Prediction Not checkable as stated
Levin: U.S. immigration and tariff barriers will benefit overseas startups
“To the extent that immigration policies are changing, tariff policies, a lot of things that are kind of becoming barriers for innovation in the U.S., in my opinion, are going to help overseas startups as well”
Insight
Levin: More people are cut out to be investors than entrepreneurs
“And I think they're probably in all honesty, more people that are cut out to be investors than there are entrepreneurs”
Opinion
Levin: Leading VCs create great companies rather than just picking them
“Some of those investors are not just great pickers. They have the ability to create great companies. Because they put their full weight behind them.”
Insight
Levin: VC herd behavior carries valuable signal, not just noise
“I would not discount the fact that there is a race among VCs to know who is investing in what, because there's a lot of signals and not just noise in that.”
Opinion
Levin: Early-stage startups paying fundraising intermediaries is a negative signal
“Well, as an investor, certainly at the very early stages to me, it's somewhat of a negative signal. If I see that they've hired and are actually paying, whether it's an investment bank or you know, usually these are more boutique type of operations.”
Insight
Levin: True first checks usually come from friends, family, or angels
“The truth is that, you know, the first check in are usually the friends and family or the angel investors that are willing to take a bet because they know the founder personally. And, you know, those are the really the high risk investors that are willing to g…”
Insight
Levin: VCs Brag About Deck Volume to Signal Selectivity to LPs
“Well, I think they're trying to, in many ways, show their for one, show their LPs that they're being selective. And secondly, I mean, it's also true. I know as an investor, I get loads of inbound and we get so many decks from linked over LinkedIn, over email. …”
Insight
Levin: Founders should recruit advisors 3-5 years ahead in non-competing niches
“Go out and find an advisor who's basically in the same industry doing something non-competitive and is at probably three to five years ahead of where you are now and where you want to be.”
Disclosure
Levin expects to invest in fewer true pre-revenue seed deals going forward
“Probably a smaller percentage of the deals I invest in going forward are going to be real true pre-revenue deals.”
Insight
Levin: Reaching $1M ARR indicates product-market fit for startups
“This one million ARR threshold, it seems to be kind of this turning point, like, okay, that's kind of like, okay, that's product market fit.”
Insight
Levin: Top venture capitalists succeed at a .300 baseball average rate
“The best VCs do not bat a thousand, right? You know, in baseball, if you're hit 300, you're on the all-star team and you might be taking your team to the world series and venture capital is something like that.”
Assertion Supported
Levin: TravelPerk recruited GetYourGuide CEO Johannes Reck as first advisor
“One of the very first things I did was I approached the co-founder and CEO of get your guide guy named Johannes wreck to be our first advisor.”
Disclosure
Alumni Ventures caps pre-Series A checks at $300k–$500k including syndication
“We're frequently around 50 or a hundred K. If we really have very high conviction on something, maybe it's a late seed or, you know, the syndicate is just phenomenal and there are other indicators of really rapid growth. We might also syndicate it in addition …”
Disclosure
Alumni Ventures writes follow-on checks up to $8M–$10M in later rounds
“And later we do write million up to call it eight or ten million depending on many factors.”
Opinion
Levin admits his co-founder makes a better CEO than he would have
“One of my co-founders is still the CEO today and he's cut out for it. He's a great entrepreneur. He was originally our CTO. He's technical. He's commercial. He's, You know, builds the right culture. And I really admire that. And, you know, in all honesty, and …”
Disclosure
Levin: Every startup investment must have unicorn or IPO potential
“Every investment I make, I think has the potential of becoming a unicorn or an IPO, but I know from statistics and reality that stuff's going to happen.”
Opinion
Levin: Hiring fundraising intermediaries is justified for later-stage mega-rounds
“If you're a later stage company and you're raising You know, a hundred million dollar series E or something. Sure. Okay. There's justification in hiring somebody to help in that process. You're talking to only larger institutional growth investors and so forth”
Disclosure
Levin: Early angel investments of $25K-$50K went to zero within a year
“Oh, I mean, I, I've had a few that, I mean, investments of 25 to 50,000 that, that went to zero within a year.”
