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 893 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
Middleton: None of the four or five HR-selling startups he backed succeeded
“I have backed four or five companies that sell through HR and employee resource groups, and maybe this says more about me than them, but none of them have worked out.”
Josh Muccio offers $150k investment into Aura Finance from The Pitch fund
“No, I was just gonna say, I know you're talking to different leads, but this actually is in model for us, so we would love to invest through the listeners of the show, a 150,000, and then if there's more room, potentially do a syndicate, so I don't know where …”
Kwok: KAV is raising $3M at an $18M pre-money valuation
“The round is a price round led by future communities capital at the eighteen million pre valuation.”
Doherty: Fund underwrites every investment to at least 30x return
“We underwrite every investment in the fund to at least a 30 X. So I love working with founders who are looking at building an enduring big business, but for the math to work for our fund, we need to be involved with entrepreneurs earlier on in their journey.”
Wiseman: Fund underwrites investments targeting 50x to 100x return multiples
“So we're always trying to think about 50 to a hundred X type of, yeah, so this has got to be a big company.”
Art of Shaving Founder Eric Malka Takes 10% Stake in US Entity
“They invested 300,000 on the Italian company. But then I wanted to make a bold move, and I gave him 10% shares as a strategic partner, advisory shares in the U.S. Company, because I wanted him to have the skin in the game, and I thought that less than 10% woul…”
Callegari: Italian Parent Company Owns 90% of US Entity
“No, it's a new entity owned 90% by the Italian company, 10% by strategic brand investment.”
Callegari Pitches $7.5M Valuation on $1.5M in US Revenue
“With 1.5 million dollar revenues, We are targeting a 7.5 pre money valuation.”
McAndrew: $100M Fund Requires $1B Exit Potential for Every Deal
“One of the reasons that I rarely invest in beauty is because we have a hundred million dollar fund. And the way that we think about returns for our fund is we want the opportunity for every company that we invest in to have the opportunity to return our whole …”
Callegari: Reaching $50M in Revenue Requires $13M to $15M in Funding
“In order to get to fifty million, we believe that we need between 13 to fifteen million in funding, and we believe we can get up to four to five million in debt because of the stores.”
Yin's Unlikely Pattern Match: Milanese Founders With Consulting Backgrounds
“I've had really good success with Milan entrepreneurs, specifically people who come out of consulting, which is surprising because usually I don't invest in a lot of consultants. But they, like, they know how to run businesses.”
FolioWorks built a $1.2M ARR and tapped $600M in government subsidies
“We built this platform about a year ago, and since then, we've served over a thousand students, 500 companies, we've built a 1.2 million dollar annual run rate, and we have over six hundred million dollars in subsidies from the government.”
Folio raised $4M on a $16M post-money SAFE valuation
“We raised four million dollars on a sixteen million dollar post-money valuation.”
Folio laid off a third of its team to pivot to B2B
“At the turn of the year, we let go of a third of our team because they didn't have the same Advantage that they had when we were a B to C business as we needed for being a B to B business.”
FolioWorks will give universities free software to dominate the Work-Study market
“So we're going to try to build it in the next three months and then just give it away for free at first in the summer. And just try to dominate every single program.”
Burton: Lockstop charges cities a one-time fee per device and provides monthly data
“So now we charge the cities, Because what we're able to do with the cities, Jesse, is they install these devices, and now they get access to those mobility insights that don't exist anywhere else. So we sell into the city, each individual device, we do a one-t…”
Burton: Lockstop charges cities $750 upfront per device in year one
“Yeah, so year one, we charge cities 750, and then we scale up to 1200 per individual device as we get further along.”
Finn-Doherty: Hardware investments require more advanced revenue traction
“I think for our firm in the hardware space, I usually look for companies that like are a bit further along from a revenue perspective, and I think That's just the risk tolerance that I personally have as an investor for hardware.”
Handle reports $17 average ticket and $4 net contribution margin per order
“Handle builds vertically integrated dark stores adjacent to college campuses. We deliver a curated set of 700 SKUs to students on and off campus in an average of 12 minutes, And we deliver them profitably. Our average ticket is 17 dollars, and we net four doll…”
Bsharah Passes on Locker Over Concerns About User Retention and Lock-In
“And my, I think one of my bigger concerns is how you become sticky. I think shoppers, they're fickle. They go to the next shiny object when something comes along. And I haven't seen that thing that makes you that like that, that locks these people in in a way …”
Locker Rejected a $1 Million Term Sheet at a $5M Valuation
“We received a term sheet while I was on my honeymoon from a fund. The one thing with the term sheet is that the terms were not agreeable. It was a million dollar term sheet for a five million dollar valuation. So we ultimately ended up walking away from that t…”
Hudson passes on ECGO due to doubts about university contract sizes
“I don't think I can get there on the current round, just cause I'm not, I think I have in my mind a sense of how big the university tickets would have to be, and I'm not sure they're there yet.”
Luke Barkley Young: Outlines aims to be the Whole Foods for replenishables
“I think Outlines should be like the destination for replenishable. It's a bit like the way Whole Foods was the destination for
Believable organic produce.”
Sarah Cohn: Social Impact Capital targets $10 billion portfolio business outcomes
“We require ten billion dollar businesses.”
Muccio: The Pitch Fund dropped Wist after Elizabeth Yin passed
“And as you may know, the Pitch Fund typically invests alongside the VCs on her show. So in our minds, the deal was off for us too.”
Banister: Found no investable AR opportunities for two and a half years
“I spent two and a half years turning over every stone in AR, trying to find every investable opportunity I could find, And there just wasn't any, you know, there were a few really interesting goes at industrial uses, things like repairing tractors, educational…”
Muccio: The Pitch Fund commits to investing in Wist
“I think I think we want to invest in this. I think we want to invest in you.”
Jillian Manus: Ride iQ deal is off unless valuation cap is $6M
“I'm not gonna do it if it's not six.”
Jillian Manus passes on Ride iQ, citing a lack of defensibility
“So I'm not gonna invest right now. I feel there's a lack of defensibility here, and I'm not quite sure how you're going to win.”
Charles Hudson would probably invest in Bevz at 20% founder equity
“I would be happier at 22, but I'd probably do it at 20.”
Vigo: Bevz Restructured Equity Tranches at $40M and $80M Valuations
“So we tied it to a company valuation. And so we did two valuations. So it's at a 40 and an eighty million valuation. I'll get two buckets of equity.”
Brown: Uncovered Paused Fundraising to Operate in Perpetual Maintenance Mode
“I've kind of hit pause but we have a plan with the existing team to continue in almost like a just beyond survival mode, right? Like cases still need to get onto the site. Cases still need to be updated. The community still needs to be nurtured. So we have a p…”
Braima: Kimoyo aimed for US investor validation before approaching African VCs
“Our strategy was to first go with US slash Western, more well-known names, honestly, and then switch over to African investors with that kind of validation.”
Charles Hudson passes on Gemist over founder cap table dilution concerns
“I got pretty close on this one, but I think I'm out. I was just doing some math on the cap table here, and I just I worry about what it's, to me, there's one simple fix, which is to give you and your founder more equity in the A, which will come out of the poc…”
HILOS takes 15% of brand unit cost at 100% gross margin
“15% of the unit cost for the brand. So if it's a hundred dollars, let's say, it would be 15 dollars. Of everything sold. That is a hundred percent margin because we didn't actually pay to fulfill that in any way.”
Besenval: Natrion seeks $20 million to build a pilot production line
“And last year we raised a two million dollar seed round. So what we want to do now is build out a pilot production line. And that's why we're raising a twenty million dollar seed round.”
Mark Phillips Offers $300K Investment in Natrion's Note Extension
“I would like to invest in this round, and we'd be looking to write a 300,000 dollar check.”
Jillian Manus Commits $100K to Natrion Alongside Mark Phillips
“I'm gonna take a hundred of your 300.”
Elizabeth Yin passes on Stigma over unproven ROI on healthcare costs
“I, it feels like there are a few hoops that, you know, one needs to jump through to get that conviction that some people watching certain videos will reduce healthcare costs in this way, and I feel like I'm not quite there, so for that reason, I'm out.”
Salhi: Qleek's failure caused trauma, required new business to avoid VCs
“The trauma of clique made me think if I have to start a new business, it has to be completely or Very, very independent from VC funding, that we could try it, and if it fails, we'll know it quickly, but if it succeeds, it can fund itself without external, addi…”
Wildgrain capped customer acquisition cost at $60 to break even quickly
“It was 60 dollars. So you, we spend 60 dollars to acquire a customer, and then we don't spend more than that. Even if spending more than that would bring in a lot more customers, we don't, because we want to make sure that we break even in box two.”
Matthews: DotCal will not lower its $15 million valuation
“There's no way we're going lower in valuation.”
The Pitch plans to build direct startup investment infrastructure for listeners
“What we want to build essentially is the layer that allows listeners to listen to the podcast and click a link in the show description that takes them immediately to something that handles that infrastructure that will allow them to invest.”
Phil Nadel passes on The Pitch over conflict of interest concerns
“By investing, it feels almost like a conflict of interest for me, that, that I'm gonna, that hopefully if I'm still on the show, even though I don't invest, that that I'll feel that I would feel pressured, or I would have some pressure on me That I don't feel …”