EVCA Newsletter | September Edition - the latest VC news, jobs, and events
The VC ecosystem has seen its fair share of hype cycles over the years, and one of the latest emerging investment trends—defense tech—has been attracting big dollars from venture capitalists. Defense tech startups have raised $2.5B in funding for 2024, not far off from the record peak of $2.6B raised for the industry in 2022. This relatively recent funding spurt into the sector draws a contrast to the years prior when VCs had generally snubbed the industry out of a mix of moral reasons and a preference for more capital-light businesses like enterprise SaaS. The standard venture capitalist’s appetite has been changing, however, with firms like Andreesen Horowitz and General Catalyst placing big bets in the space. Will defense tech stay or become the newest hype cycle to bite the dust? As with all things in venture capital, we’ll just have to wait. A very long time…
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this month’s EVCA newsletter!
Meet Puneeth Meruva, Partner at Trucks VC
We had the chance to interview Puneeth Meruva, who is a Partner at Trucks Venture Capital, a venture capital firm that funds entrepreneurs building the future of transportation. Puneeth shares his story—from growing up in India, Germany, and the U.S.; working as a software engineer; and investing in early-stage mobility startups. Puneeth also shares his thoughts on life and career.
Featured Investor
This month we highlight Jenny Sui of Craft Ventures as our featured investor of the EVCA community.
Jenny Sui is a principal on the investment team at Craft Ventures. Prior to Craft, she was an early employee at Brex across Operations and Strategic Finance, driving cross-functional strategic planning and scaling the company's operational processes to serve thousands of customers. She also helped launch the company's ecommerce offering, which quickly grew to become Brex's largest and fastest growing product. Jenny started her career at Visa, where she worked on various product teams across consumer credit, IoT, and digital product. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and minor in Statistics from the University of Pennsylvania.
EVCA Leaders: Austin Chapter Co-lead, Carolyn Houren of S3 Ventures
This EVCA Leadership Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA and highlight the contributions of the over 50 leads across the venture capital industry who make the EVCA possible.
Carolyn Houren is an investor at S3 Ventures. S3 invests in Seed, Series A, and Series B stages across B2B software, healthcare technology, and digital experiences. Carolyn’s primary focus includes sourcing new investments, working with S3’s portcos (board observer for 7 portcos), and due diligence/research. Prior to S3, Carolyn was Chief of Staff at Cosmic Bliss supporting operations, finance, accounting, and sales. Carolyn was also an investor at a global alternative investment firm, Stafford Capital Partners $8B+ AUM, and an M&A consultant at PwC.
LP Spotlight: Chris Douvos, Founder at Ahoy Capital
This month we highlight the work of Chris Douvos, our featured LP for the month.
Chris Douvos founded Ahoy Capital in 2018 to build an intentionally right-sized firm that could pursue investment excellence while prizing a spirit of partnership with all of its constituencies. Chris has been a fixture in venture capital for over two decades. In addition to successfully identifying and catalyzing nascent funds, he bridges a gap between the providers of capital and the consumers of capital by creating platforms for transparent dialogue. Chris authored the blog SuperLP throughout the 2010s and more recently was a co-founder of the OpenLP platform. Prior to Ahoy Capital, Chris spearheaded investment efforts at Venture Investment Associates and The Investment Fund for Foundations. He learned the craft of illiquid investing at Princeton University’s endowment.
EVC List Thesis Briefs
The EVC List recognizes the top emerging VCs across the industry. In partnership with Terra Nova, the EVCA publishes research insights from our EVC List winners. Below are this month’s Thesis Briefs from our 2023 EVC List Honorees.
Catalyzers of the Next AI Era - Carli Stein, Investor at M12, explores how smaller language models, robust security tools, and improved testing methodologies will enable broader AI adoption.
Bringing Innovation to Scale with Value-Add Sustainable Infrastructure - Thomas Englis, Principal at Clearvision Ventures, examines the landscape of startups that are pioneering low-carbon substitute goods and processes in categories including transportation electrification, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), battery recycling, thermal energy storage, carbon capture and more.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Future of Robotics - Angèle Sahraoui of Slow, shares some thoughts on the future of robotics and the different nuances of vertical integration
Zombiecalypse in Startupland - Kevin Zhang of Stealth, examines the current low valuations of public SaaS companies, the reasons behind the scarcity of IPOs for growth-stage firms with substantial ARR, as well as other topics
Unpacking Big Tech's quasi-acquisitions of GenAI companies - Kenn So of Smartsheet, unpacks the rapid takeover of top AI talent
Death by a thousand subscriptions - Angela Santurbano of All the Angels, dove into the rise software-as-a-service, how the business model might evolve, and whether we might see consumer purchasing change
Understanding Capital Efficiency vs. Capital Intensity in VC - Inaki Berenguer of LifeX Ventures, demystifies the confusion between capital efficiency and capital intensity
Events
GeoMeetup: Cloud Native Spatial Data Stack | September 5 | San Francisco
2nd Annual Private Company Sustainability Summit | September 12 | Menlo Park
Startup World Cup | October 2 | San Francisco | EVCA members get a 50% discount with code: SWC_GF_EVCA_50
➡️ For all EVCA events, which are private to EVCA members, please check the Slack community or your inbox for our monthly Member’s Digest.
Jobs
Investment associate at Brookfield Growth in Menlo Park, email cindy.chen@brookfield.com if interested
Growth Equity Internship at Princeville Capital in Berlin, email your resume at recruiting@princeville-capital.com with a short description outlining your background, with the subject line "Berlin Intern - Resume" if interested
Chief of Staff (post-MBA) at OmniDesign a Series A semiconductor company in the Bay Area, email amanda@fmcap.com if interested
Venture Capital Graduate Student Internship at Precursor Ventures (Remote)
VP of Finance at Advaita Capital. Email william@advaitacap.com if interested
Investment associate at OMERS Venture in Bay Area. Email resumes at mmoore@omersventures.com
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, Isaac, and Beatris
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