VAMOS ARGENTINA! 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷
We at
@FJLabs
have done 20+ investments in Argentina to-date. Some of our more recent investments include
@UnblockComputos
and Extendeal.
Randomly, two of our best-ever outcomes came from Argy too - Tienda Nube (aka NuvemShop) and Pixowl (bought by
YC startups that would have raised at $8M cap in 2017-2020 are today raising at $20M cap.
In part this is due to the larger YC investment and MFN, but it also feels like these companies are being given bad advice and remain in denial that we’re not in 2021 anymore.
This is
Hearing about some crazy stuff in the mid-late stage fundraising market right now. Massive downrounds, bridge rounds galore and busted fundraises.
Founders- it would be wise to get your burn under control ASAP. Cash is quickly becoming PRECIOUS.
This is definitely *not* a marketplace, but we are ecstatic to back
@adcock_brett
for a 5th time across 3 different companies.
We first backed him in the jobs marketplace Vettery that he sold to Adecco for $100M+ and then in Archer Aviation, that he took public on the NYSE for
Excited to share: Figure raises $675M at $2.6B Valuation
+ OpenAI & Figure signed a collaboration agreement to develop next generation AI models for robots
Below are the details:
Series A and B are far better risk/reward than Seed right now IMO.
Given Seeds are at ATH valuations while As and Bs have gone back to historic multiples (assuming you don’t have AI in your name!), we would rather wait a round or two and pay up a bit for far more traction.
“What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it.
And what I see all over the place is people who care about *looking good* while doing evil.” -
@elonmusk
What a BEAUTIFUL quote, identifying and distilling so much of the cultural rot of our times!
Elon called out the fake corporate virtue signaling and ESG bullshit…
"I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about LOOKING good, while DOING evil. Fuck them." -
@elonmusk
Brett is one of the most amazing founders we’ve ever backed. That’s why as marketplace investors (we first backed Brett in Vettery, a jobs marketplace that he sold for $100M) we gladly invested in electric aircraft and humanoid robots 😂.
Random thoughts on Humanoid Robots & Electric Aircraft
When I started Archer Aviation in 2018, there were many players in electric vertical takeoff & landing (eVTOL). If anything, Archer was late to the party. We were the new kid on the block adding the best talent and given we
Lol there is now a GoFundMe to “throw a rager” for the brothers of Pi Kappa Phi at UNC.
“Help us raise funds to throw this frat the party they deserve”
.
@JMilei
:
“When you spend your money on yourself, you do it wisely.
When you spend your money on others, you minimize cost.
When you spend others' money on yourself, there is waste.
The worst is spending others' money on others. That's why the state is never efficient.”
Honestly- save your MBA tuition money and stick it in Doge (jk?) and read
@mariodgabriele
and
@packyM
instead. The quality (and now quantity) of their content is amaaaaazing.
Recently leaked China's population data confirm my estimates: births began to decline in 1991, with no peak in 2004 or 2011; Population is now less than 1.28 billion, not the official 1.41 billion; Population began to shrink in 2018, not 2031 as officially predicted.
Quick q for the world: who are the biggest nerds/experts in the world when it comes to VC theory, particuarly w/r/t portfolio construction, returns and fund structure?
Pretty cool to see that we
@FJLabs
were the
#1
most active investor at early-stage and
#3
most active late-stage in the world last year.
I think the 2023 vintage will be a great one and it was a concious decision on our part to try to lean in and be counter-cyclical.
@wolfejosh
Because of stunning and brave heroes like this one, Europe is so completely beholden to Russian natgas that the ruble is the best performing currency in the world this year.
Greta FTW!
In venture capital, it’s all about the long game, and right now top investors are laying the groundwork for the next wave of tech success stories.
See our picks for the top 20 venture investors in North America:
If I could invest in any single fund in the world, it would be YC (at least before the new terms, but even now I think this easily remains true)
However, I would NOT invest in YC if it only invested at 2023 Demo Day prices.
$1.8M entry valuation is dramatically different than
@_kushgupta
Some investors just cannot grasp the implications of the fact that all the returns are concentrated in the big wins. The top tier investors get it though; you'll rarely lose one of them over price.
We should have banned TikTok yesterday.
Anyone with a brain knows that any large Chinese company is an appendage of the CCP.
The next best time to do so is TODAY.
This post is so, so good.
We have seen tons of younger investors LARPing as emerging market VCs. The peak was in 2021 but it’s still happening a bit to this day.
They lack a proper understanding of the massive embedded risks (macro, fx, government stability, corruption, depth
On younger VCs and a focus on emerging markets
A pattern i've observed when interviewing younger candidates in venture is a desire and focus on understanding emerging markets as an investment theme/area of edge.
While I get why that may be intellectually interesting and seem
Interesting to see how some distort
@wolfejosh
’s arguments re: $TSLA. He bets on audacious, missionary founders for a living!
Tesla is a PUBLICLY traded company. Not cool to bluster/distort/exaggerate when accepting $ from retail (think 401k, retiree) investors.
According to Crunchbase, we're the most active VC/angel fund in the world right now.
Lots of friends on this list, but I think the ones above us are accelerators.
Cool!
@zachweinberg
"One of the mysteries of the ages is why the political left has, for centuries, lavished so much attention on the well-being of criminals and paid so little attention to their victims" -
@ThomasSowell
@mwseibel
This stat is exactly why I tweeted this. We must have been one of the the most prolific YC investors in the world from when I joined FJ in early 2017 until COVID. Attending demo days in SF was a highlight of my year and I love YC and what it stands for.
I’ll always remember
Not sure if people are appreciating just how likely it is that Trump has Coronavirus! That night at Mar-A-Lago:
Bolsonaro’s press sec
Bolsonaro’s lawyer
Brazilian senator
Brazil amb. to the US
Mayor of Miami
All have confirmed tested positive!!!
+Bolsonaro (now lying abt it)
I love this from our friends at Lead Edge Capital on how companies share presentations.
So funny and clever (and true!). As with all things in life, so much information lies in what's NOT being said.
A rant on Bro Science and the rise of the Keto diet, butter in your coffee, infrared lights, polyphasic sleep, fasting, vitamin cocktails, and all of the fads...
A lot of it's useless. But why do smart people fall for it and why are they SO passionate about it? A Thread...
Contrary to popular belief, we feel that now is a FANTASTIC time to be investing in early-stage startups.
And we don't just talk the talk- according to Pitchbook, FJ Labs was the most active investor in the WORLD last quarter!
@ColinGardiner
For the company where we decide to pass due to valuation we set a reminder to ping the founders in 12 months, which is typically in advance of their next fundraise.
Their next funding round is almost always more appealing on a risk/reward basis. Often it’s a flat price while
@WillManidis
@wolfejosh
I used to have the same views on religion (grew up Jewish, then atheist/anti-theist).
The events of the past years have shown that the collapse of Judeo-Christian religion in the US has given rise to secular religions that are far worse.
I read an article like this and am completely dumbfounded/flabbergasted.
After reading this, what is the steelmanned argument in defense of Secret Service with regard to the pipe bombs that were found at the DNC on January 6th?
Critically important: Kamala Harris is hiding something very dark about her Secret Service detail and the January 6 pipe bomb
Harris is at the nexus of the politicized corruption and criminality of the Secret Service
Must Read
Today,
@skertl_
and I spoke to
@KauffmanFellows
classes 26 and 27 today about our VC opportunity fund research.
See here for the 50 articles of primary source material that inspired our research (supplemented with 30 confidential GP/LP interviews):
Free speech absolutism can and should be defended a la ACLU protecting KKK rally in Skokie (before it also was infected by the mind virus)
That free speech advocacy has NOT been happening at these universities, which are rotting corpses of DEI bureaucracy, cancel culture and
The presidents of
@Harvard
,
@MIT
, and
@Penn
were all asked the following question under oath at today’s congressional hearing on antisemitism:
Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your university’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?
The
On another, lighter topic :)
We are DELIGHTED to announce our investment in
@Parcl
, a Solana-based RE platform that lets investors gain exposure to RE markets with no minimum, low transaction fees, and immediate liquidity.
Many VCs have soured on B2B marketplaces, and understandably so given some of the high-profile dissolutions and down-rounds in the space.
But we at
@FJLabs
continue to believe that B2B is on the verge of a multi-trillion dollar digital transformation and are investing
FJ Labs’ B2B Marketplace Thesis
For consumers, the Internet has made everything cheaper, better, and faster. We have extraordinary user experiences and infinite convenience. Digital penetration is above 20% in many categories. We can order almost anything online on Amazon and
For the 15 other dorks who care...people IMO who were robbed of the Midas List:
Mucker (Honey) - how do you miss that?!
Peter Hebert, Lux (Auris)
Santi Subotovsky, Emergence (Zoom)
Sundeep Peechu/Wesley Chan, Felicis (Canva/Carta/Plaid/Flexport/Checkr/a billion other cos)
We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead. Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact,.....
@paulg
@ColinGardiner
Why pay $20M post pre-launch when we can see 12 months of execution and pay a similar price at that point?
And if a company knocks it out of the park, we are happy to pay up, but the risk/reward at that point is always better!
This is a relatively new phenomenon for us as demo
He's back. The Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan arrives October 23.
(That's the full movie title we swear.)
Excited to be co-sponsoring the 2023 Marketplace Conference in Berlin on September 21st alongside our good friends at
@Speedinvest
. Come say hi if you're in town!
We’re excited to announce Jose Marin, co-founder of
@FjLabs
, an early-stage venture firm/startup studio focused on online marketplaces will be coming back to MPC this year!
Only 3 weeks to go until the MPC! Secure your ticket now👇
This isn't quite
@nickwillis
's 20 consecutive years sub 4, but I just hit 17 consecutive years where I have run 4:20 in the mile equivalent or faster.
Despite my worst year of running to date (two kids, significant work tavel and plantar fasciitis), I was able to cram in some
@ElectProject
@bznotes
@UF
When this guy’s department generates $141M in revenue, maybe he too can fly in a private jet. Until then, he should learn that the independently funded athletic department has donated over $79M to the school over the years (with $0 going the other way).
Re Shelby Houlihan:
-8x the normal amt. and 2.5X legal limit in her system
-most Kenyan doping +s (distance runners) are Nandrolone (more than EPO)
-US pork food supply is castrated
-She actually ordered a carne asada burrito
-just shattered AR in the 5k
-lost her appeal
Hmm.
i gotta say i was skeptical of the whole breathing intelligence into sand chips thing
but this... this work of art... i have seen the future and i love it
This stat is exactly why I tweeted this. We must have been one of the the most prolific YC investors in the world from when I joined FJ in early 2017 until COVID. Attending demo days in SF was a highlight of my year and I love YC and what it stands for.
I’ll always remember
The last two weeks have been hard.
I've had a $6B fund try to take down one of my pieces. Today, I'm putting it back up, and explaining what's happened.
More below.
We are delighted to back
@Samirkaji
, whose background at SVB and First Republic makes him the perfect conduit between Sand Hill Road and private wealth.
Allocate is now THE venture capital provider for an RIA that manages $80B across 60 firms!
FEMSA is a 130-yr-old undervalued Mexican giant with a free option on Mexico's digital future. It owns:
- Word's largest Coca-Cola bottler
- 15% of Heineken
- Largest c-store chain in the Americas, OXXO
@Post_Market
& I teamed up to analyze FEMSA & its digital opportunity.
The “scandal” here is that entrepreneurship is massively value creating and that Peter Thiel is one of the best founders/investors in history.
Instead focus on the silly rules that Average Joe can YOLO on Robinhood/crypto but is not “sophisticated” enough to invest in startups.
Our latest from “The Secret IRS Files”:
How did Peter Thiel use a Roth IRA — a tax-free acct meant to help middle class Americans save for retirement — to amass $5 BILLION dollars*?
(*that he'll probably never have to pay taxes on)
A thread 👇
Let's talk about $TSLA's shareholder meeting. Elon answered eleven questions from Twitter. Of those eleven, four were from Twitter users that have two or less followers. Two of those users have zero followers. One of them has zero followers and is followed by zero.
@wolfejosh
This isn’t costly at all though!
You are a US fund that invests in the US with US investors fighting to give you money.
You were never going to take Chinese money or invest in China in the first place.
@wolfejosh
@Jason
@chamath
Ok so what are you doing about it?
This is exactly Chamath’s point.
Virtue signaling (what you’re doing here) is costless noise.
He is effecting change where he CAN.
We know a thing or two about what it takes for startups to raise a Series A nowadays 😃
And as mentioned, raising with no traction at at $20M does not leave much margin of safety to raise strong follow-on financing. It’s not 2021 anymore.
We are delighted to have invested in this new
@AngelList
round. What
@avlok
and team are building is completely transformational for the startup ecosystem and we at FJ are fortunate to have been using the platform since its early days. Amazing!
a tale of two CEO's
1. MIT boy, dresses well, never says anything contentious, makes widely loved products, you prolly don't even know his name
2. speaks his mind, receives tons of hate, most shorted stock in history, big public layoffs. "what an idiot" they say
guess who
The age of the Software-Led Growth Buyout is Here.
Bringing software to industry remains the biggest opportunity for software to orchestrate/accelerate GDP but only if we can work beyond vSaaS biz models and capital structures.
Our deck and thesis:
@wolfejosh
Unfortunately I learned a very different lesson- being early is still being wrong. Despite my enduring conviction, the vast majority of my puts have now expired 😞 RIP my shorting activities.
“In other news, US + EU “environmentalists” cloaked in virtue, protesting nuclear inanely conflating it with war, have unintentionally caused massive energy shortages, spiked power prices and ceded geopolitical advantage to oppressive authoritarians—Here’s Tom with the weather.”
WATCH: President Trump FORCEFULLY answers hostile question about “the elephant in the room” at National Association of Black Journalists Convention in Chicago
Excited to listen to this one.
@Vinted
has been consistently the best performer of our 1,000+ company portfolio and Thomas has done an amazing job turning the company around.
Fun fact: Thomas was previously
@fabricegrinda
's "fixer" at OLX.
I had the privilege to speak with the CEO of
@Vinted
on
@twentyminutevc
today with
@HarryStebbings
. Proud to serve on the board on behalf of
@lightspeedvp
.
How do you build a cross boarder consumer marketplace in Eurozone? Listen up for the 🔑.
👇👇
@rabois
It has taken 1.5 hours for someone to mention lockdowns. And no one has yet acknowledged the street crime. But Jeff Lawson says if you leave it’s bc of taxes 🙄🙄
In this video at my lovely alma mater, he says that they are fighting for a “plurinational,
secular, socialist state” in Palestine.
Ah yes, the famously secular Middle East…would love to see the local polling on that one! 😂😂😂
Where do they even find these people??
4.5 years ago @ small private investor gathering I pitched LONG NVDA (having pitched SHORT INTC yea prior)
Here was my pitch/write-up Feb ‘16
Idea came after seeing Nvidia chips not yet on the market being used at crazy little company called “Zoox” (just sold to AMZN for $B+)
It's even worse than it seems out there.
People are starting to wake up to the pervasive rot in academia (and journalism, and corporate America, etc. etc)
Talk without skin in the game is cheap.
In some ways it’s worse than silence bc it lets you *pretend* that you’re doing something and moralize / talk down to others.
I teamed with the late Hieronymous Bosch and 'designed' a fusion reactor––on
#dalle2
(promopt: 'fusion reactor, highly detailed painted by Hieronymous Bosch')
Without knowing specific context here, I can already say with confidence that I STRONGLY DISAGREE with this statement.
First of all, founders should always judge their individual partners/deal leads over general firm brands, because partner quality can vary wildly within a
Very excited to share some work that I've been doing with the amazing
@skerti820
on the mechanics, economics and best practices of VC opportunity funds. We hope you find this as useful/interesting as we did, thanks to all who supported us in our research!