A love letter to enterprise founders
A weekly newsletter that profiles women in venture and technology
Welcome to Heroa, a weekly newsletter that aims to raise the profile of women in venture. If you enjoy what you read, please do share this newsletter with friends and subscribe - Alexandra.
A brief personal update - It’s been a while (and I’ve been on holiday in Greece, highlights include watching Mamma Mia in a Greek outdoor cinema) but I’m so happy to be back.
🍎 Whilst in Greece I’ve been taking part in the Newton Venture Program which is on a bid to make the VC sector more representative, more accessible and bring some of the rigor that the US venture system has over to the UK. The program is run by Local Globe, London Business School and as of two weeks ago Silicon Valley Bank.
Which brings me on to my second piece of news which is that I’ve started working at Silicon Valley Bank in their Venture and Growth and Enterprise Software teams. I’m helping series A+ Enterprise Software companies to grow with a focus on venture debt. I am so excited to join the brilliant Enterprise Software team at Silicon Valley Bank so I’ve included a Love Letter to Enterprise Founders (because that’s also how I feel about Enterprise founders) written by Michelle Zatlyn the Co-Founder of Cloudflare in this week’s insights section
Disclaimer: my views of course remain my own and not that of Silicon Valley Bank’s. Although SVB does also really like Enterprise Software.
Round up of the news this week
🦄 Just halfway through 2021, European start-ups have already raised $14.9bn according to a report by GP Bullhound. That’s 89% of what was raised in total in 2020. The UK is now a ‘unicorn nest’ which means it has more than 100 $1bn tech companies. This is more than the rest of Europe combined.
🧬 DNA-testing company 23andMe, which was founded by Anne Wojcicki, has seen its shares soar after going public though merging with VG Acquisition Corp., a SPAC founded by Richard Branson.
💸 However, it’s not time to celebrate just yet. Post money valuation is often over-inflated. Research from Stanford shows that the post money valuation of US unicorns is on average 51% above what they are really worth. Stanford’s Prof. Strebulaev says: “Some unicorns have made such generous promises to their preferred shareholders that their common shares are nearly worthless.”
👏 Congratulations go to Priya Guha, Venture Partner at Merian Ventures and Reshma Sohoni, the co-founder of Seedcamp who have been recognised in the Queens Honors list for their contribution to technology and innovation. Also thank you to Google Campus (who have made an incredible contribution to the London tech ecosystem) and who announced that they are closing this week.
From the investors
Why early stage VCs ask for a financial plan. Beata Klein of Creandum says it’s not because she wants to know the numbers (VC’s recognise that the numbers will change) rather its to check that the team understands the market.
Judge a VC by how they behave - everywhere. My friend Millen Wolde-Selassie wrote a blog post about her experience of the hiring process at Octopus Ventures. It’s worth a read - in part because of how Octopus reacted to her announcing her pregnancy right before accepting the job offer. There are currently three live job opportunities at Octopus - you can check them out in the job opportunity section at the end of the newsletter.
“We deduce founder characteristics from the smallest observations. Founders should take the same approach with us.” Millen Wolde-Selassie of Octopus Ventures
From the operators
A Love Letter to Enterprise Founders. Michelle Zatlyn, Co-Founder of Cloudflare, Demystifies the Journey. Michelle now runs Cloudflare, a cybersecurity company designed to make the internet more secure, private, fast, and reliable. The company raised ~$400M before going public in 2019, and now serves over 4 million customers, including ~17% of the Fortune 1000.
Michelle’s biggest piece of advice is that there are twin paths enterprise founders (or co-founders) need to walk on. Companies need to have great differentiated technology that’s sustained, in addition to a really good business model.
How a Black female EdTech founder attracted $12.1M in venture capital. Joanna Smith, CEO at AllHere talks about her fundraising journey.
To build in public or not… that’s the question, eh? Kanika Tibrewala of obvious shares insights to help evaluate if you should jump onto the build in public train.
Events
💥 Why VC’s say no. Tuesday July 6 13:00 BST. Sign up here.
For any startup founder looking for the next stage of growth, understanding why VCs say ‘no’ is as important as why they say ‘yes’.
Panel: Zoë Chambers, principal, Octopus Ventures, Camilla Mazzolini, principal, firstminute capital and Dave Rosenberg, head of marketing EMEA, Oracle NetSuite.
Opportunities
Analyst in Deep Tech - Octopus Ventures - 🇬🇧
Associate/Investment Manager (Consumer Pod) - Octopus Ventures - 🇬🇧
Principal in the First Check Team- Octopus Ventures - 🇬🇧
Coder, Engineer, Developer, Tech Lead. Whatever you want to call yourself - Founders Factory - 🇬🇧
SEE YOU NEXT MONDAY!
If you have any comments, questions, or want to chat about start-ups and venturing, then do drop me a comment.
Written by Alexandra Wyatt, based in London but (usually!) a global traveler. You can also reach me on Twitter.