How The Fund CFO Function Is Driving Fundraising and Investor Relations

Most emerging managers think about IR as something that happens after you’ve raised. The firms getting to yes faster have figured out it starts much earlier, and the person running the finance function is often the one making it happen. We brought together four people who live at that intersection for a conversation on what … Read more

Inside the Portfolio of a Superangel: Lessons Learned from 250+ Angel Investments

“You become known for the things that hit.” Adrian Aoun is an investor in OpenAI, Anduril, Pinterest, Stripe, Airbnb, and Uber, among hundreds of other companies. He’s backed roughly 300 startups, about 40 of which are now unicorns or decacorns. He’s also an LP in around 100 venture funds. Ask him about his investment thesis, … Read more

Seed to Series A Growth in the AI Era: What’s Working and What’s Not

“Claude told me to sign up; I don’t know what your service does.” Google is sending less traffic than it did a year ago. Your potential customers are finding and evaluating products inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. And most founders are still running the 2021 playbook. This week, we ran a working session on what’s … Read more

Your First 10 Hires Just Changed: What Founders Need to Know Now

“Close to half of our final round candidates will wash out.” The hiring playbook most founders are still following was written for a different world. We just wrapped a conversation with Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of tech-enabled recruiting and referral platform Twill, and Ryan Denehy, founder and CEO of ITaaS provider Electric. The topic … Read more

Virtual Event: What Really Happens Inside an Acquisition (From Both Sides of the Table)

“You have to play the game as it’s on the board.” What does a corp dev team actually look for when they’re evaluating your startup? And what’s it like on the other side of the table when you’re the founder getting acquired? We brought together two perspectives that rarely share a stage: Scott Haylon, Senior … Read more

Virtual Event: What Successful Repeat Founders Do Differently (And What First Time Founders Can Learn From Them)

“They’re not customers until they pay, otherwise they’re just cheerleaders.” What do these three things have in common? They’re things that happened to our panelists from today’s virtual event: Ryan Denehy (3X founder, 2X exited to public companies) of Electric and Farooq Abbasi (Founder & GP at Preface Ventures, investor in DX which just sold … Read more

Virtual Event: An Inside Look At Our First GP Staking

“Trust is everything.” I just wrapped our latest virtual event. This one was totally different than any we’ve done in the last 2 years. Why? Because I wasn’t just moderating. I was part of the story. Sharran Deora (General Partner at DV) and Victor Jakubiuk (co-founder of OnSpecta, acquired by Ampere, now DV’s primary GP … Read more