Coelius Capital 2020 Recap. 5th year at +30% IRR and a big exit

While it is still unclear if I am actually good at this -or just another idiot with a checkbook in a rising market- 2020 was another year things continued up and to the right. My strategy of investing like an angel with much more capital seems to be working. 2020 was the fifth year in a row with +30% IRR. So far it looks like 2021 will be more of the same. In the last month alone term sheets have been given to our companies that if they close will mark the portfolio up another 30%. It is crazy out there right now.   

First, the only thing that really matters, the raw numbers:

*marks are based on share price only, higher cap notes are not marked. 

Full Portfolio

Exits:

The highlight of the year was without a doubt the exit of Loom.ai to Roblox. Thank you Mahesh and Kiran, you guys rock. Loom was the first deal where I led the initial round and at the end we owned ~7%. At this point the exit is marked at 11x, but let's see where the price goes when we distribute after the direct listing in March. I learned so much over the last five years that I really ought to be paying the company for the amazing education.

New Financings:

Zeotap, Hudson MX, Lyte, Jobox, Facet Wealth, mParticle, DeIce, CareRev, Glide, Booksy, Innerspace, MUD/WTR, Joibit, Fireflies, Sinai and Pace all raised new capital on amazing terms. Well done folks. 2020 was a hard year for many of you and I was consistently impressed with how well you all handled it.  

Launching Coelius Capital:

From the beginning in 2015 I had largely been running Coelius Capital under the radar while I learned. 2020 was the year it became official. This summer the WSJ wrote a nice piece when we announced the $45m vehicle with Industry Ventures as the sole LP, thanks Tomio.  

Rolling Fund: 

After the launch a bunch of you reached out asking to become LPs. Thanks to Sahil for showing me the wonders of the rolling fund as a super LP friendly way you guys could co-invest. It is a pretty awesome innovation, you get the same economics as a standard venture fund, but each quarter you can increase, decrease or end your involvement if you decide I am an idiot. Lots more information here. The current minimum is 10k a quarter, but it looks like it will go up soon. 

Angellist Syndicate: 

The syndicate continues to be an insane super power. It is now up to 2500+ members and they are an absolutely amazing group of people who help with deal flow, diligence, capital and telling me when I am being a moron. Thanks folks, I would not be here without you.  

2021:    

I plan on sticking to my knitting in 2021. We already have a bunch of term sheets for large markups that seem to indicate things will be just crazy as they have been for the last six months. 

I continue to hunt for new early stage B2B software companies (with occasional deviations for founders I know). As always please please please feel free to send me anything you see that looks interesting. The weirder the better.