EVCA Newsletter | November Edition - The Latest VC Jobs, Events, and Content
For the last year, economists and media personalities alike have been sounding the alarm on an impending recession. The months passed and business continued. With every quarter, the market analysts recalibrated their expectations and some, the most optimistic of the bunch, said we were out of the clear entirely. Yet as we enter into the chill of autumn, the signs are not encouraging. According to recent data released by Carta, last quarter marked the beginning of a wave of startup shutdowns, with 229 reported bankruptcies in Q3 2023, triple the number of bankruptcies reported for the same quarter in 2021 during the peak of the pandemic-era hype. Down rounds are on the rise too. Of Series A financings, 16% were down rounds in 2023, in comparison with 8% in 2022. Late-stage companies have fared the worst, with 31% of Series D rounds and 24% of Series E rounds priced at discounts from their prior rounds. So things aren’t looking so good. At the very least, thankfully the holidays are coming up…
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to the November edition of the EVCA newsletter!
Spotlight Feature: Meet Linus Liang, Founder and Managing Partner at Kyber Knight Capital
We had the chance to interview Linus Liang, who is Founder and Managing Partner at Kyber Knight Capital, a debut $120M pre/seed fund backed by tech luminaries including the Alphabet Chairman John Hennessey and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Linus shares his story—from founding two startups, investing in early-stage companies, and launching his own fund. Linus also shares his lessons and thoughts from his career.
Featured Investor
This month we highlight Sophie Hoffman of Goodwater Capital as our featured investor in the EVCA community.
Sophie Hoffman is an investor at Goodwater Capital, a global, multi-stage consumer-tech venture firm with $4B+ AUM. Goodwater has been cited as one of the leading data-driven VCs with the industry's largest team of data scientists and engineers. Prior to Goodwater, Sophie was an investor at GSV Ventures, focusing on education and workforce technologies. She started her career at Goldman Sachs as a founding member of a team that works alongside every division of the firm to source and syndicate all of Goldman’s direct, private-market investment opportunities. In her free time, Sophie enjoys running, spinning, hiking, and exploring the Bay Area as a relatively recent East Coast transplant.
EVCA Leadership Spotlight: Chicago Chapter Lead, Dana Sun of Laerdal Million Lives Fund
This EVCA Leadership Spotlight Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA, as well as highlight the valuable contributions of the roughly 50 individuals across the venture capital industry who make the EVCA possible.
Dana Sun is a Principal at the Laerdal Million Lives Fund, a healthcare venture fund backing early stage digital health and medical device companies around the world that maximize life-saving impact. Previously, Dana was a digital health investor at OCA Ventures, strategic finance manager at Genentech, and management consultant at Accenture. She earned her MBA from Chicago Booth and BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Duke. In her free time, you can find Dana solving NYTimes crossword puzzles, playing tennis with an overly western grip, and hanging out with her recently adopted cat Farsi.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Peak Data - Kevin Zhang of FirstMark Capital, explores whether we are at “Peak Data”, how that might affect the efficacy of large language models & applications like ChatGPT due to potential model collapse, as well as possible solutions that players might use to adapt to an internet that is increasingly filled with machine-generated data
Business of AI Report 2023 - Kenn So of Smartsheet, shares the business of AI report that covers the AI trends that happened over the past year with a business-centric lens
Cloud Security: factors that make it a unique market - Ross Haleliuk of Venture in Security, looks at several factors that enabled cloud security to evolve differently from other types of categories
What I Tell Employees About Negative Press - Henry Ward of Carta, shares what he shared with employees to help other CEOs think through similar problems
Current Trends in Climate Change Technology Investment - Louis Lehot of Foley & Lardner LLP, analyzes the existing and pending regulatory and enforcement initiatives on climate-related disclosures
Events
SoCal Startup Day 2023 | November 8 | Hosted by SoCal Startup Day
The LP/GP Relations Event | November 14 | Hosted by SuperInvestor
Slauson x Kapor @ Oakland Happy Hour | November 15 | Hosted by
LP AMA: Women Belong in Venture | November 16 | Hosted by DVRGNT Ventures
Entrepreneur & Investor Networking & Holiday Yacht Event | November 18 | Hosted by CVC-NY and UpHonest VC
Discussion of "The Coming Wave" | November 21 | Hosted by Austin Forum
Jobs
Junior Investor with Technical Background Role in New York, NY at Eniac Ventures
Growth Equity Associate in San Francisco, CA at Generation Growth Equity. If interested, email eharris@articosearch.com with your resume
Corporate Venture Capital Analyst in San Jose, CA at HPE Pathfinder Ventures
Investment Associate Role in San Francisco, CA at SoftBank Vision Fund
Lead FoF platform Partner Level Role in Screendoor
Build Direct Investment program from scratch Partner Level Role in Screendoor
Pre-MBA Investment Associate Role in Austin, TX or Remote at Ironspring Ventures
Research Associate Role in San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; or New York, NY at Maveron
Associate Role in San Francisco, CA at Telescope Partners. If interested, reach out to amit@telescopepartners.com
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, Isaac, and Ananya
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