Ihar Mahaniok
@mahaniok
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Managing Partner at @geek_ventures . Belarusian in NYC with passion to help immigrant founders. Seed check in @instacart , @pandadoc , @ppl_ai , @airbytehq .
New York, USA
Joined December 2007
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If a venture studio has >15% share in a startup, the startup will have troubles raising.
Here's a good article, showing that out of 130 startups built by Fractal studio, only 1 raised Series A.
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I see that as investors get famous (like
@paulg
) they get into a bubble where they only see well-connected founders that get rounds from Sequoia and like, and those founders don't need to risk their savings to start a company.
I see lots of founders that have to hustle, grind,…
@StephNass
That was pretty much true when we started YC in 2005, but fortunately it's much less true now.
Founders shouldn't have to risk their savings on a startup.
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1/ A portfolio founder asked me about Series A expectations today.
Here is what I see in the market.
Typical Series A round size is between $10M and $20M. Investors will take about 20% of the company, so the post-money valuation will be between $50M and $100M.
🧵
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NYC VC ecosystem is amazing.
I was in a cafe talking with founders. A man comes by, drops a paper note, and leaves. The note says "Didn't want to interrupt - I am a VC - have some portfolio companies that may be interesting - my email is X".
That's why I love remote work
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Every time your CEO doesn't show up to the first call with a VC and delegates it to someone else, your company burns an opportunity to be considered by that VC.
Fundraising is a CEO job, full stop.
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1/ New data shows that Q2 2023 is the largest quarter ever in the number of startup closures.
And this data can't even cover a significant number of startups closing that never raised a priced round.
Takeaways for founders, investors, and LPs are in the thread below 🧵
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Why do so many VCs say "come back to us when you have a lead?" Is it because they lack "guts" or "conviction" or want to piggyback on someone's work and experience? Sometimes, yes, these are the reasons.
But much, much more likely the reason is the mismatch of check size and…
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For the first pitch meeting with a VC, don't bring your cofounders. Just CEO is more than enough.
If several people show up, it means founders don't manage their time well.
If non-CEO ends up talking more than CEO, it means roles and titles are incorrect.
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Founders, do the right incorporation from the beginning! Here's the thing. It's not something to research, or decide later, or compare different options. If you are interested in raising venture money from the US investors, you have to be incorporated as Delaware C-Corp from day…
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YC application deadline is on April 22. As long as your startup is early enough (under 10 fulltime people, under $500k ARR, and less than 2 years old), I strongly recommend applying.
Why?
- if you join YC, you'll get amazing opportunity to sell to hundreds other YC companies;…
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I ask pre-seed founders if they are thinking about applying to YC.
If I hear "No, I don't think it's worth it": 🚩🚩🚩
There are four kinds of founders:
1. those who went through YC
2. those who weren't accepted by YC
3. able to raise pre-seed at $20+M val
4. non-venture
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NYC already had more seed rounds than Bay Area in 2022.. and now it has more new companies.
NYC is the place to be.
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2023 in numbers
@geek_ventures
:
- 34 investments made
- 19 new companies
- 14 different countries of origin of the founders
- 1 exit
- 2 new team members
- 3 SPVs for LPs
- $23M fund closed with 70 LPs
- 7 offline events for founders in 4 cities
- 7 online events
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I've seen different titled founders pitch me. CTOs, COOs, even sometimes "Head of investor relations".
But today I got cold email from "Head of Design" of a seed company.
Don't do this. CEO is the only right person to pitch investors (at least at seed)
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Today, I had a weird call with a startup looking to raise money from us. The call was booked with the CEO; but CEO didn't show up, instead of him CTO was there who is obviously technical but has zero experience in their market.
After 10 mins of the meeting, I asked to cut it…
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So happy, proud, and humbled to see an article in Techcrunch about
@geek_ventures
.
Could I have thought 11 years ago when I was thinking whether investing hard-earned cash in
@Instacart
was a good idea that it would lead to this moment?
Today,
@geek_ventures
announces the…
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It's good that not everyone agrees on everything. It's bad that many people jump into arguments and insults without even understanding the point.
Thread about applying to YC.
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At pre-seed level, thinking that 7% of equity (of nothing, pretty much) is more valuable than connections and visibility of YC is extremely narrowminded and doesn't match the thinking of successful venture founders.
Successful founders are not greedy about equity.
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Wherever someone says that "SAFE is a great way to raise without putting a price on a company" I immediately see that they have no clue.
SAFEs without a cap are pretty much non-existent. Valuation cap is valuation.
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on associates: an associate in a 3-person solo GP VC firm has way more weight than a partner in a 20-person, 5-partner firm.
I've seen many cases where pitching a partner in a big firm led to nothing (e.g. because other partners voted it down), and many cases where pitching an…
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We just invested in a stealth AI startup. Founder got his previous company to a $10B exit, $1T TAM, 10 PhDs from Tier 1 schools, got from 0 to $1M ARR in 1 month, Google is a client.
Valuation $10M. They have room for a few value-add angels, let me know if you're interested!
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@dvassallo
It never needed 8000 to keep barely functioning lights on. It needed way more than 550 to grow and improve and not be a Nazi haven
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btw, if you're an immigrant to the US with zero connections, and you are building a startup, apply at and we at
@geek_ventures
will take a look. We write $100k checks.
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500 out of 700 OpenAI employees signed a letter demanding the Board to resign, threatening to walk to Microsoft instead.
Among signatories: Mira Murati and Board member Ilya Sutskever.
Ilya is really trying to play all sides here. Ridiculous.
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@nateobrienn
which life would you prefer:
Option 1: fantasy
Option 2: real life
Everyone would prefer fantasy, but people understand that they can't choose that
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4/ What to do if you already raised your seed round, and you don't have enough runway to get to $3.5M ARR? Raise another seed! It happens regularly in recent years - a startup can have multiple pre-seed and seed rounds.
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@sweatystartup
Direct correlation is a significant overstatement.
I have been playing video games since I was 5. Played today too. It didn't prevent me from having healthy weight, family, money, success, and happiness
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Correspondingly, if I book a call with a prospective LP, I never send an associate to go pitch Geek Ventures instead of me. If I have some emergency I just reschedule
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Don't be afraid to have opinions and share them.
Even if a lot of people disagree with you, even if they disagree virulently.
Just don't be stubborn. Don't be against actually listening to the arguments and learning.
Sharing and learning moves the world forward.
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New York Tech Week is fantastic. Hundreds of events, great people, lots of visitors coming to the city just for this week. NYC is the place to be!
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A take from a position of extreme privilege:
"If you cant fundraise today for an idea, you probably shouldn’t start the company…"
🚩
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Instacart has just filed for an IPO. Impressive numbers: it's profitable, making $242M in profits in H1 2023.
Profitability is a very rare case for tech IPOs.
And being the first after a long IPO drought can create interesting dynamics on the day of the IPO.
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When an investor asks a pre-revenue founder "How many potential customers did you speak with?", anything below 20-30 is the wrong answer. 20-50 is ok. 50+ is good.
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2/ At Series A, investors expect serious traction and PMF, and apply revenue multiples to determine valuation. Typical multiples I see are 8-12x; in rare cases, multiples can go higher.
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3/ Given the above, it's worth planning to raise Series A after you have $3.5M ARR. Of course, you should start engaging funds earlier, to build a relationship.
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I've seen this curious approach recently more and more often: founders quote different investment terms to different investors.
Just today I asked a founder for the terms of his $500k pre-seed round. He told me "I'm telling $8.5M cap to American investors but I'll let you in for…
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I don't know how people can do business with David Sacks after what he said today.
When you think Sacks hit the bottom, he'll find a way to go below that.
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I am looking for a principal for
@geek_ventures
. The ideal candidate profile is an angel investor or a syndicate lead with some markups; alternatively, someone who made investment decisions in early stage funds or FOs. Fully remote.
DM me if you know one :)
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Proud to announce the first exit in
@geek_ventures
portfolio!
The food robotics company Bowlton was acquired by
@ZikiKitchens
, a unique tech-focused restaurant chain that produces modular restaurants.
Congrats to
@YarikGraf
and Paul Shvets!
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Becoming a parent is an amazing way to improve empathy, multitasking, prioritization, and just general happiness.
Highly recommended.
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Extremely important learning for the West from the outcome of Prigozhin's mutiny: Putin is extremely amenable and open to compromises when he is in weak position. He doesn't have "red lines" and won't go berserk - he will always protect himself. Self-preservation is his only core…
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MosaicML exit for $1.3B 2.5 years after founding is a great signal for the whole venture industry. Great job.
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Happy to announce that we successfully transitioned to make all investment due diligence and investing decisions at
@geek_ventures
by generative AI. We are using a combination of several LLMs.
From now on, instead of analysts, we are hiring only ML engineers and prompt engineers.
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Getting a distribution for an exit. Lawyers call me to confirm wire instructions. And that's what they asked: "is your account number 4.402E+11"? 😂😂😂
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The most disturbing thing about all the reporting about OpenAI is that 90% of people describe Tasha McCauley, OpenAI board member, as a "wife of Joseph Gordon-Levitt".
This is so incredibly misogynistic. I had no idea who Gordon-Levitt was until today, and after looking him up…
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2/ Takeaways for founders:
- if your startup is still alive, even if struggling, be proud.
- it's better to raise now at a "low" valuation than to spend long time trying to raise at a higher valuation and fail.
- cash is king - so keep reducing your burn.
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wow! Thanks
@ChristineHall
, great article.
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@Jason
@RandyTreibel
It takes a UPS driver about 5 minutes to unload 30-50 daily packages for our building. Quite faster than 1 package a minute
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Everyone talks about massive $113M round by Mistral at $260M valuation. People are surprised they took high dilution.
Here's my take: these founders are geniuses and did everything right. When you manage to negotiate the size of the round so high, it's ok to accept dilution.
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@Jason
@BillAckman
@joerogan
Why don't you sponsor a debate on angel investing between you and, let's say, Lauren Boebert? or may be it will make more sense to hear an "open debate" on important topic of investing between you and Charlie Sheen?
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@umichvoter
the problem is that there will be 3rd candidate that will siphon 5-10% off Biden and that will hand victory to the felon
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btw, happy to share that we recently closed our first deal as the lead investor on a priced round, with the first board seat for
@geek_ventures
. I'm extremely excited about the company and can't wait till the moment we can talk about that deal freely!
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@AdamDraper
To me, a founder having an assistant is a huge green flag.
It means the founder is smart enough to find someone to take menial / smaller tasks off their plate and can focus 100% on the important stuff.
I got an assistant and it changed my life. And I recommend all my portfolio…
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@RiverMcTasney
CEO's job at pre-seed and seed:
1. Set a vision, strategy, and culture
2. Hire best people
3. Product direction and high level product management
4. Initial sales
5. Fundraising
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.
@geek_ventures
is looking for a principal.
If you are an early stage investor with at least 5 years of experience and track record of investment decisions, please apply!
Check out the details and how to apply at the link below.
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This Friday,
@geek_ventures
hosts an online webinar on Generative AI with Igor Markov, a distinguished Research Scientist in the field, for founders of our portfolio companies.
We have a few seats available for top founders outside of our portfolio. If you're interested, please…
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Just wrote a post listing some of the people who were crucial in getting
@geek_ventures
to the $23M close.
They deserve all the applause.
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VC market is waking up.
It's in a dichotomy right now. More startups than ever can't raise money in Q2 2023. However, June 2023 became probably the best month in more than a year in terms of high raises and exits.
Mistral: $113M raise
MosaicML: $1.3B exit
Inflection: $1.3B raise…
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Congratulations to our portfolio company
@ShapesXR
! Raising $8.6M seed round in 2023 is no small feat :)
Glad that
@geek_ventures
has been part of their journey since 2021.
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When I was 27, I started investing in early stage startups, nominally "investing in others".
10 years later, this investment in others paid off - I was able to start a venture fund, my dream.
Your path is your own. Don't listen to grandstanders.
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If an investor tells you "you're too early", it more often than not means "your valuation is too high".
Come back to the same investor with valuation cut in half and you're suddenly not too early, but right on.
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To fellow emerging VCs: great episode of 20vc with
@HarryStebbings
and
@robgo
on VC fundraising. Lots of insights.
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I'm surprised that July 2023 looks like the best month in terms of amazing dealflow for us since 2021.
4 deals this month.
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It's happening! We at
@geek_ventures
are hosting an amazing Founders / Investors community event next Tuesday.
Great VCs on the panel. Quite a few experienced founders confirmed.
DM me if you're interested! And pls elaborate on your track record and value add to the community :)
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The new Pitchbook report shows: VC market is the most investor-friendly in past decade, and keeps moving in investors' direction. Smart founders notice it, and instead of spending many months (or years) trying to raise at inflated valuations, raise quickly at lower terms today.
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Elon Musk having a public spat with Wikipedia is one of the stupidest things I've seen.
Wikipedia is unbelievably amazing force for the good and progress in the world. Knowledge is what opens up the innovation, and access to knowledge on your fingertips is crucial.
Wikipedia…
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I'm so excited about December! We invested in 4 companies, deployed the largest amount of money in the history of
@geek_ventures
, and are now working on an amazing deal that will close in January. Great times.
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5/ For example, a company might have raised a $2M seed when they were at $500k ARR, likely at about $10M post cap, and another $4M seed (let's call it seed-2) when they hit $1.5M ARR - this time at about $20M post valuation.
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What NOT to do: bring 4 other employees of your startup to the first zoom call with an investor.
The first call should be with the CEO only.
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@Jack_Raines
@ylecun
Less than 5% of the world population. It's negligible. The phrase "pretty much no one uses it" is correct.
Also, even in the US lots of people don't use it.
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About YC as a path for founders to "not use any savings": Yes, it's an online application. It's well-known that it is also "who you know" situation; startups that know YC alumni get much higher chance to get in. I know a startup that got 31 recs from alums - of course they got in
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@realCoreyEngel
VCs should be contrarian, but this is contrarian for contrarian's sake, without any logic
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Proud to have been invited to a Belarusian podcast "Signal and noise" to talk about
@geek_ventures
and venture investing overall.
English subtitles are there!
Thanks
@Okendokenn
and
@yah0r
.
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@jefielding
It's still 100x better than being ghosted by a VC that signed a term sheet.
This happened a few times to my portfolio founders in the exact same scenario - a VC signs a term sheet being confident that they will have capital in soon, and then LPs don't bite.
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btw, when founders don't apply because they don't think they have any chance to get accepted, it shows a lack of confidence and optimism, which are extremely important qualities for a venture founder. Yes, it's tough to get into YC, and there are issues, but trying is worth it
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@taykcrane
@Betterment
of course not. It's just 10 years in which S&P 500 outperformed a more balanced diversified portfolio. Next 10 years can be reverse.
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It makes sense to apply to YC for everyone unless you do a non-venture company or are so well-connected that you can raise at $20M cap right away.
Great founders are humble, not greedy, and coachable. They look for opportunities and use them. They don't think they know everything
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Don't forget to go on vacation every so often. And encourage others in your company to do so.
Burnout is a real problem. Don't try to run on empty tank of gas
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If you were me, and a candidate sent you an elaborate detailed email applying for a position at "Greek Ventures", would you interview or reject?
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@paulg
@StephNass
what's happening here, I think, is that as investors get famous (like
@paulg
) they get into a bubble where they only see well-connected founders that get rounds from Sequoia and like.
I see lots of founders that have to hustle, grind, and risk before they get first $100k check
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Carta has a PR crisis after PR crisis, and every time it's a CEO own making.
You remember how a few months ago Carta CEO reached out to everyone telling them not to believe bad press written about Carta? People didn't know there was bad press until they read that from the CEO.…
@karrisaarinen
Karri, you are free to share our conversation. What I remember is that you appreciated we made a mistake that affected you and two other companies. Thank you for understanding. 🙏 We fucked up and I’m sorry we fucked up. I hope you will forgive us.
You also acknowledged that…
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All-In podcast hosted Tucker Carlson and were very happy about it. "Fun guy", they said.
Sacks was always a right-winger and fan of nazis. Somehow Jason, Chamath, and Friedberg are also falling into nazi cult.
Sad to see. They used to be reputable investors at some point.
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I invest in immigrant founders. Immigrants, as well as other founders that are not well-connected in Silicon Valley startup ecosystem, struggle getting first checks without connections, especially at YC. I see 100+ startups every month, and most of them get traction before check.
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At early stage, the best companies to invest in are the companies with the best founders.
It doesn't matter what the market, traction, investor names, etc. are if the founders are not outstanding.
This has been true before, but it's even more pronounced in the AI era.…
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Something weird is happening with
@Angellist
. I tweeted about their angel portfolio page, and suddenly I get a message about "violations of Terms of Service". I had 50+ investments on there as well as a syndicate and suddenly got locked out.
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@StephNass
Then you're too focused on super early stage.
Yes I barely care about the product at pre-seed. But at seed and above, starting from 10M+ valuation, I care. At Series A product becomes very significant.
If product looks and feels like crap at this level, it gives zero confidence
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