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Day: December 15, 2021

Back in the Classroom: Time to Teach!

by Aswath Damodaran

At the start of every semester for as long as I can remember, I have invited people to sit in informally on my classes at NYU or take the shorter online versions on my website. After thirty six years of teaching, you would think I would be jaded, but I am not. As we get ready for the spring, I am excited, perhaps more so than usual, because I hope to finally be in a real classroom, instead of online, for my classes. 

Spring is here, and the classroom beckons!

    I have always described myself as a teacher, first and foremost, but like many of you, COVID has been a disruptor. For much of the last two years, rather than teach my classes in a classroom, I taught my classes from my home office, making a few low-cost, low-tech investments to improve my set up. 

I know that many of us, especially as we age, take the dystopian view that technology has hurt more than helped, and while I share the concern about the damage that social media has wrought on society, I remain thankful for the good that has come from technological advances. The combination of speedy internet access and delivery platforms (Zoom, Teams, Skype, Blue Jeans etc.) allowed me to deliver my classes from home, with some help. With a M1 MacBook Pro, a 27 inch LG display and my iPad Pro in sidecar mode, I could see everyone in my class, albeit with some work; (Read more...)

Seedcamp 2021 Year in Review

by Kate McGinn
This post is by Kate McGinn from Seedcamp

50 new companies, £4Bn+ in follow-on funding, and two Seedcamp companies list publicly 

It feels like a daunting task to reflect back on what has arguably been the busiest in our 14-year history at Seedcamp. 2021 has been a year of incredible highs, with some amazing successes and reasons to celebrate across our core team and portfolio companies. We’d be remiss to overlook that — with all the highs — it’s also been a challenging year; both globally and for many of us personally. So, we start this year’s reflection with a much-needed and massive Thank You to everyone who has contributed to making this crazy year one of our best yet. 

It’s no secret that pace has been the name of the game this year. With so much talk of inflated rounds, bubbles, and bull markets, we’ve remained firm in our core belief: that exceptional talent can come from anywhere and focused on investing and supporting those founders we believe are building the businesses that will help shape the future we want to be a part of. It’s been no mean feat! This year, we’ve invested in 50 new pre-seed and seed-stage companies building everything from the technology to simplify borderless transactions for commerce across Africa to contextual search tools to help improve workplace knowledge.

And while we’ve increased our pace of investment, we’ve also doubled down on the support we provide to our portfolio companies once they become part of the Seedcamp Nation, building our core team and (Read more...)

Seedcamp 2021 Year in Review

by Kate McGinn
This post is by Kate McGinn from Seedcamp

50 new companies, £4Bn+ in follow-on funding, and two Seedcamp companies list publicly 

It feels like a daunting task to reflect back on what has arguably been the busiest in our 14-year history at Seedcamp. 2021 has been a year of incredible highs, with some amazing successes and reasons to celebrate across our core team and portfolio companies. We’d be remiss to overlook that — with all the highs — it’s also been a challenging year; both globally and for many of us personally. So, we start this year’s reflection with a much-needed and massive Thank You to everyone who has contributed to making this crazy year one of our best yet. 

It’s no secret that pace has been the name of the game this year. With so much talk of inflated rounds, bubbles, and bull markets, we’ve remained firm in our core belief: that exceptional talent can come from anywhere and focused on investing and supporting those founders we believe are building the businesses that will help shape the future we want to be a part of. It’s been no mean feat! This year, we’ve invested in 50 new pre-seed and seed-stage companies building everything from the technology to simplify borderless transactions for commerce across Africa to contextual search tools to help improve workplace knowledge.

And while we’ve increased our pace of investment, we’ve also doubled down on the support we provide to our portfolio companies once they become part of the Seedcamp Nation, building our core team and (Read more...)

To the Moon? Venture Capital Trends

by Collaborative Fund

There is no shortage of the word “unprecedented” when describing the last two years.

Despite the initial caution around capital markets, venture deal activity and valuations continue to show strength. These unprecedented times have led to some record-breaking years and quarters for the venture capital market.

There has been increased demand for private investments, largely due to companies staying private longer and private markets having historically outperformed public markets. Venture capital has been a beneficiary of this trend, as venture returns have outperformed private equity.

The result? Growing demand for VC allocations, increasing fund sizes and record levels of dry powder (>$430B).

As we approach the end of the year, let’s reflect back on the market and share some trends we are seeing play out.

Bigger Deals & Growing Valuations

Deals are continuing to grow, in terms of round sizes, valuations, and volume. In Q3 2021, there were over 400 mega-rounds (deals raising >$100M) which represented >50% of funding dollars but only ~4% of the deal count.

There is more competition at the early stage, as traditionally late stage investors are moving earlier and seed investors are moving later. The average seed round was in the $9-10M range, doubling over the last 6 years. Early stage rounds have gone up to $50M from $20-25M, three years ago. The dispersion between top and bottom performing seed deals continues to widen, while Series A investments are proving to be the best performing entry point.

Faster Processes

In conjunction with an increase in (Read more...)

Senior Epidemiology

by Joseph

This is Joseph.

A blogger by the name of Noah Haber made this provocative graphic:

It took me a few minutes to identify everyone but the most interesting thing (besides a fairly clear phenotype) is that five of eight are appointed at Harvard University. Harvard has a strong public health school, but is it really that dominant? Is talent really so narrowly concentrated? Or is this an issue of power concentration like the way that four of the current SCOTUS justices come from Yale's law school and seven come from either Yale or Harvard. There are around 200 law schools in the US, it seems equally remarkable that talent is just that concentrated. 

The other schools are Emory, Penn, and Leeds. 

There is something to be considered here about the intellectual diversity in Epidemiology. It's true that it looks a bit better if you look at details but it is still not a great situation to have one school leading so much of the field. It opens vulnerabilities that we don't like.

Now, it is true that Noah's method of sampling could be debated. But it is a very curiously link to what appears to be the most important publications in the field. 


Building Better: Amex Ventures and Philanthropi

by Sabrina Fang

Welcome to the NVCA Blog series, Building Better, where we celebrate the dynamic relationship between our VC members and their innovative portfolio companies around the nation. For today’s Building Better, we spoke with Harshul Sanghi, Founder and Global Head of Amex Ventures, and with Dr. Keith Leaphart, Founder of Philanthropi, an Amex Ventures portfolio company.

Harshul Sanghi, Founder and Global Head, Amex Ventures

What is Amex Ventures’ mission and how does the firm strive to meet its goals?

Amex Ventures’ mission is to bring together the most innovative startups with the backing of American Express to enable the world’s best customer experiences every day. This can mean investing in companies whose technologies can enhance our own or investing in companies that help us introduce net new products to our customers. We also try wherever possible to facilitate partnerships between our portfolio companies and business units within American Express. In fact, 70% of companies that have joined our portfolio within the last three years have commercial relationships with Amex. Developing close relationships is one of the primary ways we add value for both our portfolio companies and American Express.

What does Amex Ventures look for when choosing to invest in a portfolio company? What made Amex Ventures invest in Philanthropi?

When we make new investments, we look for founders and companies building innovative solutions to long-standing problems in areas that are of importance to our customer base. In the case of Philanthropi, an investment was an easy (Read more...)