Molly Alter
Partner, Index Ventures · Partner, Northzone. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
Molly Alter is a Partner at Northzone, a venture capital firm managing roughly $4 billion in assets. Her prior investments include Frame.io, which was acquired by Adobe for $1.2 billion.
2shows
2appearances
46statements
8resolved
7supported
1contradicted
88%fully supported
Everything Molly Alter said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Alter: European VC funds beat North American funds in 10-year net IRR
“It's not surprising that when you, again, look at the numbers over a 10 and 15 year time horizon, European VC funds have yielded higher net IRR compared to North American ones.”
Alter: Vertical AI offers more exciting opportunities than horizontal or foundational models
“I'm thinking a lot these days about vertical AI and really, you know, the opportunity there being More exciting than sort of horizontal or even foundational layers in AI at the moment.”
Alter: World-class company building requires rare, Olympic-level founder intensity
“Like one thing I learned from Emory, who's the CEO of Frame.io is is that there's no match for intensity. You need it. And he once gave me this really powerful analogy where he said, if I was training for the Olympics of figure skating Nobody would ask me, do …”
Alter: VC firms shouldn't be political because LP metrics are completely objective
“VC has real metrics. Like we have numbers on a page that we're showing to our LPs that we are accountable for. And obviously, you know, sometimes those investing cycles can be long. So sometimes it takes a little bit of time for the numbers to really be clear,…”
Alter: GDPR has become a global standard that actively inhibited tech businesses
“Like GDPR, which first of all has now become a global standard, so I don't think it's specific as much to Europe anymore, but You know, that definitely has inhibited many tech businesses, so there's always nuance and shades of gray.”
Alter: Combining SaaS, AI, and FinTech creates more defensible businesses
“It's not SAS only SAS. It's not only AI. It's never going to be only FinTech, but the combination of these things together makes for a truly defensible, resilient business that, that I think is going to be really large.”
Alter: Index passed on a $10M ARR startup lacking metrics clarity
“The business was ten million in ARR, they were tripling year on year, they had a 150% net dollar retention, 95% gross dollar retention, And they were burning the same amount that they were adding in net new ARR during that year. We ended up passing on the busi…”
Alter: Later-stage investors want line of sight to 20-30% FCF margins
“Many investors, particularly at later stages, want to see a line of sight to 20 to 30% free cash flow margins.”
Alter: $30k ACVs Are Not a Valley of Death for SaaS
“There's a common misconception that thirty-k ACVs are the valley of death, and that no big businesses have been built with thirty-k ACVs. I think this is absolutely wrong, and we have plenty of examples now. Avalara, or even like One Trust being examples.”
Alter: Junior VCs Can Differentiate by Exploring Complex Topics Senior GPs Avoid
“You know, there are so many opportunities to differentiate yourselves. And one of the easiest opportunities I found is to actually look into the boring and complicated stuff that, you know, more senior GPs, Don't want to look into.”
Alter: Deal droughts and sunk costs cause severe VC cognitive biases
“There's things like discovery bias, which is sort of the notion of, I found this investment, so I love it, and it's personal to me. Or there's sunk cost bias, which is really common as well. You know, I spent three weeks in due diligence, so I love it. Or, you…”
Alter: Fund size does not predict internal headcount allocation
“Just the overall size doesn't tell you that much, but when you dig into the actual composition of the team, you really learn what life at those firms will be like.”
Alter: Vertical AI moats come from workflow integrations and sector specificity
“What I see as the big opportunity with vertical software is you have these spaces like legal tech or construction, manufacturing, software for hardware, healthcare that are very specific and you can create this sort of defensibility through leveraging that spe…”
Alter: 2024 will be the third most active year for European VC
“You know, if the pace continues, I think twenty-twenty-four will become the third most active year ever for VC funding in Europe.”
Alter: Hardware incumbents persist because tooling shifts require changing physical processes
“A software team can really easily start using a new task management tool or a debugging tool without having to change their desk. But a manufacturing or design team would have to really shift real world physical processes in order to adopt any kind of new tool…”
Alter: Declining birth rates and onshoring will drive software-for-hardware investment
“You have things like global onshoring, declining birth rates, which has more of an impact than you would think. And the threat of Chinese competition as well. These factors have lit a fire underneath manufacturing teams to push themselves on efficiency. And so…”
Alter: Toyota, Boeing, and Samsung pay tens to hundreds of millions for legacy software
“Toyota we found pays Matlab, fifty million dollars a year. Boeing pays Simulink and MATLAB hundreds of millions. Samsung has an eight figure contract with Atlassian.”
Alter: AI will inevitably disrupt legacy engineering and simulation software tools
“Simulation tools are going to have a moment and AI Is and will continue to come for them.”
Alter: Workflow SaaS is the essential delivery mechanism for unlocking AI's value
“I think workflow SaaS is the delivery mechanism that will allow AI to actually, you know, keep its promise.”
Alter: Granular command of imperfect metrics positions founders well to fundraise
“What the big takeaway from this presentation should be is that it's not just the metrics themselves that matter, but it's your command and your control of these metrics that will make a big difference. And it's pretty empowering because nobody will have perfec…”
Alter: Reaching $1M ARR within one year post-launch is very good
“So from one year after launch to get to one million in ARR would be considered very, very good. Nine months is excellent. This is from launch, not after incorporation.”
Alter: T2D3 growth is considered best-in-class after reaching $1M ARR
“And then after that, triple, triple, double, double, double is considered best in class. But again, I want to emphasize that all of this should be taken in conjunction with the broader picture on metrics.”
Alter: A 1:1 ratio of net new ARR to burn is excellent
“And I think one of the most interesting metrics to track with burn is just your net new ARR divided by your burn. And some people do it the other way around. They do your burn over your net new ARR. Generally speaking, around one is considered very good.”
Alter: Index Ventures advises portfolio companies to maintain 24 months of runway
“So we've adjusted at Index our own guidance around this to extend runway as much as possible, ideally to 24 months, which should give everyone enough time to ride out different market fluctuations and continue to grow and optimize other metrics as well.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Molly's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 SOURCERYLEDGER | Partner, Northzone | 1 | 26 | 83% 5/6 | full record on Sourcery → |
 SAASTRLEDGER | Partner, Index Ventures | 1 | 20 | 100% 2/2 | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |