Matt Vitale的动态

Friends of Birchal, We hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and wish you a very Happy New Year! As we reflect on the remarkable achievements towards the end of 2024, we’re excited about the opportunities that lie ahead for Birchal in 2025 and the momentum we have in the market. As we embark on this new year, we want to share an important leadership update with you. After six truly transformative years as Birchal’s CEO and co-founder, Matt Vitale has made the decision to step down to focus on his health and well-being, as well as spending more time with his family. This decision reflects Matt’s deep commitment to making sure Birchal is set up for future success, ensuring the business remains in the best hands for its next phase of growth. Matt has been the driving force behind Birchal’s success, guiding the company to achieve extraordinary milestones, notably leading the charge in early crowd-funding legislation and creating Australia’s leading equity crowdfunding platform. His resilience and vision have left an indelible mark on the business, the start-up ecosystem and founders across Australia. On behalf of the entire team, we extend our deepest gratitude to Matt for his dedication and leadership, and are proud to have had him lead us over the years. Mental Health is often an invisible fight that no one else can see - pressure can knock you down when you least expect it. Matt’s decision serves as a powerful reminder that mental health and wellbeing are essential, no matter the role we play in life or business. The demands of leadership, like any challenge, underscore the importance of prioritising self-care and recognising when it’s time to pause and recharge. To ensure a seamless transition, we have engaged ?? Kirstin Hunter, MD at Techstars and former CEO and co-founder at Future Super, in an advisory role as CEO Transition Lead, effective immediately. Kirstin brings a wealth of experience and will provide critical support to the team as we conduct a comprehensive search for a new CEO. Despite this leadership change, we’re incredibly excited for 2025.? We closed 2024 on a high note, buoyed by our most successful capital raise to date, the support of over 800 new shareholders, and a team that is more capable and committed than ever to achieve our mission. As we move into 2025, we are excited about the opportunities ahead and confident in our ability to continue delivering value to our shareholders and partners. Our ambition to scale Birchal and bring accessible, transparent, and community-driven investment opportunities to Australia remains our mission as we hit the ground running this year. Thank you for your continued support in what we’re building. Warm regards Adam Vise? Chair & Director of Birchal

"Our fund is a platform & a process to build the flywheel of founders supporting other founders" - this is the last post from the trilogy deciphering our vision. Part 1 https://t.ly/n2Pml, Part 2 https://t.ly/7Yb18 This is the most challenging, exciting, and strategic part of the s16vc vision. Imagine planting a seed, watching it grow into a tree, and then seeing it spread its seeds to eventually become a forest. We first observed this phenomenon in our community. s16 began as simple gatherings at an apartment with late-night poker games and endless conversations about our startups. However, as we wrote in Part 1, our community members are builders—people with a strong sense of ownership and boundless energy. Having absorbed the community DNA, they started organizing new initiatives. Over next?years, those apartment talks evolved into business clubs, two-week-long co-livings, festivals, local chapters, a Burning Man camp, and our off-the-record roaming conference—all initiated and led by different people who got “stuck” in the community. Rituals, processes, and even some rules were devised to support new initiatives in a way that preserved trust and affinity. The community became the first version of the platform, with processes that enabled its members to build on top of it. It turned into a flywheel where the more?initiatives were launched, the more like-minded people could join without sacrificing the close-knit affinity of small groups limited by the Dunbar's number. ? All VC funds have a natural flywheel: if you do what you promise, the more founders you fund, the more other founders they will refer to you, and if they succeed, the more LPs you’ll attract over time. However, we want to take our flywheel further by replicating the organic growth and evolution of our community. In 10 years, there will be over 500 portfolio founders and LPs in the s16vc ecosystem. Many of them will absorb our DNA and values. Some will want to start a business that could benefit from the s16vc ecosystem: finance, legal, and physical infrastructure, as well as the s16 community?affiliation. This could include a region or sector-specific fund, a co-working space, a local incubator, a multi-family office, and more. Building any one of these initiatives from scratch and alone is extremely difficult and not nearly as much fun. Starting within s16vc and the broader community, leveraging the infrastructure, and potentially securing anchor capital not only makes it easier to launch new initiatives but also strengthens each existing business node in the ecosystem. This is what we mean by?creating a platform and process to build a flywheel of founders supporting other founders, with s16vc as the first commercial node. In our vision, the people who will launch new initiatives are those who’ve been with the community for many years. For that reason, there’s no rush to move faster than the natural rhythm of community development. #s16vc #s16vc_vision

I never pay to be in an angel investing group. Here’s why… Some angel groups charge thousands of dollars to join. When I look at these groups (also known as syndicates), I do the same thing I do when I look at a startup. I compare them to what else is in the market. And the market is telling me that this isn’t worth paying for. I’m a member of almost 100 syndicates. So far, the one with the best track record and dealflow I’ve seen is Jason Calacanis’. Joining that group is free. So why would I pay someone else for an inferior product? I know that sounds kinda harsh. But this is a free market. Never forget, syndicates are already getting paid. They generally take 20% of any investment gains you make. This is called the “carry.” Here are my favorite syndicates. Of the roughly 100 I’m in, these have had the best dealflow. I’ve done deals with all of them. And all are free: -??Jason’s Syndicate -??Flight VC -??Riverside Ventures -??Mana Ventures -??Tom Williams’ Syndicate More below, including a great way to learn more about investing... #startups #venturecapital https://lnkd.in/ejSVkB3Y

I came across a brilliant post on OpenVC by Stephane Nasser on how VCs aren't your friends, and agree with it completely. Summarized the points covered and my thoughts below (full article link in comments). 1. VCs are fiduciaries (ideally): VCs are responsible first and foremost to their Limited Partners (LPs), the wonderful folks who b?u?r?n? invest into VC funds, so they can deploy into startups. This means that funds aren't charities, out there to help and support struggling entrepreneurs and build this wonderful culture of exploration. There's some elements of that, yes. But the primary objective of funds (barring impact, govt) is to make ????????. When we're evaluating a startup, we are actively considering how we can exit from it, which in most cases is through some form of M&A. If our conclusion is there isn't a clear exit path (SME IPOs are fixing this a bit), then we pass 2. 'Good' just isn't good enough: If I'm using a really crude analogy, capital being bullets, we have limited shots to fire. We know most of these aren't going to be on target. So we need to line up each shot, really carefully, take deep breaths, calmly line up the target, half-exhale, then fire. ^What this means is that you could have a 'good' business. Numbers are decent. Founders are fairly experienced. Growth rates seem nice. And this still may not be enough. Because, with limited bullets, I really really need to try and hit the target with each shot. That means I'm holding out for a combination of WOW traction, an EPIC founding team, great tech, solid operations. 3. Fundraising is Sales: This is straight up true (and great advice). I've seen so many folks ping on LinkedIn with zero clue about my investment preferences or how I like to be communicated with. This is a COMPLETE red flag, since if this is how much attention to detail the Founders put towards fundraising, then I have NO confidence in their ability to sell. VCs, especially me (and Artha), literally give most details on a platter. How to reach out. What the initial message needs to contain. What we're interested in. If you still manage to ignore all of this, odds are you're a terrible salesperson and I am better off passing. #funding #fundraising #founders #venturecapital

So true. An astute description of the investment landscape.

The median seed valuation on Carta is at an all-time high. And the median Series A valuation isn’t far off. In most respects, startup fundraising has cooled off from the sizzling days of 2021 and early 2022. But when it comes to early-stage valuations, the market is hotter than ever. “As a founder, I see investors being much more proactive in the past three to six months,” Adam Nash told me recently. Adam has a few different perspectives on the VC scene: He's the former CEO at Wealthfront, a veteran angel investor, and now the founder of Daffy, a fintech startup focused on charitable giving. “The outreach has started again," he continued. "Instead of it being founders trying to network to get the investors, I’m starting to see investors reach out to founders that they’re excited about. And that’s a great sign for the market.” My latest story (link in the comments below) digs into these changing dynamics in the early-stage market, plus some of our latest data on the seed and Series A scenes. It also includes some highlights from a conversation with Jared Brenner of Stubbs Alderton & Markiles, LLP, a VC expert on the legal side, about how interest rates have impacted fundraising in recent years—and how they might continue to do so in the future. A big thanks to both Adam and Jared for taking the time to talk!

CONFESSION: In 2018 I bankrupted my VC backed business and lost it all.. this is how I started over... I lost my confidence, my passion, my sense of purpose but worst of all, I lost the trust and faith of those closest to me. I was broke, afraid, and uncertain about my future for the first time in my life. With nothing left for me in the UK, my family and I made the hardest decision yet, we moved to Spain to start over. But what did rebuilding look like? The first thing I had to overcome was my mindset. In this position you cant help but look for quick wins, I knew this was wrong. I had to recondition my brain to stop thinking of ideas, stop thinking of money-making schemes and get comfortable with time passing me by. I accepted the position I was in, and understood that I was rebuilding. The next was my confidence. I had lost it all, at the time I was a failure, the local press ran stories on me, I felt worthless. I had to change this. I managed this by taking simple jobs where I could excel, social media positions etc. This helped me feel valuable and over time demonstrating my intelligence, built up my confidence. I lost my purpose. I had to find it again. I always wanted to be the next unicorn business owner, but this wasn't a reality for me anymore. So I took to the mountains. I promised myself to walk 10km a day (pictured) until I found my vision. It was obvious really, I never wanted another person to go through what I had been through again. I could do this by being by their side. Since this moment, I have dedicated every hour of my life to supporting founders. -> In 2019 I found crowdfunding, a clean and pure way to raise funding -> In 2020 I launched 13% of all successful campaigns in Europe -> In 2021 I realised crowdfunding wasn't really helping anyone as they already have 50% raised (lol) -> Started focussing on the real problem, the lead investor conundrum -> Worked on over 150 funding rounds, supporting founders to raise over ￡100M including world-leading PHDs, A-list celebs, Elite athletes and more.. -> Bootstrapped to over ￡1m revenue from nothing, no adverts, no funding just pure tenacity -> Launched a community with over 260+ founders from pre-seed to exit The cliche quote is "It ain't about how hard you can hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward" and elements of this are true. Nowadays I like to avoid being hit at all. There is always someone in life one step in front of you, and one step behind. If we all walk together, pay it forward and share our knowledge, we can avoid a hell of a lot of pain. #Startup #Mindset #VentureCapital #AngelInvestor #Entrepreneur #Fundraising #Investment

The Fidelity Private Shares Founder Community supports startups with fundraising access to top investors & a network of truly legendary entrepreneurs. Let's Continue to Build Together!!? Truly appreciate Gary Vaynerchuk, AJ Vaynerchuk, Vivek Sodera, Brett Perlmutter for Co-Hosting this Founders Night which brought together 60+ leaders in the community consisting of active investors and amazing founders. Personally speaking, this was the most talented group of individuals I've ever had the pleasure of being with in one room. Thank you to all the attended and much more to come! Anthony Pompliano, Polina Pompliano, Sheila Lirio Marcelo, Cyrus Massoumi, Arian Agrawal, iqram magdon-ismail, Nuseir Yassin, Ryan Denehy, Amir Tarighat, Max Kolysh, Amanda Herson (Founders Collective), Bryan Rosenblatt (Craft VC), Abdul Abdirahman (FPrime), David Yakobovitch (DataPowerVC), Elliott Robinson (Bessemer VP), Hailey Wilcox (Battery Ventures), Jenny Friedman (Four Acres Capital) Special shout out to these founders! Amarildo Gjondrekaj, Corey Feldman, Joon Ahn, PhD, Paul H., Sol Lee, Thomas Drew, Estelle Palandjian, Marta Parke, Benny Boas, Andrew Flint, Andrew Yeung, Chris Zarou, Dennis R. Mortensen, Ginger Dhaliwal, Meghan Curtin McKenna, Nik Bonaddio ( I hit max mention limit haha so many more... ) Startups on the Fidelity Private Shares cap table platform are prioritized for curated founder events like this. If you like to join these events and join the Fidelity Investments platform, please connect with me! #Founders #Entrepreneur #ventureCapital #CapTable

When investors tell you "you're too early", it's not because you're too early. It's rather because: - They are too afraid to say a straight no. Why? They always want to keep their options open. - They don’t have a sense of urgency. They are thinking “Why should I invest now? I literally don’t lose any money if I wait another 6 months, and by then, maybe the founder would’ve solved X.” - They don't like you as a founder. A poorly framed pitch and Q&A, suggests a poorly thought-out process by the founder. - They honestly don’t believe or understand what you are doing, but then they can always fall back to reason 1 (in case a16z or Sequoia lands you a term sheet…!) That's not because you didn't hit the KPI they look for. Because trust me, once you hit it, they may not even be interested in the opportunity anymore. It's because the power dynamics in the room were 100% in their favor. Because they didn't feel the funding round was happening no matter what. Keep these 4 in mind to change those dynamics in your favor: 1) Be extremely optimistic about the fundraise. Investors don’t want to feel they are "helping" with their money, charities fill that gap better. They want to feel that they are going to have an extreme return. They want to feel they are betting on the 1% companies. They have to feel a sense of urgency. 2) Casually throw details about the progress of the fundraise with confidence. Don’t worry, those small details will become stronger facts as you make progress in conversations, and your confidence will grow and their sense of urgency too. 3) Obsess with the tough questions. Everyone is good at the easy ones. Construct short, simple and objective arguments for each tough question. As Pascal said, "if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". Deliver the message through. 4) Be passionate and honest about what you want to build. Don't try to sound as something you think you should, or something you’ve seen around. VCs are tired of fabricated pitches. Be special. You're not too early. The message just didn't go through. #fundraising #venturecapital #startup #entrepreneurship

VCs don't care if you're a nice person. They want founders who take massive risks. https://lnkd.in/gThqjZhV #startup #success #venturecapitalists #vcs #founders #investments #risks #venturecapital #funding #capitalraising