Alpaca VC’s Post

What's the latest in #MiamiTech? We've got the low-down from an investor's perspective. Founders: take note! Many thanks to Alpaca VC's David Goldberg, and to Lorraine Sanders and Nancy Dahlberg Refresh Miami for making it happen. https://lnkd.in/daXmV6Zf #investing #VC #fundraising

 'Actually, this year is the very best time to fund a company and start a company'. But actually [in] '24, it's really true.” - Rainer Märkle Check out Anne Sraders Sifted article on VCs' tips for fundraising founders in 2024. #venturecapital

🚀✨ Artemis Fund Soars with $36M for Diverse Founders ✨🚀 The Artemis Fund , dedicated to backing underrepresented founders, celebrates the closing of its second fund with a whopping $36 million in capital commitments!💰 🔎Founded in 2019 by Stephanie Campbell, Diana Murakhovskaya, and Leslie Goldman Tepper, Artemis embodies the ethos of its namesake, the Greek goddess known for championing women. 🏹💼 📝Based in Houston and New York, Artemis takes the lead in seed rounds for diverse founders across fintech, commerce, and care sectors. With a portfolio comprising more than 20 companies, all led by female founders, Artemis showcases over 60% leadership from Black, Latinx, or immigrant backgrounds. 🌍💼 🎌Artemis's second fund is bolstered by a prestigious group of backers including Bank of America, Bmo Bank of Montreal, Nuveen, a TIAA company, Nuveen’s Churchill Asset Management, Texas Capital Bank, Amazon, The Rockwell Fund, and Ballentine Partners, LLC. 🤝💰 Stephanie Campbell emphasizes the fund's mission, stating, "We really wanted to make sure that our LPs aligned with our long-term goal of backing diverse founders. There’s a lot of pressure on that. We also want to grow with them." 📈✨ 🧐With a focus on both financial returns and societal impact, Artemis is committed to moving the funding needle for female and diverse founders, addressing barriers faced by overlooked businesses, communities, and families. 💡🌟 Despite challenges in VC funding for diverse demographics, Artemis remains steadfast, with Fund I companies showing promising progress and revenue growth. The fund's portfolio boasts investments in transformative startups like Naborforce, HopSkipDrive, Upgrade, and Work & Mother. 💼💡 ���As Artemis embarks on its journey with Fund II, the firm remains dedicated to tackling societal challenges head-on, investing in innovative solutions to address the pressing needs of underserved communities, driving positive change for a brighter future. ✨🌍 ✅ Looking to raise capital for your #fund and increase the international pool of your LP #investors?   🤝 Need warm #LP introductions?   📝 Selling #secondaries to increase liquidity?   🧐 Looking for co-investments?   ▶ G+QUANT's link for inquiries and fund decks: https://lnkd.in/gjC_EuTE #ArtemisFund #DiverseFounders #VentureCapital #Innovation #Empowerment #StartupEcosystem #DiversityandInclusion #SocietalImpact

#Munich-based #einwert secures €4 million in seed #funding led by pan-European early-stage VC Ventech. With Ventech as the lead investor, the current group of investors, which includes 468 Capital, Wecken & Cie, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, and infinitas Capital, has raised their stakes. Together with Oliver Manojlovic, VP Sales of #Personio, and Dr. Stephan Rohr, #founder and co-CEO of TWAICE, the current business angels are joined by Ulrich Groß and Jürgen Roth (Immowelt). Interfaces offer for the smooth #integration and accessibility of all pertinent data and documents. This implies that the einwert platform will always provide #digital access to the valuation results for analysis. Real-time value analysis and benchmarks are made possible by combining all #pertinent real estate, valuation, and market data from many sources into one location. Drs. Christina Mauer and Maximilian Schlachter launched einwert in 2022. The founding team states that the newly subscribed seed #financing round’s proceeds will be utilised to build the einwert platform into the leading value management platform in #Europe. einwert Ventech 468 Capital Wecken & Cie. - Care4 AG Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund infinitas capital Dr. Christina Mauer Dr. Maximilian Schlachter Dr. Stephan Rohr To share your startup story write us on - contact@startuprise.co.uk #einwert #funding #eustartup

No pressure, no diamonds 💎 WHAT A YEAR. 2023 has been challenging at most, but one thing is for certain: the resilience shown by so many founders and startup teams I get to meet remains a daily inspiration - the stuff that sparks energy to achieve some major milestones! So it’s time to celebrate some diamond achievements for the team at Crowdcube this year: ➤ More than £130 million raised through the platform �� with 43 companies raising more than £1 million 💥 ➤ Continued success in female-led campaigns, including Clue with over 5,000 women investing, making up a record-breaking 90% of their investors! ➤ Record breaking Cleantech campaigns, including Cornish Lithium Plc securing more than £4.8m from 5,136 investors! ➤ Over €32m raised for EU businesses and a 22% increase in EU registrations 🇪🇺 expanding our wonderful community of investors - which now sits at 1.7m people. ➤ A more diverse offering to retail investors than ever before through partnerships with Octopus Investments and Haatch to offer entry to VCT funds at the lowest threshold on the market 🤝 ➤ Most importantly welcoming Semper (acquired by Crowdcube) a leading secondary liquidity platform to release shareholder liquidity for investors, founders and institutions at scale! That’s 2023 Wrapped, bring on 2024! 🚀 #fundraising #startups #growthcapital

There’s much to say about solo GP funds as a strategy. The beauty of this approach lies in its simplicity and flexibility. With a solo GP fund, raising enormous amounts of capital is unnecessary. Instead of deploying $30 million, you can make a significant impact with just $5 million, fundamentally changing the deployment strategy. Our special sauce at Co Ventures is blending collaboration and insight. We leverage the law of small numbers by optimizing for the internal rate of return (IRR). This strategy allows us to collaborate on deals, join forces with big funds, and access opportunities that would be out of reach if we focused solely on leading rounds. For a deeper dive into our solo GP advantage and the fund's focus on pre-seed investments, check out my “studio on the road” conversation with Innovation Bay's Ian Gardiner ( ⏰ Timestamp 48:00). In this episode, you’ll also hear insights from Karl Durrance, Kate Mason, PhD, John McDuling, and Kevin Jochelson. #venturecapital #investing #tech #startups #fundraising #angelinvesting

Founders looking to raise, you'll want to check out the series below from Techstars! We've got a star-studded group of folks ready to share best practices with you. #techstars #vc #raisecapital #startups #entrepreneurlife #givefirst

There is not a lot of differentiated capital out there, but Overture has it. Founders, take note, these folks view their investments as signing up to work for you and help you make your dream a reality. Here's how they've gone above and beyond: 1. Shomik calls asking what he can do for me at least every other month. He consistently says "Put me to work". Importantly, he figures out how and delivers. 2. Shomik Dutta and Tamim Mourad proactively made time and set up a hike and lunch in LA to talk shop. They respectfully asked questions, pushed my thinking, and offered to help where I didn't have answers or needed resources. It was just the 3 of us. 3. Boundary Stone Partners has helped us connect with a wide range of folks in the ecosystem and helped us put a strategy together to get through a critical regulatory hurdle. 4. They put together an incredible event in D.C. that included the likes of Jigar Shah, Jennifer Granholm, Jonathan Silver, Ed Markey, Kiran Bhatraju, and more... During that event the Overture team went out of there way to make sure I got value of out that time. Super meaningful. If you're a climate company looking to fundraise, get in touch, they've been incredible.

I just finished a great webinar by Stéphane Nasser of OpenVC on raising funds like a pro! My 2 main key takeaways from the webinar were the following: 1) Building an investor network 🦸 This was the most on-point advice I could tell early-stage founders. Stephane highlighted a 6-months roadmap for founders to build an investor network before raising the funds. I always tell founders that the process of building an investor network takes from 3 to 6 months. -Month 1: Interacting with investors on their social media handles, and get them to know your name so they'd be intrigued to put a face to the name. -Month 2-3: Create a blog/podcast in your field and invite investors for an interview. Now this was new to me, and I believe I will advise founders to do so. I believe that this taps in well with a lot of investors, because I've tried it in a similar setting, and the positive replies that I got from investors were surprising. I tried it when I was researching the factors that affect the internationalisation of VC into emerging regions, and a lot of investors wanted to do the interview, and now I am scouting for all these VC funds that contributed to the research. Month 4: Compile a report as a summary of these interviews and publish it on social media. I did the same with my research and it received a lot of positive feedback from people in the ecosystem. Months 5-6: Create a series of posts and brand yourself as a thought leader in the field. The snowball effect of doing so will get founders a targeted set of investors that could easily invest in your startup or get you a smooth pivot closer to the market's need. 2) The first $1000 cheque could get you $120,000 in the first round 💵 Most founders don't know this, but being open to as low as $1000 cheques is a good strategy in the first round of funding. In emerging markets, I'd say as low as $500 even. This first cheque could be from family and friends. After doing so, a warm introduction to other investors from this first investor could get you other cheques. Stephane presented a real use case where this happened. The founder raised the first $1,000 cheque from a family member, and this concluded in a $120,000 closed round. This makes it easier for founders to raise the first round because most people can commit $500-$1000, but only a few can commit $100K. "But doing so, will get me 15 different people on my cap table, and my cap table will be uninvestable" - I thought and asked. Someone replied that they'll be invested in the form of SAFE notes, and they will be consolidated in an SPV "special purpose vehicle" and it will appear as one investor on the cap table. To my network of investors, follow Stephane and sign up for OpenVC. This hasn't been my first time to recommend OpenVC to my network of founders, but I genuinely think it is perfect for early-stage founders. #earlystagestartups #founders #startups #startupfunding #venturecapital

Congratulations to Shomik Dutta, Brandon Hurlbut, et al. for closing Fund I! I have said over and over again that, if we truly hope to build the sustainable, prosperous, equitable future, we need #climatetech #investors to have both imagination - to envision a world unconstrained by today's technologies - and courage - to back bold, ambitious moonshots. Overture is an embodiment of that imagination and courage, and they bring strong policy expertise to boot. Even with a small fund, Overture has not shied away from making big bets on truly transformational startups. More than "betting on" the success of their founders, though, they are "co-creating" success with them by rolling up their sleeves to help. I am elated that DEXMAT was one of Overture's first investments, and we are much better off for it. Whether you are an ambitious climatetech founder looking to change the world, or an LP looking to put your money to work for good with a firm that has returns-enhancing secret sauce, Overture should be one of your first stops. 11/10 would recommend 🙏 #VC