Vibe Fund I and 25% of Fund II
“I put a large amount of capital into the fund myself. So for the first fund, it was, you know, a third of the fund for the second, probably 25% of the fund.”
Ankur Nagpal Launches Vibe Capital Fund II With At Least $70M
“We're now excited to launch fund two, which will be, you know, an At least seventy million dollars, maybe a little bit more.”
Vibe Capital Does Not Set Aside Formal Fund Reserves for Follow-Ons
“So we never kept formal reserves just because I want to have the flexibility downstream to adapt to new information, right?”
Teachable Maintained a Two-Person Board for Its Entire Existence
“We had a two-person board for the entirety of Teachable, which is, which I highly recommend.”
Accomplice's Jeff Fagnan Is Vibe Capital's Largest LP
“He went from that to the starting Spearhead, giving me an angel fund, to now developing into our largest LP, where we're co-investing in deals together”
Founders Should Target 85th-90th Percentile Valuations Rather Than Maximum Pricing
“So as an example, as a founder, I always wanted, I don't know, the 85th, 90th percentile price, and I would still give people advice to do the same. Not the hundred percentile price, not the single best price.”
Mega VCs Should Back Operator Funds as LPs Instead of Acquiring Them
“I don't think it would be prudent of them to acquire these operator funds. They may choose to anyways, but it won't be prudent because I think what makes these funds special is the fact that they're independent, and that independence is what allows them to be …”
Venture Capital and Public Market Investing Will Blur Together
“With that, what I personally think will happen is I think venture and public marketing will kind of, right now, they seem like two distinct things. I think they'll keep sort of happening on a continuum where the differences will start becoming less and less.”
Vibe Capital Turned Down Recent Secondary Liquidity Offers From Large Firms
“I mean, just in the last two months, we've had the chance to sell out of positions. We're not going to because that would be stupid at this stage from large firms coming in and offering that kind of liquidity”
Nagpal: My First Two Angel Investments Are Now Worth Zero Dollars
“My first two investments, I'm not going to name them, but I'm pretty sure they're worth zero dollars today.”
Teachable Raised $13M and Sold With $10M Still in the Bank
“At Teachable, too, we raised thirteen million dollars in equity financing, which is pretty small for kind of where the company ended up. When we sold, we still had ten million in the bank.”
Nagpal Admits Vibe Capital Fund I Was Overly Diversified With 80 Companies
“So, you know, we ended up with almost 80 companies in fund one, which was very clear that it was too many and it was a little bit too diversified.”
Vibe Capital Fund II Targets 40 Core Positions Up to $4M
“So for fund two, our goal is to concentrate a little bit more. I think we'll end up with roughly Four D-ish core positions, and by core positions, I would define them, you know, average of one and a half million dollars per position, but there'll be a range, I…”