The Ledger
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Lewis: Vengeance is a crucial motivator for historic entrepreneurs
“I think the greatest entrepreneurs in history, and this is a sort of declassé thing to say, it's not really a appropriate thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyways. I think the greatest entrepreneurs in history, it's this combination of a life's work surfa…”
Lewis: Rippling will dominate globally without leaving room for European clones
“Why does some of these European payroll and HR, workforce management companies, not knocking on Europe, but why do you need a rippling for Europe? There's no Airbnb for Europe. There's no Google for Europe. Why do you need a rippling for Europe? Why do you nee…”
Geoff Lewis: Only about a dozen VCs globally actually add value
“I think that some do. And by some, I mean maybe a dozen or so. And so I think there's probably a dozen VCs that you could say are actually value added.”
Geoff Lewis: VC board seats do not add significantly more value
“And then in practice, I don't actually think there's that much that a board can do to help a company. I don't think that being on the board enables you to add an order of magnitude more value than being a involved investor who's not on the board.”
Lewis: Parker Conrad is the most vengeance-driven founder he has backed
“And Parker has that in spades more than any entrepreneur I've backed. He's got it.”
Lewis: Rippling will become the AdWords for SaaS software distribution
“In March of twenty-twenty-two, Parker and the company articulated a very specific and detailed product roadmap around how they can really become, through their employee graph, over time, I don't think he would phrase it this way, but I'm going to, the AdWords …”
Lewis: Rippling's preferred stack will grow linearly or sublinearly relative to revenue
“Because of their approach to product building and go to market, I believe the preferred stack Grows either linearly or sub linearly versus revenue over time versus hyper linearly.”
Lewis: Bedrock refuses to participate in competitive VC fundraising processes
“By the time a company's in a formal financing process, it's kind of dead to us. Like, we still love it, we still love the entrepreneurs, but once they've circulated a memo to 12 VC firms, we're not engaging.”
Lewis: Bedrock lost Rippling's Series B after trying to lower agreed valuation
“We agreed on evaluation with Parker. He's like, send me the term sheet. I'm ready to sign. And we were like, wait, Like all of their business at the time was SMBs. Now, since then they've extended, expanded surface area phenomenally into mid-market. They're st…”
Bedrock exited Bitcoin and Ethereum to fund its investment in Rippling
“And so we traded out of Bitcoin and Ethereum via our second fund and for it, right before the crash for a great multiple and recycled those proceeds to fund our rippling investment.”
Lewis: Pay up for transcendent startups at 300x ARR or invest zero
“The difference between a hundred X AR multiple and a 150 X AR multiple. The reality is those are both insane. And so you have to have extremely high conviction and to have done your diligence and really believe this set of entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs, this com…”
Geoff Lewis: The public-private valuation disconnect has never been greater
“Is the disconnect between the public market valuations and the private market valuations to me has never been greater. And so that is the new variable where I think how that variable ends up playing out is going to be really key.”
Geoff Lewis: At 100x ARR valuations, invest your maximum or zero
“The difference between a hundred X AR multiple and a 150 X AR multiple, the reality is those are both insane. And so you have to have extremely high conviction and to have done your diligence and really believe this set of entrepreneurs, this company is going …”
Geoff Lewis: Uncapped note in Rippling was one of Bedrock's best investments
“I think one of our best investments at Bedrock was doing an uncapped note investment in Rippling”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock does not require minimum ownership targets in startups
“Lots of VCs will say, we need to own a certain percent of a company. We don't have that as a rule here.”
Lewis: Pay 300x ARR with extreme conviction, or invest zero
“And so you have to have extremely high conviction and to have done your diligence and really believe this set of entrepreneurs, this company is going to transcend. And if you feel that way, I would go for it at 300 versus 200. If you don't, I would do zero.”
Lewis: Rippling reached nine-figure ARR with nearly 3x annual growth
“Now they're already at, you know, nine figures of air are growing extremely fast. They grew almost three acts over the past. 1212 months.”
Lewis: Bedrock's VC loss ratio is under 50 basis points
“We at Bedrock have only lost a few million dollars. You know, we've invested hundreds of millions of dollars over almost five years at this point. I think our loss ratio is less than 50 basis points, so we, we've lost almost no money.”
Lewis: Deploying capital via uncapped notes is not real investing
“Uncapped notes aren't actually investing. That's why I hate them. Investing is You know, you should know the price you're paying. That's what an investment is. It's not an investment if you don't know what the price you're paying is for the security.”
Bedrock returned over 10x cash to Fund One LPs from crypto
“So we returned a 10 plus X life to date multiple on our Bitcoin and Ethereum investments on fund one. To our LPs in cash. Nobody even emailed us to thank us.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock deployed 20% of first three funds into Rippling
“It's around 20% of those first three funds now. All in is rippling across all of our investments.”
Geoff Lewis: Youth is a venture manager's biggest asset
“Youth, I would say, is the biggest asset one can have as a venture capital manager. The youth enables you to not be jaded and to rebuild these mental models for every new market, for every new company that you encounter.”
Geoff Lewis: The best companies do not fit pre-existing patterns
“But I do believe that there's a pattern match thing in venture capital. And I think there's some value to that, but the best companies just don't fit any preexisting patterns is what I've found.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock's best-performing deals started with low initial ownership
“For me, the companies where I've done the best, and wherever I look, you know, retrospectively to our bedrock track record, our pre-bedrock track record, the ownership percentages were actually quite low, and so you basically, for me, it's operating the world,…”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock never uses follow-on rounds or markups as validation
“I don't care about what other firms are doing and where other firms are pricing things like, sure. It's nice to get markups, But ultimately, I never want to use follow on financing rounds. It's like validation that a company is working. It's always about the a…”
Geoff Lewis: Capital concentration limits per company harm venture returns
“I think Brian's a hundred percent right on that, and I've learned a lot from him on how to concentrate capital into companies.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock invested in Praxis to build a crypto city-state
“I think the most recent publicly announced one was Praxis, which is they're trying to build a new crypto city-state. I'd gotten to know those founders for several years before we invested in the seed round, and I'm just very excited by the vision around innova…”
Parker Conrad Was Fired from SigFig Before Co-Founding Zenefits
“And this was actually the first company that Parker co-founded. But Parker had been fired from Sigfig right before I took the pitch.”
Lewis: Bedrock underwrites for a 10x return without projecting beyond that
“First question always, is there a 10 X from here? Can we gain conviction through a bust analysis that if things go right, there is a 10 X from here? So that's our work. We don't try to project beyond that, but we do always ask the question, is there a 10 X fro…”
Lewis: Rippling customers need no payroll admins under 1,000 employees
“Rippling customers don't need to hire dedicated payroll administrators until they're over a thousand employees.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock heavily concentrated capital in Rippling, Vercel, and Flock Safety
“So we've concentrated capital in Rippling, Vercel, and Flock Safety to an extreme degree.”
Geoff Lewis: The 2012-2022 venture capital expansion wave is cresting
“This wave that might be cresting now in venture was really just starting back then in 2012.”
Geoff Lewis: Public market corrections will eventually hit early-stage valuations
“I think ultimately the correction will trickle down to the early stages. It's just going to take time. I mean, it's just going to be a delayed reaction at the end of the day, the micro always needs to dominate.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock treats every follow-on check as a first-time investment
“So we, in practice, view every follow-on opportunity as we're investing for the first time.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock's primary ethos is investing in narrative violations
“Our guiding ethos, our principle at bedrock from day zero was we want to search for narrative violations. We want to search for companies that for whatever reason are being overlooked or underestimated by other investors where we can get in at a counter narrat…”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock invested in Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2019
“We did Bitcoin and Ethereum shortly after launching our first fund in 2019.”
Lewis: Vercel is Bedrock's largest investment in dollars and valuation
“Well, of those three that you listed, Vercel is by far our largest investment in terms of dollars, and of those, just worth the other ones by a significant amount.”
Lewis: Vercel grew over 10x in the year following Bedrock's check
“Today, you know, they've grown over 10 X since we initially invested just over a year ago. It's seen as conventionally working and they've raised several rounds of follow on financing given it's working so much.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock has significantly slowed its capital deployment pace
“And we've actually massively slowed our deployment pace over the past few quarters. We're deploying actually much slower now than we were at the height of our prior fund deployment cycles.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock Three will take over three years to deploy
“And with Bedrock Three, I think it's going to be like a three-year-plus type deployment cycle, and future funds will be the same.”
Geoff Lewis: Bedrock evaluates candidates for over 18 months before hiring
“Eric and I knew each other for, you know, eight or nine years before we started Bedrock together. We got to know Spencer for well over 18 months before we actually hired him onto the Bedrock team, and that story is true of basically Basically everyone we've hi…”
Geoff Lewis: Building an unfun corporate machine is a VC failure mode
“I'd say the one that we are most paranoid about avoiding is building a machine that's not actually fun to operate. And so I think there are like lots of firms that have built really impressive machines. And then if I was to transpose myself into being the mana…”
Bedrock quadrupled down on Rippling by co-leading its Series D
“And the value proposition is uniquely suited, I think, to our times, which was part of why we decided to, you know, Quadruple into the company by co-leading that Series D round earlier this year.”
Bedrock accumulated Rippling secondary shares leading up to catalyzing its Series D
“And after that screw up, we opportunistically bought secondary. Predominantly preferred secondary, because part of our thesis is this is going to be a relatively small preferred stack for the scale of the company that they're building at several junctures, and…”