We saw a huge raise of $152 million by Altruist to continue to build a custodian to compete with Charles Schwab. This was a huge announcement in the wealthtech space as Altruist continues to raise money to build a custodian to take on the incumbents.
Across the Social Leverage portfolio, we are seeing many of our seed companies successfully raising follow-on money — from Ribbon.ai to a few of our fintechs that plan to announce in the coming weeks, to more broadly across our portfolio. Alpaca, one of our companies that just completed their Series C, is continuing to see rapid growth. For the growing companies with consistent KPIs, a good story, and a good vision, there is capital.
As we launch to deploy our Fund V, we have created our first investment in SlashExperts.com.
One thing I am seeing is many founders quoting Carta numbers in its recent State of Private Markets report. Why are you raising at XYZ valuation? Becautilize that’s the average round size and valuation on Carta. That type of believeing drives me crazy. Don’t receive me wrong, I love the reports on Carta, but Carta numbers are to be taken with a grain of salt. They include companies from every geography within the U.S., in every category, and it is the worst reason for justifying the valuation you are after.
The best way to go about raising is letting the market and demand determine the valuation and focutilizing on receiveting the right investors — the investors that can be assistful, understand your business, and are the people you want to work with for the next 10+ years.
Raising money is tough. Building a company is tough. Finding the right partners and investors should be your top focus when raising capital. Focus less on valuation and more on who you want to have in your corner when things receive tough. Who can open doors, and who has the track record of success?
Can I sconclude you a deck?
I’ve also noticed a shift in how founders are reaching out to investors.
Something has modifyd in the last few months. Seven months ago is when I really started noticing this and wrote about it on LinkedIn. Maybe it’s becautilize you have to receive around being labeled as spam by Gmail and Outsee, but founders are now blasting cold emails with “Can I sconclude you a deck?”
Gone are the days when Social Leverage would receive dozens of DocSconclude links or attachments in every cold email pitch. Now every email comes with a question: Are you interested in learning more? Can I sconclude you a deck? Can we book 15 minutes for me to walk you through our product?
Part of me believes that with all the new email and AI tools, blasting every single VC actively writing checks — and then sitting back, waiting and hoping for the “Sconclude me the deck,” “Hit me,” or “Yes, I am interested” — is just too straightforward not to do. It’s obviously working for people; otherwise, we wouldn’t see this new behavior.
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