The Ledger
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Europe had only 42 active Series A funds versus 140 out West
“Active Series A funds, which for us meant funds that have done at least five Series A investments in the last three years. And we looked at West Coast versus New York versus Europe. West Coast, I think that's something like a 140 active Series A funds. New Yor…”
UK tax relief schemes distort the ecosystem by funding lifestyle businesses
“EIS and SEIS does mutate the UK ecosystem. Some of the guys that are getting seed funding from Goldman Sachs bankers, nothing wrong with Goldman Sachs bankers. Probably should not be getting Series A funding, right? It's not a VC fundable business, but it migh…”
VC stage designations like Series A are meaningless across different geographies
“Yeah, and I think calling it C or series A or series B means nothing nowadays, because it really varies by geography.”
Consumer startups cannot rely exclusively on mobile apps without a web presence
“Mobile will be a strong component of any consumer facing offering. I don't believe in mobile only. I actually think, and we saw it even at Facebook with Instagram, and we saw it with Path, we saw it with others. You do need to have a landing point on the web a…”
Day-one startup employees rarely scale into C-suite executive roles
“I think that one of the hardest decisions is the fact accepting that the guy that was with you or gal on day one is not likely to be that SVP of sales or even CTO that you might need to scale your company as you hit thirty million users.”
General Assembly courses will not produce elite head of product leaders
“I mean, you're not going to become a product man, a rockstar head of product by actually going to a general assembly product management course.”
Venture capital cannot be disrupted without changing the 10-year fund model
“We're still seen in the same bucket as a private equity fund, 10 years capped, Return my money based on capital calls, minimum return, and until that change, some of the flexibility that might be needed to disrupt the asset class is not going to be there.”
Junior VC roles rarely offer a direct career path to partner
“And then if you're coming in at an analyst or associate level, you have to accept that it might not be a career path.”
UK Series A funding grew only 1.4x between 2011 and 2016
“Series A had actually only gone up, I believe, 1.4 X in that same period.”
Paris startup ecosystem is underrated for momentum and talent
“Paris is, I think, underrated for what it is in terms of momentum and talent.”
White Star Capital has made zero investments on the US West Coast
“So we now with the fund, we do actually done zero investments in the West coast.”
E-commerce continues to convert better on desktop screens than on mobile
“And e-commerce is increasing, but still converts better on, on a bigger screen.”
Facebook generated $80 million in revenue within three years of its launch
“Three years after Launching in a dorm room, Facebook was making about eighty million dollars and quickly jumped to over three hundred million dollars and then took off.”
Google achieved profitability within two or three years of its founding
“Google was actually profitable, I think, by year two or year three.”
Head of product is the hardest startup role to hire in Europe
“So head of product is probably the hardest role to find in Europe.”
AngelList's platform and $400M fund could disrupt venture capital deal flow
“AngelList is a great example where AngelList builds a platform on top of which they prove success, on top of which they go raise a four hundred million dollar fund. That could have, that has the potential to be a disruptive new way of doing both deal flow and …”
Private equity and banking pathways into VC are more prevalent in Europe
“Or a third part path, which is more prevalent, I think, in Europe than in the US, you come in through the ranks of private equity or banking and then come in as an investment side.”
Becoming a venture capital partner requires a multi-decade commitment
“If you're going to be a partner, you have to make a commitment for a decade, if not decades because if you're raising a fund and the promise that you are part of that story for the life of the fund, and by the way, in that fund, you will probably raise fund tw…”
MicroStrategy lost 72% of its $30B market cap in a single day
“We went public, had a thirty billion market cap valuation, And then lost 72% in one day.”