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 979 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 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
Lemkin: Thoma Bravo's latest fund is still at negative IRR
“Tomo Bravo is incredible, but their last fund is, is, it's J curve S, but it's still negative IRR.”
Lemkin: Public SaaS multiples will rebound 20% to 40% by late 2023
“And so I'm pretty bullish at the end of this year. I'm bullish that multiples will be up somewhere between 20 and 40%, and I believe that will lead to a rush to deploy capital, but for founders, you have to understand that will never lead to a return of 2021.”
Lee: Series A valuations will reset to $20M-$40M pre-money
“Well, Series A's we're going to be back to eight to twelve million dollars, and Series A valuations will be back to 20 to 35, 40 pre. And B's will be back to a hundred pre, instead of four or 500 pre.”
Pepper: SaaS Multiples Will Settle Higher Than May 2022 Levels Within 24 Months
“I happen to be one of the bulls and I'm not calling the bottom. That's not our job to pick the bottom, but my guess is that we do settle out at multiples higher than today over the next. 24 months. And we get back to that being normal as opposed to normal bein…”
Lemkin: B2B SaaS Startups Will Avoid Widespread Layoffs Due to Cash Reserves
“I don't think there's going to be very many layoffs or issues and B to B companies because they're very well funded.”
Bedecarre: Apple, Meta, Salesforce, and Slack back in offices by April 2022
“Big tech, you know, that Apple, Salesforce, Facebook, Meta you know, Slack all of these companies are kind of targeting over the next couple months, but by April, they will all be back.”
Bedecarre: BLS data shows only 5.5% of businesses reduced office footprints
“Only 5.5% of businesses have reduced their square feet relative to how many employees they have in the country.”
82% of enterprises decide on software in six months or less
“82% of enterprises, a thousand employees or more, are saying, I don't need more than six months to make a decision.”
67% of buyers only engage sales after making a purchase decision
“Perhaps more startling, 67% of companies usually engage a salesperson after they've already made a decision.”
Lemkin: Top VCs read every cold email and decide within a week
“Every single one of them said they read every single cold email they get, and every single one of them invests in one week.”
Kellogg: Net Dollar Retention Shows Almost Zero Correlation With SaaS Multiples
“The R squared is only .O six between net dollar retention and enterprise value to next 12 months revenue.”
Lemkin: Founders should model a 50% drop in VC deals and funding
“I think for founders and other folks that are on this, I would model today, 50% decline in the number of companies that get funded and 50% decline in the dollars that go out there.”
Jay Simons: Atlassian spends twice as much on R&D as on S&M
“We spend twice on R&D, you know, that, that we do in sales and marketing.”
Reina: ElevenLabs scaled from $0 to over $600M ARR in 41 months
“And when you look at the stats, for instance, we went from Zero to a hundred million dollars in ARR in 20 months. Then we went from a hundred to two hundred million dollars in another 10 months. Then we went from 200 to three hundred and thirty million in anot…”
Drumright: Harvey employs around 180 former lawyers as legal engineers
“We have, you know, I think a 180 legal engineers who are Working with these law firms and in-house teams on building bespoke agents based upon the firm's best practice, the playbooks, their precedent. And these legal engineers have themselves been lawyers for …”
Lemkin: Podium generated over $100M in AI agent revenue
“When Podium went, became agentic about a year half ago and crossed a hundred million of agent revenue, the agents for the same customers, for the same HVAC guys and other trades, the agent all of a sudden could do a lot more than get a lead.”
Lemkin: Twilio's growth rebounded to over 20% due to AI agent APIs
“And to me, Twilio is another example. It almost died. It's growing four percent. Now it's growing over 20% because the API worked with agents.”
Lemkin: Mailchimp's revenue dropped nearly 20 percent last year at Intuit
“Mailchimp's revenue fell almost 20% last year at Intuit.”
O'Driscoll: Hyperscalers Spending $688B on AI CapEx Against $110B in Revenues
“We are spending in AI CapEx just among the hyperscalers
Six hundred and eighty eight billion dollars this year.
On the other hand, and that's how it takes to make AI.
Think of that as all the money, I'm very simplistic, all the money going in to just make AI h…”
The Coca-Cola Christmas Commercial Was Generated on the Higgsfield AI Platform
“We have seen many Olympic ads, Christmas ads, like Coca-Cola Christmas ad was generated on Hicksville.”
Lemkin: Cloudflare Laid Off 20% of Workforce Despite Crushing Financial Numbers
“And they did one of the first mass layoffs of a company doing really, really well. So they let off 20% of their workforce, even though they're crushing all their numbers.”
Lemkin: Public Software Stocks Trade at S&P 500 Discount for First Time
“Public software stocks, for the first time ever, are trading at a discount to the overall S&P.”
Lemkin: Palantir Accelerated to 85% Growth; Karp Projects Over 100%
“Palantir, going from 27% growth just two and a half years ago to 85% growth today. 85%. Alex Karp said in the last earning call he's projecting over a hundred percent growth at their scale.”
Lemkin: Replit and Lovable share similar size and growth rates
“So it's funny, as a case study, Lovable and Replit, like, they're arch and arch competitors. They're about the same size, same growth, same everything, same, but they started totally differently.”
Lemkin: Descript reached $50M in revenue before CEO stepped down
“But, and it just makes me sad because they got to fifty million in revenue. And it got hard. The CEO stepped down, gave the keys to his VP of product, left the company because it got hard.”
Lemkin: Benioff Stated Envy of Palantir's Deal Size and FDE Model
“When Mark Benioff came on the TwentyVC with me and Maureen Harry, he said, my number one wish, my number one thing I'm jealous of Palantir's is one, their deal size. But two, I wish I could give everyone an FDE before I had to charge them.”
Lemkin: Atlassian Re-Accelerated at $5B Revenue but Trades at 4x ARR
“Atlassian beat the quarter. It's re-accelerated at five billion in revenue and it trades at Forex ARR.”
Lemkin: AI SDR startups like Artisan and Clay start at $100K
“Startups like artisan and qualified and clay, they're expensive, man. They're like a hundred grand to start.”
Lemkin: ElevenLabs recently crossed $350 million in revenue
“Great, but 11 labs just crossed three hundred fifty million.”
Adams: Intercom's AI product Fin is close to $100M ARR
“You will grow to like a hundred million in AR or very quickly. Finn's on that path, very close to it.”
Lemkin: Marc Benioff has 2,000 Salesforce employees building Agentforce
“That's why Asian force has to win. That's why Mark has 2000 people working on it.”
Lemkin: Half of Venture Capital Dollars Go to Just Four Deals
“Half of all the venture capitalists here is going into four deals.”
Lemkin: Sierra and Intercom's Finn Scaled to $100M in Revenue
“Sierra went from nothing to a hundred million in one year, Decagon, lots of others. Intercom was just here, Finn. They, their AI products at a hundred million right after the company growth.”
Lemkin: Half of Enterprise Software Budget Growth Absorbed by Price Hikes
“Of this record budget increase, according to Gardner, which I'll show you, half is going into price increases, right? A few years ago, not everybody increased price to seven or eight percent every year. Now everyone's doing it to fatiguing their base. So half …”
Lemkin: 30% of new enterprise software spend goes to new AI tools
“And 30% of it is going into new AI tools that they're bringing in. It doesn't leave much left for all the rest.”
Lemkin: AI Video App Higgsfield Scaled to $100M Revenue This Year
“I'm a small investor in a video app called Higgs field. I, you know, I just thought they'd get a million dollars on black Friday and already got to a hundred million this year doing video and they have tons of competition.”
Gartner: Software Spend Growth Projected to Reaccelerate to 15.2% in 2026
“This is, and if they're predicting it's going to reaccelerate to 15.2 for software, 9.8% overall for it.”
OpenAI deploys HIPAA-regulated AI technology across UCSF
“We now have in America, it's HIPAA, I'm not sure if it's the same out here, but a HIPAA regulated version of our technology, and we are already selling this to physicians, to doctors, UCSF, it's a top leading hospital in America. Every single person there has …”
Lemkin: Sierra grew from $1M to $100M revenue in a year
“Sierra just said they went from one to a hundred million in a year. Brett Taylor, ex, you know, ex CTO of Facebook, co-CO of Salesforce, just going out to people and saying, you can replace a lot of your support teams with AI.”
Lemkin: AI presentation platform Gamma will reach $80 million in revenue in 2024
“We read about gamma and we love gamma for AI presentations, one to eighty million that we'll do this year, but it was founded in 20, 20. So it was five years to one and then one to 80 this year.”
Lemkin: Zendesk automates 60-80% of enterprise support versus 20% for self-serve
“With our top Customers at Zendesk, we can automate 60 to 80% of support and related interactions. Okay. Makes sense. They train them for months, sometimes for months at Zendesk for their big customers. For our Self Survey AI, it's 20%.”
Marc Benioff Is Envious of Palantir's Forward Deployed Engineering Model
“He said, this is the number one thing he was jealous of Palantir was one of it was how, how, how, how well they charge their customers, but he was most jealous of what they've done in forward deployed engineers. He said, what I would love at Salesforce is that…”
Lemkin: Datadog Manages All DevOps for OpenAI and Accelerated Growth
“Datadog has accelerated. Because it sells to all those leaders because it does all DevOps for open AI.”
Lemkin: Replit Grew From $1M to $150M ARR This Year
“You know, Replit's one to a hundred and fifty million this year.”
Lemkin: Filevine Reached $3B Valuation Through AI Reacceleration
“Now it's worth three billion and it's accelerating.”
Lemkin: Replit grew from $1M to $160M in revenue this year
“And I would say Replit, which I use is the nerdiest of them because I think because it started as an idea, a platform for developers 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago, and then blew up as a prosumer platform this year, going from one to one hundred and sixty m…”