Daniel Alameh

Should I use only equity for my search fund acquisition? 👇 If you can convince enough shareholders to part with their cash in order to purchase a company, this is the simplest way to go. A few thoughts: 1. Equity carries no covenants or external limits on how you and your team run the company. 2. Since there’s no debt, you have a higher risk tolerance. 3. Equity investors are patient. Debt holders are not. 4. Investors get well rewarded for shared success. If you do well, they do very well. This can make it easier to raise capital. 5. Some companies are not a good fit for debt. Lenders like predictable cash flow, hard assets and a history of profitability. 6. Equity is easy to raise compared to debt, which involves due diligence, counterparty risk, and tight terms. On the other hand, equity is expensive. You will have to give away the value of the money up front, and more.

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Do you know how many hyper-growth public software companies are growing by over 40% this year? According to the latest June Guggenheim report… Zero. Not a single public SaaS company is growing over 40%. Do you know how many are growing their next twelve months (NTM) revenue over 30%? Also, zero! With that context, I was strategizing with my team on the most impactful ways companies can change their growth trajectory, and one thing we landed on solving immediately was time to integrate. If a company growing at 30% can pull in all net new integrations and thus revenue by just 1 month over the course of the year, it can increase its growth rate by almost 5%. For simplicity, assuming a $100M annual revenue, a 10% discount rate, and a 5-year valuation period, using a DCF, the company’s present value would not be 5% more valuable, but closer to 20% more valuable for all shareholders. The power of compounded growth rates. Game changer, and with just the smallest adjustments. That’s why smart companies are investing heavily in new customer onboarding and no-code, low-code technologies, like lightweight agents, hosted or embedded UIs, and more. The Socure team is ahead of the curve—ask our people about what we’re building and how we can help you accelerate your revenue growth.

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Great analysis by the AGC team on SaaS public company comps. It's worth a look as we recalibrate mid-way through earnings season. The analysis aligns with the broader Nasdaq equity performance, where the Mag 7 (or fab 4 now :-)) have shown more resilience than the rest of the market. #AGC #SaaS #EarningsSeason #Nasdaq #EquityPerformance

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⛳ Emerging fund managers pulse check. PitchBook tracks over 10,000 funds that are raising money, with 45% being emerging fund managers (defined as firms with less than 3 funds). Despite a dip in available capital—down to 16% from the pre-pandemic 23%—these managers are finding creative ways to stay competitive, like partnering with larger firms. 💼 Joanna Drake (founder turned investor) shared how "wildly different" it is raising a fund versus for a startup. One key datapoint she shared on the fund side was how little feedback you get along the way (and the years you can wait for it). The “long-winded and challenging process to raise capital” inspired Drake and Ben Black to create RAISE Global, a community for emerging fund managers and the “forward-thinking LPs” who back them. (A decade later, several hundred emerging managers with AUM under $200m are on the platform) They've found the newest emerging managers are more diverse and geographically dispersed than Silicon valley, and more were able to crack the ceiling and raise larger $100m funds (although this is still a small % of the market, requiring partnership with larger funds at the late stage). ▶ And not a hugely surprising datapoint: A lot of action is in the sub $49 million range, where roughly 50% of emerging managers are raising. Theresa Sorrentino Hajer, Head of U.S. venture capital research at Cambridge Associates warns that past success isn't actually a strong indicator on it's own to assess emerging managers. We've had a valuation reset. And newer managers with investments during the 2019-2021 "party days", need to build relevant track record and play to their strengths. A lot of emerging managers are specializing (70% who applied for Raise had a thematic focus), and betting on getting in as early as possible in the startup's lifecycle (Raise: 31% at accelerator/ pre-seed stages, and 47% at seed stage). “Emerging managers have to compete on a different dimension,” Nick Moran from New Stack Ventures. You're no longer just dealing with capital. Emerging VC's need to be as innovative and nimble as the startups they invest in, having a unique thesis and insights. They also play a role at the top of the deal-flow funnel: helping larger firms find promising companies, so finding a thesis, sector or philosophy aligned partner at a larger firm is helpful. Onwards! #EmergingManager #Startups #VC

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👩‍⚕️ Physician's Lounge | Hands off Picking up the thread on my occasional discussion of healthcare services M&A, Axios's morning Pro Rata email had powerful insights for healthcare services transactions going forward 👇 ➡ Similar to VC and PE firms' initial position on cannabis investments - to avoid investing in companies that directly involve cannabis itself - Axios is reporting that large PE firms are no longer interested in healthcare businesses that directly provide licensed care services to patients. ➡ Financial investors are facing increasing political pressure and legislative risk: 🛑 A US senator has proposed a bill barring investment in healthcare services absent a license from the Department of Health and Human Services 🛑 The California legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state's attorney general to block those deals 🛑 Media scrutiny over deals gone wrong, such as with Steward Health 📍 Per Axios, big PE isn't abandoning healthcare, but is moving away from direct care delivery. The cannabis "We don't touch the plants" refrain now has its healthcare counterpart in "We don't touch the patients". ⏩ It'll be interesting to see if this risk/reward analysis by the mega funds trickles down to smaller players or if they'll instead see opportunities in a less-efficient market. 💭 On the one hand, care should be the responsibility of healthcare professionals, not financier overlords; on the other hand, PE provides the primary exit opportunity for doctors who have successfully built practices after striking out on their own 🤷‍♂️

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📈🧗‍♀️💸👍 In conjunction with Cooley LLP's Q1 2024 Venture Financing Report, #CooleyGO sat down with Chris Ahn of Haun Ventures to get his take on the state of venture capital investing, including: -The significance of up rounds representing 65% of deals. -His approach to risk management and mitigation strategies when investing. -The most effective monetization models for community-based ventures.

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Summary: Industry Ventures has raised a $900 million early-stage hybrid fund for investing in emerging managers and directly backing growth-stage companies. This is their seventh hybrid fund and is larger than their previous one. The fund will be split between backing VC funds, direct investments, and acquiring stakes from emerging managers. Key takeaways: Smaller, newer funds are finding it more difficult to raise capital, but this fund from Industry Ventures offers hope for emerging managers. The fund will be split between various investments, including backing VC funds and buying secondary interests. Industry Ventures may have an advantage due to their ability to invest in both emerging and more established managers. Counter arguments: Some may argue that it is still difficult for emerging managers to raise funds. The success of Industry Ventures may not be indicative of the overall climate for emerging managers. #venturecapital #venture #startups #fundraising

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Executive Edge | Issue Two: Suite Success. Should a case study approach be used to successfully hire C-level talent? ------- If you're a #cfo currently working in private equity, venture capital (or other investor types), or, you're a business seeking to hire transformational finance talent Camino Search specialises in head-hunting & consulting for investor-backed tech businesses. Globally. #fd #saas #pe #privateequity

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Interesting report from PitchBook on first quarter Digital Health VC activity. - $1.1 billion in funding. Key late-stage deals were led by Transcarent ($126M) and Rightway ($108.8M). - The top investment categories were general & primary care ($213.4M) and health benefits navigation ($140.7M). Challenges & Trends: Valuations: Less than 20% of startups reported a priced round in the last 18 months, with an increase in extension/bridge rounds. Digital Therapeutics: Facing significant challenges due to elusive reimbursement and cautious investors. Better Therapeutics is winding down operations, and Akili is being taken private for $34M, a sharp decline from its peak valuation of nearly $450M. Telehealth: Setbacks include the shutdown of Optum's virtual care and Walmart's telehealth services. The pandemic saw over $15B in VC funding since 2020, but some platforms struggled with unsustainable business models and strategic missteps (e.g., Teladoc's costly Livongo acquisition and Amwell's delisting from Nasdaq). Looking Ahead: While digital therapeutics and telehealth face hurdles, there's potential in: Platforms integrating various treatments for conditions like diabetes, metabolic health, and mental health. Specialty telemedicine, B2B platforms, and hybrid-care models, which offer a promising investment outlook. Despite current challenges, strategic investments and a focus on sustainable models can drive the next wave of innovation in digital health. As a former digital health founder, I encourage founders in this space to keep going...there is light at the end of the tunnel! If you are a digital health founder with impressive traction based in Virginia, feel free to reach out! #digitalhealth #venturecapital #virginiaipc #virginiainvests

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In last week's Doriot Venture Labs wrap up, we gave oxygen to a startup investment Sam Altman made back in 2009. According to the WSJ, Altman was introduced to two individuals who wanted to start a payments company. He made a $15K investment. Fast forward to today, and that company, Stripe, is now valued at $65 billion. Assuming 50% dilution, Altman's equity is now worth an estimated $650 million (a 43,000x return). Many of you reading this might be thinking, “Yeah, well, Sam Altman gets to see deals like this, and everyday people like us would never get the same opportunity.” But let’s flip this around for a moment. From what we read, Altman wasn’t loaded with cash at the time, and when he invested, Stripe was at the idea stage. To his credit, he was “prepared” to cut the check with limited data, and he did. That’s the key to startup investing: investors simply have to be committed to cutting checks in an uncertain outcome (within a disciplined budget, of course). If a Venture Community of small check writers wants access to ever increasingly quality deals, the members will have to be willing to step up and cut checks (even if it's in $100 increments) that can be quickly aggregated into a single investment on the cap table. No hair. And it needs to happen at the speed of Angel and VC decision-making. Of course there are no guarantees that any single deal will achieve 10x, 100x, or 1000x returns, but if Community Venture Investors can build a portfolio of 25 credible deals (properly priced), then 80 years of history suggest 15-20% annualized returns over a decade with the outside shot at getting in on a lifetime deal such as Stripe or Uber. If the founders of Stripe (at the time a very uncertain opportunity) had approached a Venture Community instead of Sam Altman, and that Community was able to quickly aggregate 150 individuals to each put in $100, every one of those investors would now have $4.3 million in equity in Stripe 15 years later. 150 families are forever changed. We are at the very beginning stages of this new path of venture and there is still lots of figure out. But given that both the technology and legal frameworks exists to make Community Venture the 3rd wave of organized venture, it really is about assembling a large group of like-minded individuals that want to compete for an economic share of the future. If any of this resonates with you, you are invited to join our free Venture Community Newsletter and Discord Server, where we are actively discussing the future. www.Doriot.vc / or feel free to DM me here. #venturecapital #angels #startups #CommunityVenture

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So much of VC recruiting is just about being seen. Let’s get aspiring VCs noticed 🌟 Along with posting open VC roles every Wednesday, I like to have posts where aspiring VCs make themselves known to VCs looking to hire. I’ve done this a handful of times and IT WORKS! Many aspiring VCs have been contacted by firms just from commenting their info. Lets do it again! Leave a comment: 👤 Name 📍 Location 💼 Desired role 📊 Stage focus 🔍 Industry focus #venturecapital #startup #recruiting #hiring

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I'm doing a webinar on having your back office operations in house vs outsourcing. Hope folks can listen in!

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Structuring SPVs efficiently is a method for emerging managers looking to warehouse deals, but they must be mindful of the broader implications and limitations. In this week's insider segments, Nik Talreja of Sydecar dives deep into what emerging venture capitalists should consider when warehousing deals. Join us tomorrow as we discuss the operational challenges and strategic opportunities that new managers face in today’s dynamic venture capital environment. Don’t miss Nik’s invaluable insights on leveraging technology to streamline venture operations. #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #StrategicInvesting cc: Alexa Binns

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I’ve aggregated a list of 50+ VC roles in one spreadsheet. It’s updated weekly and can be filtered by location, position, firm, etc. Check out the latest list here (as of June 24th) 👇 https://lnkd.in/dRC3XtjS Tag someone who needs this in the comments 💭 — Want a quick snapshot? Here are a few of my favorite postings: Associate, M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund Link: https://lnkd.in/eNFaaSBy Associate & Principal, Wischoff Ventures Link: https://lnkd.in/gu6Mun7p Consumer Investor, Stripes Link: https://lnkd.in/eZdRk6jV Venture Lead, Struck Studio Link: https://lnkd.in/exGcNHJ5 New Ventures Associate, Live Nation Entertainment Link: https://lnkd.in/e3mBYGCt — I’m creating more tools, guides, and other free resources for Junior VCs to (1) 2x their network and (2) carve their path to partner. If you found this helpful, check out the Venture House website for more 👇 https://venturehouse.xyz/ #venturecapital #startup #recruiting #hiring

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If I was to do a monthly podcast epiosde segment called This Month in VC 1) Who should I invite as a guest for this segment? 2) Any VC's who would be down to come on and share their stories + insights on this? Basically recapping what happened in that month in VC - It would be an under 30 minute discussion - Recorded remotely using Zoom, Riverside DM me or reply to this if interested Inspired by Harry Stebbings This Week in SaaS to try out a different format

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Good for the entire ecosystem

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📊 Founders, before you start pitching to VCs, take a step back and assess your startup's financials. 📊 In this podcast excerpt, David Forsberg, CFA from Ascent Energy Ventures emphasizes the importance of determining if your business is truly venture-backable. 🤔💡 My team delivers monthly financials to hundreds of startups that have raised billions in venture funding, and we've seen the pitfalls of raising VC money for the wrong type of business. 🚫 Listen to the full podcast for more valuable insights. Link in the original Kruze Consulting post. 🎧 #startups #venturecapital #funding #entrepreneurship

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