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 71 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 2 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
Mohnot: VCs who opposed Saudi money are now hypocritically seeking it
“We haven't, but I think it is very hypocritical that all these folks who were anti-Saudi money are now over there just praising everything.”
Mohnot: Large VC funds prioritize management fees over investment returns
“And I think a lot of the large funds have gotten so large that they're really more management fee focused than they are returns focused.”
Mohnot: Multi-stage funds lose winners by writing small competitor checks
“My portfolio company that is working is raising a series A or series B. They don't want to talk to that investor because that investor invested a million dollars in their competitor. That competitor is almost dead anyway, but they're like, fuck them. I'm not g…”
Mohnot: Active founders leading venture deals through side funds is crazy
“I think there are founders who have funds on the side who like lead deals. And that is crazy to me.”
Mohnot: Better Tomorrow Ventures waives part of its 2% management fee
“You know, now we have three hundred million AUM. We could take two percent, which is six million to run our business. We actually take a much smaller amount and return it to LPs.”
Mohnot: Large seed rounds create complacent startup teams
“Raising big rounds makes people like makes people cushy. You end up attracting people with salaries that, like, actually they could have gone into a big company and actually they belong at a big company.”
Mohnot: Founders should limit secondary sales to 1x ARR at Series B
“My rule that I like to live by is at the series B and beyond, you can take as much secondary as you have in ARR.”
Mohnot: Founder secondary sales exceeding 1x ARR correlate with negative returns
“But I think if you look at, if you did an index of companies where founders took You know, a lot more than that, what I described, like, one X ARR off the table. You have a very negative returning fund.”
Mohnot: A severe startup valuation drop is coming due to market overhang
“I think there's this overhang of valuations and we haven't yet seen the drop that is going to come and it's going to be so severe.”
Mohnot: Tiger Global will raise much smaller funds moving forward
“And I think, so I think they're doing a really good job now, and I think I think it's gonna be a much smaller fund, and like you said, it's gonna be a ton of their own GP money, but I'm excited about them. I think they're good actors.”
Mohnot: SoftBank made incredibly poor decisions pouring capital into unready companies
“SoftBank, I think, is just really tough. Like, they made just a ton of incredibly poor decisions, poured a ton of money into bad companies, and they really sort of, like, We talked about five on 25. For them, it's more like 500 on 2.5 for a company that was no…”
BTV's Top Fund I Deals Grew From Single-Digit Valuations to Over $300M
“Number one we led a deal at 12 and a half million. It's now worth 1.2 billion. Number two, our first check was at, it was either eight or ten million and it's now six hundred million. Number three, first investment was at two million. It's now six hundred mill…”
Tier-One VC Funds Are Now Accepting 8% Ownership Stakes in Series A
“So I think it's happening and that never used to happen. You wouldn't have like a tier one fund taking Eight percent ownership in a Series A. But that's happening.”
Mohnot: Chime Is Significantly Overvalued at a $25 Billion Valuation
“While chime at twenty-five billion is probably very significantly overvalued.”
Mohnot: Investing in Seed Startups at $50M Valuations Rarely Yields Returns
“So you can't invest at a seed company at a fifty million dollar valuation and expect to make money. Like that's, if you're doing that, it's just going to be really tough.”
Mohnot: Data-driven VC invested in Zume Pizza based on Facebook shares
“So, okay, on that company, I met a guy who invested in that company early, or relatively early, and it was a data-driven VC. And I was like, what data do you have for this company? And he was like, we have all this data on, like, number of shares on Facebook o…”
Mohnot prefers in-person work but will not mandate it for startups
“And now, it is actually my preference that companies are in person, but I can't mandate it. I don't mandate it because I think we've seen too many success stories that aren't all in person.”
Mohnot: Even top venture capitalists struggle to identify moats
“And I think it's like, there are ways that you can invest, but actually knowing what to invest in or what a mode is, I think people are still figuring it out. And even if you look at the greats, they have a bunch of misses and they have a bunch of companies th…”
Mohnot: VC funds will not return uninvested capital this cycle
“I don't think so. I know that that's happened in the past. I don't just, I just don't see it happening this cycle. And probably if it were to happen, it would have already happened.”
Mohnot: Seed leads are forced to follow on when reputable investors join
“If you lead the seed round and somebody good is following on, you kind of have to follow on.”
Mohnot: Single-check VC strategies force follow-on capital into weaker companies
“If your strategy is just to do one check, but you have to do some follow-ons, then you end up not Following on to your best companies, you end up following on when you have to, which can be your worst companies.”
Mohnot: 2021 emerging market seed valuations hit $20M despite hard exit paths
“People started paying, like, seed rounds at twenty million dollar valuations, and in, in a market that's gonna be a really tough path to get to a billion dollar plus exit.”
Mohnot: Fintech is not dead, just back to its historic baseline
“So I don't think fintech's dead. I think we're just back to where we were a few years ago.”
Mohnot: Hype-driven founders have left fintech for generative AI
“I think now we're in a much better place and the people that, that incremental founder that was building in fintech because it was cool is now building a gen AI tool.”
Mohnot: Unit is the winner in banking-as-a-service
“That company has been super successful, like, they're, you know, I think the winner in this banking as a service space.”
Mohnot: Every committed LP backed out of BTV's March 2020 fund close
“And this close that we were supposed to do in March, everyone who had already committed, including people who had signed, backed out.”
Mohnot: Y Combinator is too scaled to provide specialized fintech support
“YC is a totally different beast. YC is great. Like they've great, great companies, but it's really built for scale. And it, and some of our portfolio companies that went through YC said they didn't really get the support in FinTech that they needed. They have …”
Mohnot: VCs should invest only in category leaders, not secondary players
“Invest in the best company, not in number two or number three. And a lot of those haven't have shaken out to not, not work out that well.”
Mohnot: Better Tomorrow Ventures will cap its fund size at $225M
“My fund zero was fifteen million, then we went to 75, and now we're two 25 total. But we don't want to grow from here.”
Mohnot: The venture industry does not need thousands of new managers
“I actually don't think we need like, we don't need like a hundred new managers or thousands of new managers every year.”
Mohnot: Operators running tiny micro-VC funds will struggle to raise Fund 2
“I don't think many of these folks are going to continue on. Like their fund two, fund threes are going to be really tough.”
Mohnot Faked Having a Fund by Investing Personal Capital for 18 Months
“For the first 18 months, I was basically funding it out of my own pocket, pretending like I had a fund. And it was most of the money I had at the time. Like I was selling stock to invest in startups to pretend like I had a fund.”
Mohnot: Multi-stage funds reduced Series A ownership targets from 20% to 15%
“Is a lot of, let's say a lot of the like multi-stage funds, typically historically leading series A's, they used to have an ownership threshold of. 20% minimum. And now they have a lower ownership threshold, 15.”
Sheel Mohnot: Venture capital is less sharp-elbowed and competitive today
“So I think actually, I think we're less sharp elbow than we used to be.”
Mohnot: VC-dependent customer acquisition models create inherently worse businesses
“Businesses that constantly need venture capital dollars to acquire customers just aren't as good businesses.”
Mohnot: Failed investments bias VCs against viable business models
“And I think the biggest miss for me was you look at a model, you've invested in a model that didn't work and you have the idea that it can't work. And actually, no, that's not true. It's just like the founder didn't do the right things to make it work.”
Mohnot: Venture GP fund commitments should cap at 10% of net worth
“So I think it really should be some portion of your net worth, and maybe it should be, like, up to 10% of your net worth should be in a fund. And that's a significant portion, but not like, it's not like you're gonna need an extra, like, you're not gonna wanna…”
Mohnot: Venture markets in Africa and Pakistan face the greatest downturn
“I think the markets that are in the most trouble are Africa and Pakistan.”
Mohnot: BTV portfolio company slashed $7M/month burn to reach cash flow positivity
“We actually have companies that have been able to do it, and like, we have a company that went from burning seven million dollars a month at the beginning of this year to probably being free cash flow positive in the next couple months.”
Mohnot Has Not Read a Book in Twelve Years
“I haven't read a book in a dozen years, and I've found that, like, I know authors, I find that, like, books are too long and full of fluff, I get a lot more out of reading articles, long form articles or listening to podcasts.”
Mohnot: More venture capital funds will shrink their fund sizes
“I think we'll see more. I think we have to.”
Mohnot: Better Tomorrow Ventures' European investments do not serve local markets
“Some of the companies we've invested in Here are actually not serving the local market. So one of them is a company that sells into banks globally. One of them actually sells primarily in India. And then we have a couple that actually none serve just the local…”
Mohnot: Over-funding duplicate startups destroys sector profitability through price competition
“In 20, 20, 20, 21, every company we funded, there were five companies just like it. Also with great founders, with great investors. And so what ended up happening is a bunch of capital went into these companies and five companies serving the same customer set.…”
Mohnot: Emerging VC managers should execute a first close immediately
“Just close as soon as possible, like, then they, then LPs can take you seriously because you have a fund and you're investing.”
Mohnot: Better Tomorrow Ventures caps individual LP concentration at 10%
“So we, all of our LPs are 10% or less of our fund, and it makes us feel good now in a market where if any one LP doesn't come into our next fund because, you know, circumstances changed, it doesn't, it's fine for us.”
Mohnot: 500 Fintech cohorts produced five 70x return companies
“We have five companies that are more than 70 X on each, in each of the, so we did five cohorts of six to 10 companies, and out of all those, so say it's like 40 companies in total, we have five companies that are delivering more than 70 X return.”