Aaref Hilaly

The webinar today overviewing Previ was a success! So, we are doing another one on Tuesday, May 28th from 12-12:30pm MT! Register below if... - you are an HR leader who prioritizes benefits that don't cost money to launch - you are an HR leader who wants to help your employees save money - you feel your employees spend too much money on their cell phone bill - you'd like to offer something that doesn't require HRIS or payroll integrations, contracts, or data sharing Previ saves employees over $100/month on their cell phone bill through enterprise-level partnerships with AT&T and T-Mobile. Join us for the webinar to learn more and see why companies like Hanes, Shutterstock, Welch's, Qualtrics, and Sunrun choose to partner with us! Register here 👉 https://lu.ma/zf8dy4on

4

As we dive into 2024, the Series A fundraising landscape is becoming increasingly daunting. Investment standards are soaring, and fewer startups are making the cut. Series A investors are finding many seed stage companies too premature. The median valuation jump from seed to Series A skyrocketed from $19.5 million in Q1 2022 to $28.7 million in Q1 2024. Investors now demand stronger revenue performance, targeting $2 million to $3 million in ARR, up from $1 million to $2 million. Alarmingly, only 12% of Q1 2022 seed startups secured Series A funding within two years, down from 31.8% in Q1 2020. #venture #earlystage #seedtoseriesa #seed #seriesa #inspireglobalventures https://lnkd.in/gW4bkcNy

6

I believe two of the big winners over the next 10 years in the SMB category will be PE who are rolling up the businesses and GenAI powered software that makes running these businesses significantly more turnkey and/or profitable. Thanks for having me on Jay Kapoor. If you want spicy takes fast forward to 25 min mark. If you want to get deep in market analysis buckle in for the whole thing. https://lnkd.in/d8M7Jyrx

131

12 Comments

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

9

Nic Poulos and I wrote an essay for Euclid Ventures, "An Era for Vertical Software." The TL;DR is that vertical SaaS is a distinct, enduring discipline that we believe is poised to dominate the software landscape over the next decade.   "2024 will represent a turning point, perhaps even a new era for venture capital. While the fog feels like it’s lifting, the path forward isn’t yet clear. One includes a soft landing for the US economy and the continuing recovery of software multiples, with ZIRP-era behaviors continuing around hot themes. Another sees a recessionary period in which VC capital inflows remain stagnant and startup funding the year dips below $100B. Either way, a more measured VC market in 2024 is a certainty. For many investors, that will come with a rude awakening as their strategy becomes more difficult to execute or their thesis of choice is negatively impacted by tightening markets.    We see this reversion of the venture ecosystem to its mean as a strong tailwind for Euclid and vertical software. As a category, Vertical SaaS is uniquely well suited to thrive in volatile market conditions and produce fund-returning outcomes. The sections below aim to answer the question: why is vertical software different? Our answer discusses the factors driving the natural market resilience we see in vertical software as a category–resilience that will help them thrive in 2024 and beyond."

117

16 Comments

How companies purchase software is rapidly evolving, with cloud marketplaces expected to reach $100B in 2026, up from $15B in 2023. Simply put, if you are building and selling cloud software today, it's imperative that you can sell through a cloud marketplace. The journey, however, can be a little confusing, and management can be even harder. With 3x growth last year and 3/4th of our business now flowing through a cloud marketplace, CloudZero switched to Clazar earlier this year to handle our rapid growth, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Trunal B. and Aayush Bahuguna have a big vision for how cloud marketplaces will evolve and how software will be bought and sold in the future. No matter where you are on your journey, learning from them what's coming next is worth your time.

38

3 Comments

Someone asked me how to move from SW to HW / robotics as a kickass builder excited to jump in. Love it! My response: robotics needs more great SW leaders who treat HW like a commodity, figure out a huge market need / GTM path, then pull in a team to unlock that.  With a SW mindset and SW architecture thinking. A lot of MechEs in love with their tech and the HW.  The HW is commodity - hard but commodity - and SW is where the interesting stuff is.  Simpler is better.  Most important is problem selection.  That is where you make / break the company and idea. And yes - there is HW innovation to be had - and I love folks doing that and doing it well. But there are far, far more opportunities for automation and problem solving with huge value creation now, with basically commodity OTS HW and SW. Choose problem, assemble solution, kick butt.

69

37 Comments

I've had the privilege of learning from Stephen Tafaro over the past few years. His new book, "Winning at SaaS," encapsulates the successful strategies he has shared with numerous SaaS businesses. If you work in a customer-facing role within a SaaS company or invest in SaaS businesses, I highly recommend checking it out! "Winning at SaaS: The CEO and CRO Sales Playbook for Early SaaS Success" is now available on Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/0ix2AF7k

47

A few spots left for this awesome workshop with Justin Gray of In Revenue Capital. Every successful founder I know learns to develop and maintain high performing relationships. This is a skill like anything else and can be developed. Founders, if you want to build a high-growth company, learn to build high-performing relationships. This workshop will help you do that. Hope you can join us.

15

Join me, Winter Mead and 500+ GPs, LPs, Family Offices, and all VC/PE stakeholders at the Fund of Funds and Family Office Online Conference on June 20th – Online on Zoom. Register for free: https://lnkd.in/gQ7e3q9X All attendees will be invited to contribute their fundraising and capital allocation hacks and insights. What will be your small piece of advice for GPs or LPs? Comment, and the host, Max Pog will include your answer in the database. Some participants will be gifted books. My hack will be… to always be transparent with what you need help with and genuinely try to help other GPs and LPs. VC is a multi-player game after all!

16

Ray Rike had a great analysis of the Net Revenue Retention Rate (combining public data from Jamin Ball and private company data from Benchmarkit for private companies). We continue to see NRR drop, and as pointed out in Ray's post, this means real enterprise value decreases for companies that can't fix the leaky buckets. Read his entire piece linked in the comment below, including 7 great tips to increase NRR.

3

1 Comment

Do investors value when former coworkers invest in your business?🔥📈 Yosh, Founder of Hadley, discovered the value of having past collaborators invest in his vision and company. Learn how their support mitigates investor risk and highlights your strong work ethic and unwavering commitment to your mission. #founder #investor #startup #529

20

8 Comments

Confused about your Micro SaaS's worth? You're not alone. We specialize in valuations and growth strategies. Here are key metrics we focus on: > MoM user retention: >95% > Rule of X (2*YoY Growth + Profit Margin): >.40 > Onboarding: User Led > MRR: $40k to $80k See our work in action: A case study on a software suite for wedding venues with $98k ARR: 💬 https://shorturl.at/xTUY3 Want to chat about your metrics and growth strategies? Drop me a DM! #MicroSaaS #valuation #exit #acquisition

6

2 Comments

We're launching the inaugural edition of Beyond Benchmarks, a deep dive into the metrics and trends observed across the early-stage enterprise cloud market. This is the first look at some of the business data around GenAI in SaaS. Some initial observations: 1) 60% of SaaS companies have already integrated GenAI into their offerings (60% of these as part of their current product and 40% as a new product), and an additional 20% are planning to do so this year. Almost half aren't monetizing these features. Those that are are primarily experimenting with both usage-based and flat fee pricing models. 2) Most companies are utilizing OpenAI as their primary LLM, but many are experimenting with multiple models - and we are noticing an early trend towards intelligently routing GenAI inference requests to different models based on cost, performance, and security. 3) Though we are in the initial innings of GenAI, we are seeing some positive signals - companies that implemented GenAI had 7% higher NDR than those that did not. Still early days, but we'll be doing this benchmarking report regularly to track and share how things progress in this new era. Link to report in comments.

104

6 Comments

LawFi, Inc. is pleased to be highlighted as a start-up customer in Plaid's announcement of their new Plaid Check Consumer Report services. Today, Plaid announced its new Plaid Check FCRA-compliant Consumer Report. We've been working with Plaid to integrate their solution into our legal fee lending platform. LawFi is building the first-of-its-kind Legal Fee Loan decision engine capable of underwriting and making customized legal fee loans at the point of need to close the pervasive Access-to-Justice and Credit Gaps. LawFi will help more than 160 million Americans living paycheck to paycheck, and 30 million small business owners to access the legal services they need by offering meaningful financing options that do not exist today. To bring more financial inclusion to the legal system, we want to develop a credit decision engine that casts a wider and deeper net. We want to make credit decisions based on the true financial health of potential customers, not just a credit score! We want to analyze real-time alternative data sources, not only historic reported credit data. When conducting a personalized assessment, we want to look at employment, income, and alternative non-reported credit and cash flow data, such as how someone pays their rent, cell phone bill, and utilities. The best way to accomplish these goals is to perform a cash flow analysis of the borrower's bank data to help us make decisions. Plaid Check and Prism Data were building the perfect solution to enable the type of reliable and compliant cash flow underwriting we wanted to build into our decision trees and workflows. The solution provides powerful permission-based access to a consumer's bank transaction data without the need for the customer to gather or upload any documents. Data can be accessed, analyzed, and scored in seconds, not days. The service returns more than raw data. It categorizes the transactions and returns valuable insights into employment, sources of income, non-reported payments, and a CashScore to consider in our internal decision models. It will help us make better credit decisions and give potential borrowers the credit they deserve. We are excited to be partnered with Plaid CRA and Prism as we prepare to launch LawFi in the coming months. Please see the Plaid announcement at the links below. https://lnkd.in/eqx_sDFn https://lnkd.in/eQCTm-8r

59

4 Comments

I recently had an enlightening conversation with Alex Pattis, general partner of Riverside Ventures and author of the #1 VC syndicate newsletter, "Last Money In." Alex's journey from sales director to launching a syndicate that has completed over 300 deals is truly remarkable. He's deployed over $70 million in capital and built a network of thousands of LPs along the way. During our chat, Alex clarified the intricacies of syndicates, explaining how they differ from traditional venture funds and the unique value they bring to both founders and investors. Syndicates offer a flexible, deal-by-deal approach for LPs, allowing them to cherry-pick investments. Alex highlighted that having a tier-one VC co-investor can significantly boost LP interest in a syndicate deal. Transparency and managing expectations are crucial when working with founders, according to Alex. He also shared insights on how Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) can be a strategic tool for founders to consolidate smaller investors. These structures offer a way to simplify cap tables while still accessing a broader investor base. Alex offered his perspective on the current syndicate market, noting the increasing interest in growth-stage and pre-IPO deals due to shorter paths to liquidity. This trend reflects a shift in investor priorities and the evolving landscape of venture capital. Whether you're a founder looking to understand syndicates or an aspiring investor curious about this unique approach to venture capital, Alex's insights are invaluable. Check out Episode 48 of Fundraising Demystified to learn from Alex's experience and gain a deeper understanding of the syndicate ecosystem!

33

2 Comments

DeepCast shipped a number of really cool new features recently in advance of a broad outreach push to podcast listeners. One new feature is our new Daily DeepDigest tool that sends you a concise daily email including any new episodes from the trailing 24 hours from any podcasts you Subscribe to (on DeepCast). Think daily podcast cliff notes or podcast news ticker tape, with a hint of Morning Brew various brews or PitchBook News—it's increasing information throughput when you're pressed for time. And this feature is rapidly evolving to distill other key extractions from shows you're already interested in, but also exposing you to other shows you might be unfamiliar with that also have nuggets to share—and thus increasing your aperture yet still conscious of your time. Want to go deeper on any given episode? Click the episode detail and you're off to an episode on DeepCast, where you can subsequently read a longer form distillation of that episode or go straight to the source and listen to the episode. (And podcaster friends, these pages are definitely increasing indexing and thus Google entry points to your shows!) I'm loving this feature as a user, personally. Can't wait to see what others think! #BuildingInPublic #Podcasts #AllTheWorldsInformation #HowYouWantIt

24

1 Comment

Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

21

2 Comments

What sets off alarm bells in my head? 🫨 Hearing early-stage founders make statements like, “We have a consumer product and a business product.”  🚨 Or “We are expanding to four new vertical markets this year.”  🚨 Or “We’re going to light up our reseller channel now.”  I see a lot of startups on the other side of getting stuck and I can tell you lack of focus is a huge problem. I get it: Staying true to your core—the one thing you do well—is tricky when you feel the pressure to grow from investors or people you hired to grow the business.  What’s key is being in deep alignment with your board and team around the reality of the learning process and what really matters. Stay lean and disciplined until you have proven your “one thing” beyond a doubt. Then you can raise money and grow faster when it’s irresponsible not to.  #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Reignition #Focus #Metrics

60

10 Comments