Robert Lacher (Visionaries Club) discusses the surge of US-headquartered multi-stage venture funds opening London offices and competing in European early-stage tech investing.
Opinion
Lacher: Founders Should Kill Pro-Rata Rights to Eliminate Signaling Risks
“If I was a founder, and I'm speaking against my own interests a little as an investor, being opportunistic, but why the hell would you give someone a paratha right? Because either that investor needs to earn it and really show that they're doing great work, so…”
Insight
Lacher: Seed Checks From Multi-Stage VCs Create Severe Series A Risk
“If you have an aggressive Multi-stage fund in your cap table, everyone knows if you're killing it, they would preempt your next round. They would clearly do the A round. That's certain. Can give you 10,000 examples. It's just, if things are going okay, but not…”
Insight
Lacher: Multi-stage VC win rates at Series A dropped from 50% to 1-10%
“Series A has become such a red ocean for VCs competing to enter the rounds that it's just very difficult to win deals. If you were a multi-stage fund five years ago, you would maybe have a 50% chance to win a term sheet in one of your great founders, right? An…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lacher: Series A ARR Thresholds Have Shifted to $1.5M–$2.5M
“I think what maybe used to be if we take 500 K AR maybe three years ago with a great Walt Disney story and a few great product references would have been in a round that many would have many VC funds would have looked at, which Today, I think the corridor has …”
Insight
Lacher: Outperforming portfolio founders are independent and seek targeted advice
“Those founders in our portfolio that really outperformed were pretty independent Founders that really just were looking, if they were looking for advice, they were looking for a 10 out of 10 highly strategic or on the point advice to answer a certain question.”
Disclosure
Lacher: Visionaries Club LPs Are Exclusively Successful Entrepreneurs and Founders
“The difference from our LP base compared to other VCs is that we only have successful entrepreneurs. So we have 25 unicorn founders, like the founders of UiPath, Miro, Flix, Barcello, Fresh.”