The Memo

👋🏽 Welcome to issue #29 of The Up Round published on September 1, 2024. As a reminder, this is a summary of relevant news and firm-building resources for VCs. Expect us to land in your inbox every other weekend.

I will save you the commentary this week and have kept the issue short, sweet, but exhaustive. Get out there and enjoy the last days of the (unofficial) summer!

🙏 If you find this content valuable, forward this on to a friend or share it on social media.

What I’m Reading

The Path to Partner Has Become Harder for Junior VCs (link). As VC markets slow, there are less investments being made which means that junior VC have less opportunity to build track record. Interestingly the article notes a greater emphasis on sourcing than modeling but I’d argue this has always been the case.

Concentration of LP Capital is Underway (link). And the loser will be smaller funds and emerging managers despite their proven ability to generate alpha due to their ability to specialize, avoid consensus bias, and avoid momentum-type investing. Here’s to surviving! 💪🏽

Barnes & Thornburg: Private Capital 2024 Survey (link). “A whopping 96 percent of LPs say it is important that a fund have a succession plan in place (up from 66 percent last year), but only 38 percent of GPs currently have one.”

Fund Debuts

Arāya Closes $11M for Super Angel Fund Strategy (link). The fund will invest $200-550k in 60 pre-seed and seed stage founders across health tech, fintech, climate, commerce and work. LPs include VCs, current, and former entrepreneurs. It was interestingly to see it disclosed that 15% of the fund is made up of family offices looking for Series A co-invest.

BEVC Raising $25M Climate Fund (link). The fund is founded by three GPs (Rowan Chapman, Widya Mulyasasmita, and Risa Stack) who have a background and focus on life sciences. It appears they’re expanding their focus to include planetary health as well.

Oncology Ventures Closes $30M Debut Fund (link). Lead by cancer survivor, Ben Freeberg, Oncology Ventures will invest $250k to $1.5M in early stage startups “leveraging data and AI to address critical needs in cancer care without tackling drugs, therapeutics, or medical devices.” LPs include Cardinal Health, City of Hope, Moffitt Cancer Center, and Amkan Ventures.

SNAK Venture Partners Launching $50M Fund out of Priztker Group VC (link). Sonia Nagar and Adam Koopersmith will lead the firm and focus on marketplace investments.

Like what you read?

Subscribe to The Up Round!

Sign up→

Other Fun(d) Stuff

Earlybird VC Restructures (link). Earlybird will spin out it’s Digital East fund to focus on CEE under the leadership of Cem Sertoglu and benefit from an independent structure and a new brand. Digital East is one of the most successful funds in Europe having invested in UiPath. Earlybird will retain Earlybird and Earlybird Health who will be led by independent partnerships and maintain the same geographic footprint across seven European cities.

Talent Tracker

Kevin Kwok Joins Sutter Hill Ventures as Partner (link). Previously, Kevin was at Greylock as an investor.

Andrew Lee Promoted to Partner at a16z Focused on Gaming (link). Andrew was previously an EIR at a16z for the last two years and has 20 years of experience in VC and founding gaming startups.

Shine Capital Promotes Alex Hartz and Ethan Daly; Announces More Additions (link). Alex and Ethan are elevated to GP and Partner, respectively. The firm also added Jenna Greenspan as Head of IR and Comms while Adam Hanft joins as a Venture Partner.

Touring Capital Adds Two Venture Partners (link). Touring launched a year ago and invests in early-growth AI startups. They announced the addition of Ray Cao (founder of Agora Brands) and Abhishek Kumar (ex Microsoft) as Venture Partners to assist with product and go to market efforts.

GC Adds Arielle Gross Samuels as CMO (link). Arielle joins from BlackRock where she was Global Head of Marketing. She had previously been at Meta and also led marketing for BlackRock’s alternative asset management group.

53 Stations Expands Ranks with Two Hires (link and link). The firm announced that Melissa Kandinata joined earlier this year as an investor from Baird Capital and that Benjamin Sack recently joined in the same role from BBQ Capital (what a great name for a firm).

Natalie Gramins Joins Summit Peak Investments (link). Natalie was previously at TrueBridge leading US business development activities.

Li Jin Steps Back from GP Role at Variant (link). Li will continue working with portfolio companies and advising the team, while stepping back from investing and day-to-day firm management.

LP Radar

G Squared Raises $1B Fund to Buy Secondary Startup Shares (link). G Squared focuses on buying shares on a secondary basis - an opportunity which has been growing growing as traditional sources of liquidity have dried up (or been ignored).

NEA Re-entering Secondary Market (link). I always find it fascinating to see a VC firm reveal the tools it has in it’s tool belt- this is a great example of such. SEC filings show the fund has closed $468M from >60 LPs thus far include SFERS that put in $20M. NEA became a RIA last year and can re enter the secondary market. Note, it previously spun out NewView Capital due to SEC limitations at the time for non-RIAs to hold more than 20% of it’s asset base in secondary shares.

🎙️ Swimming with Allocators with Jaclyn Freeman Hester of Foundry (link). I’d direct your attention to: 1) Building Networks in Venture Capital (15:16); 2) Initial Impressions of the Venture World (16:14); 3) Evaluating People in Venture (20:39).