Battery Ventures

The founder-investor relationship is important to get right — so, consider the Road Trip Test before you partner with an investor. 🚗 🛣 Our General Partner Chelsea Stoner joined Heidi Jannenga, PT, DPT, ATC of WebPT for an Inc. Magazine webinar on the benefits of growth capital for bootstrapped founders and key considerations for starting the process to secure outside investment. Per Chelsea, bootstrapped founders should first ask themselves whether they can envision getting into a car with a prospective investor for a drive from Seattle to Miami: a heuristic to determine whether a relationship has what it takes to navigate the ups and downs of company-building.

Our San Francisco-based Vice President Aaron Neil is all about growth, personal and professional. Here’s what’s on his mind lately, as he shared with us for our latest #TeamTuesdays spotlight:    🖊️ We know you work closely with our General Partner Michael Brown. What’s something Michael taught you that’s stuck with you? 🔹 Michael has taught me a lot, especially the importance of humility and remaining level-headed through all the inevitable ups and downs one experiences in a career in investing. He is so curious and loves learning how new markets and businesses operate, his passion for this work is infectious.    🖊️ What are the three software products you can’t live without? 🔹 Microsoft Outlook and Excel and LinkedIn Sales Navigator are mission-critical for my daily work. I’ll note that Outlook has done a great job adding in features over time to boost productivity and Excel is an incredibly powerful tool for data analysis.    🖊️ If you could take one tech founder out to dinner, who would it be and why? And, importantly, where would you take them? 🔹 I’d love to have dinner with Bryan Johnson of Braintree. I’d take him to the Liver King Ranch to have a wide-ranging discussion around health and nutrition. I'm genuinely curious about advances in human longevity and the impact technology and habit can make in enhancing health. I'd especially like to hear Bryan's thoughts on contrasting his vegan diet with that of the Liver King, who is an Internet-famous carnivore… on that note, we’d probably have to bring some vegan food for Bryan to the ranch.    🖊️ What’s something you wish everyone knew about Battery? 🔹 How collaborative and open minded we are and how challenging yet supporting everyone is of each other. The global team works together as one team across six global offices and across deal types, from seed to buyout. From the outside looking in, you might not realize how often the early-stage venture and buyout teams collaborate, but we often do. The variety of POVs is very helpful in understanding markets and products.    🖊️ If you could attend any one event at the Olympics this year, which would it be? 🔹 Definitely surfing! Not only am I a big surfer, but this year’s competition is on the beautiful island of Tahiti. 

Many of our portfolio companies are on the hunt for exceptional marketers. 🌟 Is that you? If so, check out these new opportunities! 🌟 Marketing Vice President/Sr. Vice President/CMO at Ordr Inc. (Santa Clara, CA): https://lnkd.in/g6vBxxSR 🌟 Vice President of Product Marketing at Modern Health (Remote): https://lnkd.in/gxmgPGgy 🌟 Director of Marketing at Fairmatic (Remote): https://lnkd.in/gQBFrStj 🌟 Director of Product Marketing, GTM Lead at HiBob (London): https://lnkd.in/gJcqKA-J 🌟 Senior Technical Product Marketing Manager at Workato (Mountain View, CA): https://lnkd.in/gwdrJAQA 🌟 Developer Advocate/Technical Product Marketing Manager at Arize AI (SF Bay Area or NYC): https://lnkd.in/gxhQWfBg 🌟 Product Marketing Manager at Opal Security (SF Bay Area, NYC or Remote): https://lnkd.in/gwnwwCpX 🌟 Sr. Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Next Insurance (Palo Alto, CA): https://lnkd.in/gX3qh8Zg To be up to speed on the latest roles, be sure to bookmark our portfolio jobs page: jobs.battery.com or reach out to me directly!

Our industrial tech and life-science tools team is feeling optimistic heading into the second half of the year, from opportunities in environmental sciences, automation in manufacturing and production and beyond, as our General Partner Jesse Feldman shared with Craig McGlashan for a feature in PE Hub Europe. Per Jesse, "The risk/reward curve is starting to get to a place where there's more overlap and that will lead to more activity. It's going to depend on two main variables. One - are companies performing, meaning are they hitting budgets predictably and reliably? We think that will be an increasing trend. The other variable is going to be these macro uncertainties, whether that's election cycles, whether that's geopolitical contests, whether that's new regulation and trends. That view is becoming a little more clear and that leads to more positive dynamics for deal activity." Check out the full article here for more insight: https://lnkd.in/e33fxJQf

Congratulations to our friends at ZeroTier, Inc. on a $13.5M Series A round! 🚀 We're so excited to lead the round and continue partnering with Andrew Gault, Adam Ierymenko and the team in this exciting new phase. Read more in TechCrunch on today's news from Mike Butcher ✍️ here: https://lnkd.in/ee4GCVRG

When it comes to unifying a team, “shared purpose binds more than shared enjoyment. People long to be part of something greater than themselves,” according to our Partner Marcus Ryu, former CEO and co-founder of Guidewire Software. Watch “The Startup as Insurgent,” a call to arms for fellow technology founders, here: https://lnkd.in/geTKF9Bn

Calling all European and Israeli companies! 🌎 Planning to ‘hop the pond’ to enter the lucrative U.S. market? We’ve got the playbook you need to get started. Check out our comprehensive guide below ⬇️ and read more on the Battery blog here: https://lnkd.in/gYZVUat2

Consumer innovation was the main course at the intimate dinner we hosted last week in San Francisco for executives of scaled consumer companies! 💙 Attendees enjoyed an evening of great conversation, tips for best practices and networking, organized by Roger Lee, Courtney Z. Chow and Isabel von Stauffenberg, in collaboration with our friends at GP Bullhound.

What has (at least) four wheels and no driver? 🚚 Our portfolio company Kodiak Robotics’ autonomous trucks, which just completed the first driverless commercial semi-truck freight delivery in North America. Read more about how Kodiak is transforming industrial logistics in Axios here: https://lnkd.in/dbx5keAt

Congratulations Level AI on a $39M Series C! 🚀 🎇 We are thrilled to continue partnering with Founder and CEO Ashish Nagar and the Level AI team to bring the power of advanced AI to the contact center and help businesses build better customer relationships. As Ashish shared with TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers, "Frontline workers, like customer service workers, are the biggest human capital in the world. So, my idea was to use ambient computing — AI that you can just talk to and it listens in the background — to augment human work. Level AI’s software enables brands to get insights on the pulse of the customer, quality of the service being delivered and action plans to improve service performance." Check out the full story here to learn more: https://lnkd.in/gyyUxz7w