The First 100 Are Funded!
Three years ago, upon finishing our first fund, we embarked on a journey to create a new kind of venture fund, based on our research into 20 years of venture investing, technologies that we could use to modernize the investment process, and structures that might enable a new, more democratized approach to sourcing investment.
US Immigrants Are Vital To VC Returns
The scale of the returns enjoyed by US tech investors from companies started by US immigrant entrepreneurs versus the scale of returns generated by non-immigrant entrepreneurs is rarely discussed. We just ran the numbers.
Hatcher+ v2.0 Release
What do you get when you combine four million dollars, one of the world's top data scientists, a bevy of application and infrastructure designers, 26 of the world's best APIs, 36,000 profiles, 9,000 deals, over 200 partners, and thousands of users? You end up with a pretty darn useful investment management platform - with some pretty useful features.
The Golden (Selection) Ratio
When we decided we wanted to determine what selection ratio we should adopt - i.e. how many deals we should fund out of every thousand in order to create a 1,350 company portfolio for our H2 fund, it was obvious where to look.
The Time-Traveling VC
Equities traders have always been on the cutting edge of technology. Since the invention of the telegraph and the laying of the Trans-Atlantic Cable in the 1800s, traders have always understood that knowledge is power - and that in order to profit from that power, you need to be able to do two things: obtain access to the knowledge faster than anyone else, and have the ability to act on that knowledge in the fastest way possible.
We Created a Venture ETN - Here's Why
A few months ago, we officially launched the Hatcher+ Venture ETN (Exchange-Traded Note) - a publicly-tradable security designed to enable family offices, HNWs, and corporate VCs an easier way to invest into venture. We launched it after a series of extremely enjoyable lunchtime workshops with leading asset managers and fin-tech influencers in Beirut, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Paris, Singapore, Sydney, and Zurich. Here's a summary of those discussions - and the key reasons why we added a Venture ETN to our arsenal:
The Crane's Neck - Using Data To Improve Startup Portfolio Construction
One of the myths that persists about investing in startups is that little useful data is available at the earliest stages of a startup. Based on our analysis of tens of thousands of early-stage companies, and our continuing detailed analysis of thousands of early-stage deals every month from multiple co-investment partners and users of our BPA platform around the world, we would beg to differ.
8 Easy Places To Start Up
The UK is getting a lot of bad press lately because of Brexit - which tends to overshadow the fact that the UK is ranked by the World Bank as the least costly place to start a business (along with Slovenia), and the 8th easiest country to do business with in the world, after New Zealand, Singapore, Denmark, Hong Kong, Korea, the Republic of Georgia, Norway, and the US.
Your Startup Should be in an Accelerator
Graduates of accelerator programs are increasingly showing up in unicorn lists and data is increasingly available that shows these companies are raising more money - and surviving and thriving longer - than non-accelerated startups. So how hard is it to get accepted into a leading accelerator program? The answers may surprise you.
Is Unicorn Hunting a Good Strategy?
I just landed in Dubai from Helsinki, where I heard (and overheard) any number of pitches from startups attending the SLUSH event. What interested me most was overhearing the investors. From their questions, it quite quickly would become clear what type of investor they were - a government entity, an ex-entrepreneur, a unicorn hunter, a financial investor... and that got me thinking - how many investors really understand their motivation for investing? How many are honest with themselves about their mandate? And how many *really* want to make money?
Hatcher+ is Investing in One New Startup Every Day
Last month, we invested in one new startup every day - a rate that now ranks us as the most active venture investor in the world (or at the very least, among the top three.) These deals include some of the best new startups to be found anywhere. We're planning on keeping up this rate of investment for the next three years, using a staff of less than ten people. How is this possible?
How Many Millionaires?
Last night, I watched a video presented by Richard Wilson, CEO of the Family Office Club, that I thought did a very good job of covering many of the core, operational and deal flow management problems faced by family offices.
The AI-Powered, Highly-Automated, Global-Diversified, Exchange-Tradable VC
After a year and a half of positioning ourselves as "data driven venture investment", we've decided it's time to update the way we communicate the strategy behind Hatcher+. "Data-driven venture investment" misses three of our four core strategies, and doesn't capture the scale of what our model is capable of. So, we've come up with a new slogan: "The AI-powered, highly-automated, global diversified, exchange-tradable VC.
The Next Generation of Family Office Investors Has Arrived
Today's family offices are investing in venture capital deals at an exponentially growing rate...
Venture Capital Simplified - The Rule of 5X
For many people starting their first startup, venture capital is like some kind of "black box" that operates according to frustrating, sometimes complex rules that are designed for industry insiders, not first-time entrepreneurs...
The Four "Hows" - What Investors Need to Hear
Investors that are active in VC have already made the decision to allocate capital to that area...
How to Create a Killer Demo Day
The process of selecting startups gets a lot of focus when talking about accelerators - and deservedly so...
Is Your VC Intelligent?
If you're a venture capitalist reading this headline, please take a moment and check your gut reaction to the question being posed here...
Hatcher H2: The World's First Exchange-Tradable, Early-Stage VC Fund
Two days from now, the world's first early-stage, globally-focused, exchange-tradable VC fund will be open for business - I'm talking of course about our very own Hatcher+ H2 fund, which will list on the Euronext (Amsterdam) and Wiener Bourse exchang...
Right Now is THE Best Time Ever to be a Startup
Yesterday, we put out an announcement about a data-sharing partnership we're building with Funderbeam, an emerging blockchain-powered exchange, that we expect will result in a new way for startups to find funding...
Buying Ethereum - The Five Minute Guide
Six months ago, when Bitcoin was trading at US$2,150 or thereabouts, I was attending a conference in Seoul when an economist/fund manager named Mark Yusko made a bullish statement in an otherwise bearish sea of predictions around global asset valu...
Stop Sweating the BIG Stuff
One question I get asked a lot on investor panels these days is "what makes a great CEO?" To me, the answer is simple: the best CEOs make sure that investors are never, ever surprised - by the Big Stuff...
Reinventing Venture Capital
Venture capitalists are experts when it comes to scaling...
The New Rules of Fundraising
This week at SLUSH Singapore, I gave a presentation on the New Rules of Fundraising - how entrepreneurs can prepare for the new, data-driven startup ecosystem powered by AI-based engines such as HAL (YCombinator) and DART (Hatcher) ...
Singapore Has Over 100 VC Firms - and USD500Mn in Dry Powder
Hatcher+ has done a lot of analysis on startup ecosystems in various places around the world during the past two years...
Killer Robots Are Already Here
This week, Elon Musk and the heads of a number of technology companies warned against the development and deployment of ''killer robots''...
The Economics of Hope and Dreams
I listened to a BBC Radio interview today with Mary Williams, the adopted daughter of Jane Fonda, and there was one part of the interview that I just found riveting, because I'm not sure that I've ever heard "the absence of hope" so clearly articulat...
How Medieval Accountants and AI Created the Jobless Future
There is a rising realization in the world that we are currently just treading water with respect to the creation of new jobs, and that AI and robots are eventually going to take our jobs - as in pretty-much *all* of our jobs...
Achieving Gender-Parity in Tech
I just finished reading comments related to the news on the 500 blog that Dave McClure is stepping down as CEO at 500 Startups...
How To Get Startups to Report KPIs
Let me skip the preamble and just come out and say it: most startups suck at reporting...
AI and Machine Learning: The Poincare Five Step Process
In 1908, Henri Poincare, the famous French mathematician, and pioneer of what we now call machine learning, wrote down what would later become the four stages of the "Gestalt" model of learning and psychology: Saturation, Incubation, Inspiration, an...
Venture Investing and the 80/20 Rule
Almost a year ago, my Hatcher partners and I went looking for data that would give us an indication of our progress vis a vis the rest of our colleagues in venture capital...
How to Get the Most out of Hatcher
The first thing you need to know about Hatcher is that Hatcher combines a workflow solution for investors with a data analysis platform, to provide a complete, next-generation investment platform for venture...
The Upside of Being Positive
One of the hardest things about being a startup founder is staying positive in the face of constant, and often intellectually exhausting criticism...
9 KPIs for Venture Guys
There's a lot of opinions available regarding the best choice of KPIs for startups - but what about the investors behind the startups? What are the KPIs that venture guys should be aware of? Here's nine suggestions from Hatcher:1...
The Rise of “Cut and Paste” Data Management Platforms
The problem involving whether to build or buy a cloud-based data platform to serve your workspace’s growing needs involves come complex issues...
100,000 PCs The World Will Never See
100,000 - that's how many PC's the new advertising campaign from Microsoft and Intel could have put into startups or schools this week, by using their $70,000,000 ad campaign more smartly...
The Philippines - An Emerging Fintech Powerhouse?
I just got back from three days in Manila - first time I've been in several years...
The Most Unrewarding, Misunderstood, Underrated Job on the Planet
If there existed an award category for "most unrewarding, misunderstood, underrated job on the planet", the strongest contender for that title would, in my opinion, be "Head of Sales...
Why This CEO Learned How To Code - And Why You Should Too
People are generally impressed when they find out I've recently put six long years into learning about database design, programming, and UI design...
Georgia (Republic Of) On My Mind
In November, Harveen and I got the chance to visit Tehran and discovered a population almost the size of Germany and an emerging market that is about to become a "must go" destination (see "Reading Term Sheets in Tehran") - so last week, when I was i...
Why Hatcher Loves Emerging Markets
Last week, I visited our new partners in the beating heart of South America - Sao Paulo and Rio...
Using Planetary Motion to Spot Bad Startups
Non-performing startups are not always easy to spot...
Start-Ups Led by Fifty Year Olds Do Better
If you're an older CEO running a startup, chances are you're running a Hatcher startup...
Telr Closes Over-Subscribed Series A
Telr, the merchant payment platform we created last October, and merged with Dubai-based Innovate Payments in June this year, has just completed an over-subscribed Series A fund-raising, led by Hatcher and iMENA, based in Amman, Jordan...
Why Hatcher Loves the Next Generation of Financial Services
Charles Moldow posted a thoughtful article yesterday on TechCrunch entitled "How A Trillion-Dollar Market Remains Hidden In Plain Sight", arguing that there is a massive opportunity in financing non-bank financial services...
Hatcher is "Go" for Launch!
Yes - after almost a year of "self-incubation", Hatcher...
Reading Term Sheets in Teheran
First, a disclaimer...
Why China Kicks Ass
I had a meeting yesterday with the CEO of an entrepreneurial hardware venture that is looking for funding from us...
The Three Reasons Investors Invest
Pitching a new business proposition to an investor isn't rocket science - in fact, the most effective pitches involve, of all things, empathy...
Series A Zombies
Every day, I meet entrepreneurs who are struggling to raise their first real round of funding...
Every Business Model That Has Ever Existed
One of the most vexing problems for startups is figuring out what revenue model to apply...
The Next Wave of Investment in Startups
Money hates being idle...
Convertible Notes Explained
There's a lot of blog posts out there about why startups shouldn't use convertible notes to raise capital...
Founders: Get Your Fair Share of Equity
The truth is rarely told but known by everyone: not every founder of a start-up does an equal amount of work...
The Hatcher Worldview
The idea behind Hatcher is, simply put, the application of the emerging crowd-funding model to investors that are sophisticated and experienced, and entrepreneurs that are executing on their vision for market leadership...
Review: Business Model Generation
While browsing in an airport bookstore, I recently came across a copy of Business Model Generation - a Wiley publication written by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur...
The 20:20:20 Rule of a Successful VC Meeting
So you're about to go meet with a VC...
The Best Investor Deck Ever
The founder of a company I'm an adviser to recently asked me for tips on creating a PowerPoint presentation for his upcoming investor roadshow...
Where The Money Is
One of my partner investors in Heardable sent me along a link to a deck the other day from the Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc...
Show Me The Demo
I just had a meeting with a buddy and he got mad at me because he felt that he'd crossed a threshold in terms of what his technology could achieve and, for whatever reason, I wasn't buying it (enough)...
30 Tips for Writing a Business Plan and Raising Capital
Over the past twenty years, the folks behind this site have helped a number of entrepreneurs and startup companies raise tens of millions of dollars from venture investors...
Entrepreneurs - A Little Accounting Knowledge Can Make a *Big* Difference
A number of years back, I was approached by a company in that needed some help finding a strategic partner...
How to Write an Executive Summary
A couple of days ago, I posted a blog entitled 5 Easy Steps to a Great Business Plan and some of you were kind enough to email me with some kind words about it...
5 Easy Steps to a Great Business Plan
Writing a great business plan (and I've authored and co-authored dozens of plans) is not that hard...
The Five People You Meet in a (Successful) Startup
The Visionary Essential to any new company's success, but may appear mad/dormant/useless to staff members other than the Wise Man, and especially to the Willing Slaves...
Why Startups Start Up
As exciting as it can be to watch the growth of a single-cell idea into a company, sometimes the cells don't divide fast enough for the organism to survive...
10 Things You Need Before Pitching an Investor
This list is designed to work as a process flow chart - if you are missing any of these items, you shouldn't, in my opinion, proceed to the next one - unless you're a proven serial entrepreneur, in which case you can reduce this list to th...
The Three Essential Functions of the Board
I just re-read Peter Drucker's "Three Functions of the Board"...
Raising Capital Takes Time
I met with a friend the other day who is looking for capital for his new startup...
Tips On Closing Your VC Deal
I was giving a phone recommendation for an investment banking friend yesterday and while talking about the work we've done together, the interviewer touched on a VC investment that we closed fourteen years ago...
Funding 101: What is Due Diligence?
The first time I heard the term "due diligence", as a budding entrepreneur, I had absolutely no idea what it meant...
David Rose: 10 Ways to Improve Your VC Pitch
David Rose, a serial entrepreneur-turned-VC partner who speaks faster than just about any man on the planet, has a terrific video up at Ted...
Two Essential Elements of a Great Pitch
Despite thousands of web pages listing advice on pitching to VCs, many world-be entrepreneurs (and some advice-givers) still fail to include two very important elements in their pitches: 1...
The CEO Rule: Customers, Employees, Owners
Many years ago, after the closing of the first round of financing for my first venture-backed company, the investors and founders went out for dinner in a very nice restaurant to celebrate...
The Importance of Slide One
We were about an hour into a board meeting the other day when the management team laid an extremely impressive year over year growth figure on the table for the first two quarters of 2008...
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