Ryan Tan’s Post

We’re delighted to announce our $30 million Series B funding round, led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, and others. In the past year alone, Anrok has managed sales tax compliance on over $7 billion of revenue on behalf of our customers. It’s because of innovative teams at companies like Notion, Vanta, and Anthropic that we’re on this journey, and we want to thank all of our customers for trusting Anrok as your sales tax engine. “As a fast-growing software company, Gem’s customers are spread across the globe. We thought getting to compliance would be a long and expensive journey, but with Anrok, the path was simple. Anrok helps us manage risk more effectively, and avoid surprise hits to our bottom line.” —Temi Vasco, Controller at Gem This new funding will enable us to grow our team and continue building the best sales tax and VAT compliance platform for modern finance teams. Learn more at the links in comments.

We are thrilled to announce our $73m Series B funding round, led by Battery Ventures with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Highland Europe. Joining hyperexponential’s board is Battery Ventures Partner Marcus Ryu, Co-founder, Chairman, and former CEO of Guidewire, and experienced Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Angela Strange. Since hyperexponential was founded in 2017, we’ve enabled some of the world’s leading insurers – including Aviva, HDI Group, and Conduit Re – to pursue next-generation risk pricing methods. We’re excited to enter the next stage of our journey, continuing to bring new pricing capabilities to forward-thinking insurers around the globe. Thank you to our incredible team, investors, and customers. 2024 is already shaping up to be an extraordinary year, and there’s so much more still to come! Learn more about the raise and what it means for our future: https://lnkd.in/eK6XZDDZ

Dunzo's financials are in the news. They made a loss of INR 1,800 Cr at a revenue of 226 Cr. But Dunzo always had a thing for extraordinary financial performance. Here's a YoY recall: Year: Revenue / Loss FY18: 15 Lakh / 22 Cr FY19: 77 Lakh / 169 Cr FY20: 27 Cr / 338 Cr FY21: 25 Cr / 229 Cr FY22: 54.3 Cr / 460 Cr FY23: 226 Cr / 1800 Cr Despite that performance, Dunzo managed to raise about $500 MILLION DOLLARS (INR 4000 Crores) in 19 funding rounds. Nineteen! Here are some of the investors who built this thing: Lightrock Capital & Blume Ventures (the early champions). Later joined in by Google Ventures, Kalpvriksh Fund, Belltower Fund Group, Lightbox VC, STIC Investments, 3L Capital, and finally - Reliance Capital. Now I always say how VCs talk big words like "product market fit", "GTM", "long term vision", "critical mass", etc. They talk "escape velocity", "disruption", "competitive strategy", TAM, SAM, SOM, Om Namah Shivaay. But for now, let's focus on "product market fit". What is PMF? According to a generic internet definition, "PMF describes a scenario in which a company’s target customers are buying, using, and telling others about the company’s product in numbers large enough to sustain growth and profitability". Okay. So where was "PMF" for Dunzo? Was it in the first FY when it made a loss of 22 Cr at a revenue of 15 Lakhs? Or was it the fifth FY, when it made a loss of 460 Cr at a revenue of 54 Cr? When and where was it? Short answer: It was never there. If you're a bootstrapped founder without pedigree, and you go to any of these VCs, you'll probably hear that you're "too early" and "must show PMF". You're pre-product? Too early Pre-revenue? Too early Post revenue? Too early (because revenues are small) Post substantial revenues (in the range of 1 - 2 Cr)? Too early (because earnings aren't there yet, or maybe "growth" looks hard). The only time you'll actually be eligible for any funding from these VCs is when you're so green that you don't need it at all. Yet at the same time, you'll see bullshit companies getting picked up pre-product by these same people. That's how the ecosystem usually works, exceptions aside. But why? Because these guys are busy funding their "friends". A fund like Lightspeed invests in companies like Magicpin and Frontrow which never made money (and probably never will). Why? Because the founders were ex-Lightspeed. That's a very blatant example, but not a solitary one. VCs claim (and pretend) to be all "meritocratic", but are actually driven mostly by relationships in their network. I can understand. If I were investing my personal money, I'd also put it in my friend's business, even if there are better opportunities outside. But then I won't pretend to be all "meritocratic" about it. I won't throw around jargon to justify my bullshit investments and sound "intellectual". That's not cool, you know... P.S. I'm building Seneca (https://bit.ly/3P70mFr). Join our WAITLIST: https://lnkd.in/d--_9q-J.

Dunzo's financials are in the news. They made a loss of INR 1,800 Cr at a revenue of 226 Cr. But Dunzo always had a thing for extraordinary financial performance. Here's a YoY recall: Year: Revenue / Loss FY18: 15 Lakh / 22 Cr FY19: 77 Lakh / 169 Cr FY20: 27 Cr / 338 Cr FY21: 25 Cr / 229 Cr FY22: 54.3 Cr / 460 Cr FY23: 226 Cr / 1800 Cr Despite that performance, Dunzo managed to raise about $500 MILLION DOLLARS (INR 4000 Crores) in 19 funding rounds. Nineteen! Here are some of the investors who built this thing: Lightrock Capital & Blume Ventures (the early champions). Later joined in by Google Ventures, Kalpvriksh Fund, Belltower Fund Group, Lightbox VC, STIC Investments, 3L Capital, and finally - Reliance Capital. Now I always say how VCs talk big words like "product market fit", "GTM", "long term vision", "critical mass", etc. They talk "escape velocity", "disruption", "competitive strategy", TAM, SAM, SOM, Om Namah Shivaay. But for now, let's focus on "product market fit". What is PMF? According to a generic internet definition, "PMF describes a scenario in which a company’s target customers are buying, using, and telling others about the company’s product in numbers large enough to sustain growth and profitability". Okay. So where was "PMF" for Dunzo? Was it in the first FY when it made a loss of 22 Cr at a revenue of 15 Lakhs? Or was it the fifth FY, when it made a loss of 460 Cr at a revenue of 54 Cr? When and where was it? Short answer: It was never there. If you're a bootstrapped founder without pedigree, and you go to any of these VCs, you'll probably hear that you're "too early" and "must show PMF". You're pre-product? Too early Pre-revenue? Too early Post revenue? Too early (because revenues are small) Post substantial revenues (in the range of 1 - 2 Cr)? Too early (because earnings aren't there yet, or maybe "growth" looks hard). The only time you'll actually be eligible for any funding from these VCs is when you're so green that you don't need it at all. Yet at the same time, you'll see bullshit companies getting picked up pre-product by these same people. That's how the ecosystem usually works, exceptions aside. But why? Because these guys are busy funding their "friends". A fund like Lightspeed invests in companies like Magicpin and Frontrow which never made money (and probably never will). Why? Because the founders were ex-Lightspeed. That's a very blatant example, but not a solitary one. VCs claim (and pretend) to be all "meritocratic", but are actually driven mostly by relationships in their network. I can understand. If I were investing my personal money, I'd also put it in my friend's business, even if there are better opportunities outside. But then I won't pretend to be all "meritocratic" about it. I won't throw around jargon to justify my bullshit investments and sound "intellectual". That's not cool, you know... P.S. I'm building Seneca (https://bit.ly/3P70mFr). Join our WAITLIST: https://lnkd.in/d--_9q-J.