TLDR from Z

Hi! This is a packed edition of No GPs Allowed so I’m going to keep this brief:

1. I was in SF for a week — spent time with incredible founders but I remain firm in my POV that NYC is a better place for consumer founders to build

2. We’ve entered the Consumer Renaissance: Michael Seibel, who is notoriously not a big fan of consumer investments, announced that too many investors are focusing on B2B rather than consumer ventures. This revelation came on the heels of Lightspeed snatching up Nikita Bier, the king of virality, as a product growth partner—something every consumer founder is looking for.

1. I love Deel 💜 here’s $1500 in credits for every founder that’s part of The Z List (No GPs Allowed) community

2. and a belated Happy Mid Autumn Festival (I am Singaporean and grew up in Hong Kong; that’s why I celebrate)

VC Industry News

• At the Acquired live podcast event (with 6000 IRL attendees) Mark Zuckerberg discussed Meta’s evolution, focusing on the company’s shift from desktop to mobile platforms in the early 2010s. He emphasized the importance of resilience, saying, “You underestimate how painful things are going to be, so you can go and do good things.” Zuckerberg also highlighted Meta’s long-term focus on artificial intelligence and the metaverse, and his plans to remain with the company for years to come. The event underscored how tech leaders now use podcasts to directly communicate their vision and strategies.

• Adam Neumann’s crypto comeback company is reportedly refunding investors

• Runway announces an API for its video-generating AI models

• Y Combinator expanding to four cohorts a year in 2025

• Aging is the inflation of life. An emerging crop of longevity biotech companies needs investment to beat it

• The Laundress cofounder sold her company to Unilever for a reported $100 million. Now she says the ‘bad deal’ ruined her cleaning brand

• Keith Rabois says Miami is still a great place for startups, even as a16z leaves

• No one has gained more wealth this year than Mark Zuckerberg, who is up $56 billion

• Can Venture Capital Keep Itself Afloat? by Yuliya Chernova at the WSJ. Parched returns have left investors leery of replenishing the venture ecosystem with more capital. ‘The money is not making the round trip,’ says one observer

• James Earl Jones’ voice has been immortalized by AI. It’s making other actors nervous

• Generative AI promised limitless creation—instead, it’s all about summarization

• Fearless Fund is shutting down its contested Strivers Grant program

• VC pitch show ‘Meet the Drapers’ partners with TikTok

• Slack is turning into an AI agent hub. Should it?

• Why Venture Capital Is Weighed Down by Its 2021 Vintage. Poor returns on boom-era funds threaten to become a long-term drag on the venture-capital industry

  • + More Than 90% of 2021 Venture Funds Have Had Zero Distributions Thus Far, Report Shows. Data from Carta shows that 2021 and 2022 venture-fund vintages significantly underperformed prior-year vintages

• Pet Startup Funding Has Slowed

• The College Dropout Who Invested Billions to Cozy Up With Elon Musk. Venture capitalist John Hering bet his career, time and money on Musk enterprises, seeking a favored seat beside the world’s richest man

• Meet The Billionaire Investor Who Owns The Land Where Jurassic Park Was Filmed

• Venture Capital And Profitability: Navigating The New Investment Paradigm

• Venture Capitalists Turn to Novel Methods to Return Cash. A two-year-old IPO drought has pushed venture capitalists to find new ways to return cash to their backers, from continuation funds to crypto staking to strip sales.

• GoDaddy Is Having a Moment: Why It Might Not Last. By Anita Ramaswamy for The Information. After stagnating at the same level for five years, GoDaddy shares doubled between last November and last month. The rally was sparked by the company’s third-quarter 2023 report that its profit margin had jumped several percentage points

• Alexis Ohanian's Next Big Bet: Women's Sports. The Brand Genius honoree revolutionized online communities with Reddit. Can he do the same for women's sports?

Fundraising News (VC)

• Insight Partners is closing in on a whopping $10B+ new fund

• Hack VC has raised $77 million for an oversubscribed third blockchain fund, documents show

• Moderne Ventures raises $230 million venture fund

• Meet Creative Capital Ventures: A New Breed in the Venture Capital Industry (18M raised of a 35M fund 1)

• Nick Chirls, formerly of Notation Capital, has launched a new venture firm, Asylum Ventures, with partners Jonathan Wu and Mackenzie Regent. Asylum Ventures will operate with a $55 million fund, focusing on fewer investments—just four or five per year—over a longer period, and backing start-ups that need as little as $500,000 to get started. This approach contrasts with the broader venture capital industry's recent trend of managing massive sums, which reached $1.1 trillion in 2022 (up from $297 billion in 2013). Chirls aims to resist this scale-driven model, inspired by sustainable and creative businesses like A24. Read the NYTimes exclusive interview here. 

• Patron Raises $100M Fund II

• Meet The VCs Who Just Raised $250 Million To Back Women-Led Startups

• European VC Atomico closes $1.24B across two funds for early- and growth-stage startups

• BlackRock and Microsoft are reportedly planning a $30B AI-focused megafund

• Airbus Ventures launches $155 million fund focused on deep tech, including space

• Salesforce Ventures ups its AI fund to $1B, doubling it again

• Alpha Partners raises $153M third fund for pro-rata investments

Fundraising News (Founders)

• Howbout raises $8M from Goodwater to build a calendar that you can share with your friends

• AI Startup World Labs Launches With $230M From Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia’s Venture Arm

• Women's health unicorn Maven Clinic is raising over $100 million from PE firm StepStone

• Laravel, an open source startup in Arkansas founded by Taylor Otwell, raises $57 million from Accel

• Ursa Major nabs $12.5M from US Navy, DoD for 3D-printed rocket motors

• OpenAI’s Fund-Raising Talks Could Value Company at $150 Billion; aims to raise $6.5 billion

  • +Tiger Global Plans to Join OpenAI’s Funding Round

• Blitzy, a Boston startup automating coding, just raised $4.4 million using this 10-slide pitch deck

• Cashmere, a tech startup helping wealth managers find clients, just raised $3.6 million using this 12-slide pitch deck

• Drip Capital, a fintech that provides working capital to SMBs, picks up $113M

• Influencer app Node's $13 million sale shows how central tech and AI have become to talent management

• Timefold, a Belgian startup using AI to help companies plan operations, has raised $6.7 million using this pitch deck

• Hotel Engine reaches a $2.1 billion valuation, rebrands as Engine

• XP Health grabs $33M to bring employees more affordable vision care

• The cybersecurity labor gap now stands at 4M+ open jobs — Intezer has raised $33M for AI tools to plug it

• Quick-commerce startup Flink raises another $150M at a valuation of nearly $1B

• QMill, a Finnish quantum computing startup, just raised $4.5 million in seed funding with this pitch deck

• 11x.ai raises $24M led by Benchmark to build AI digital employees

• TeamBridge, founded by former Uber execs, raises $28M to build HR software for hourly workers

• Miami-based AI bookkeeping startup Finally has raised another big round: $200M in equity and debt

• Smartcat secures $43M for its AI-powered translation platform

• French embedded insurance startup Neat secures $55 million

Startup Features: founder features, quotes, and more

• Orb founders grew so frustrated dealing with billing as engineers at Asana, they built their own billing software

• Here’s the full list of 35 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024

• Zamp targets growing demand for sales tax solutions

• Generative AI startup Typeface acquires two companies, Treat and Narrato, to bolster its portfolio

• 44 of the most promising AI startups of 2024, according to top VCs

• Every fusion startup that has raised over $300M

• Karo is a to-do app that lets you assign tasks to your friends and family

• Drama at OpenWeb, as a new CEO is announced – and the founding CEO says he’s staying

• Medical AI could be great. But the way we are regulating it now is dangerous

• A General Catalyst-backed startup is mass-buying virtual care tech from big players like Walmart. Here's why Fabric is still betting on telehealth.

• Heart disease is the world’s biggest killer — this Cambridge Uni spinout is using AI to find new treatments

• Bluesky grows to 9M+ users

• Salesforce acquires data management firm Own for $1.9B in cash

Consumer-Specific News - subscribe to my other newsletter, Fan Behavior.

• Why Reddit is the internet’s last great hope. In an era of AI upheaval, the cacophonous social hub is proving that the human-driven internet has value—and a chance at survival.

• Spotify begins piloting parent-managed accounts for kids on family plans

• Snap’s new AI feature lets you create Snapchat Lenses by simply describing them

  • +850M total users

  • ++Snapchat Redesigns Feed in Bid to Keep Young Users’ Attention

• Sports gambling is bigger than ever. It's also gotten incredibly weird.

• Instagram is introducing new safety features to enhance privacy for users under 18. Accounts for minors will now be private by default, and notifications will be paused from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to encourage better sleep habits. New parental supervision tools will allow parents to see which accounts their teen has recently messaged, though they won't have access to the content of the messages. Additionally, users under 16 will need parental permission to make their accounts public, and Instagram will limit messaging between minors and people they don’t follow. These updates will roll out in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. Read more from the NYTimes here!

• Amazon Tells Corporate Workers to Be Back in the Office 5 Days a Week. The internet giant told employees on Monday that it expected them to return to the office full-time in January.

• Warner Bros. found a much-needed success with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which earned roughly $190 million in its first 10 days. This hit comes after a disappointing summer, where the studio captured only 4.7% of domestic movie-ticket sales, its worst performance since 1982.

• Gen Z has regrets: was social media a good invention? One way to quantify the value of a product is to find out how many of the people who use it wish it had never been invented. Feelings of regret or resentment are common with addictive products (cigarettes, for example) and addictive activities like gambling, even if most users say they enjoy them. See the TLDR of the key findings below (ZN’s tldr):

  • Survey of 1,006 Gen Z adults (ages 18-27)

  • 60% believe social media negatively impacts society

  • 52% say social media has benefited their lives; 29% say it has hurt them

  • 60% spend 4+ hours/day on social media; 23% spend 7+ hours/day

  • 37% report negative impact on emotional health (women: 44%, LGBTQ+: 47%)

  • Platforms with highest regret: X/Twitter (50%), TikTok (47%), Snapchat (43%), Facebook (37%), Instagram (34%)

  • 45% wouldn't allow children smartphones before age 14; 57% support restricting children’s access before age 14

  • 69% support a law requiring child-safe social media options

• SocialAI offers a Twitter-like diary where AI bots respond to your posts

• Pre-teen girls using beauty products from social media can cause premature aging and permanent scars

• K-pop giant Hybe has gone to war with NewJeans, and wants Google’s help. The BTS record label asked a federal court to identify ‘defamatory’ YouTube users, part of a battle over the lucrative girl group.

• Why Does Gen Z Believe It’s ‘Aging Like Milk’? Some say they fear their generation is aging more quickly than others. But as Gen Z-ers enter their late 20s, it’s more likely that they are simply getting older.

• Roblox introduces new earning opportunities for creators, teases generative AI project

• Gen Z moves on from ‘Googling’—TikTok emerges as the new search engine & Gen Z’s new TikTok news habit widens the generational gap with TV-loving boomers

• One Big Reason Gen Z Is Still on Facebook: To Save Money. For a generation that loves thrift-shopping, Facebook isn’t a place to socialize online — it’s the best place to score some deals.

• Real Madrid’s $1.9 billion stadium cancels all concerts because the music was too loud

• Issa Rae’s latest venture is a dazzling new jewelry line with Cast. The Braeve Collection of gold and silver arm cuffs, hoop earrings, rings, and statement pendant necklaces exude Rae’s confidence.

• How luxury gyms became the new third place

• Apple's new iPhone camera button is a big Gen Z bet

• TV shows have to be 'undeniable' to get made right now, as Hollywood enters a risk-averse new era

  • +Netflix in Talks for ‘Hot Ones’ Show to Bolster Live TV Lineup

Niche internet lore

• Gen Z (and Alpha) on New World Spirituality

  1. I've been reflecting a lot on how Gen Z is blending New World Spirituality—with practices like astrology, tarot card readings, and psychics—into platforms like TikTok and other media formats. I came across an article by Ross Simonini that explores this phenomenon in depth. Simonini examines how spiritual leaders like Sadhguru are leveraging digital platforms to reach a broader audience. The article delves into the challenges of adapting ancient spiritual practices to modern entertainment algorithms and considers whether these profound experiences can truly be conveyed online.

• Are we falling back in love with awards shows?

  1. Emmy Viewership Rises to 6.9 Million Viewers: the uptick puts the Emmys among the award shows, such as the Oscars, that have had audience gains in the past few years.

  2. The Best, Worst, and Most Surprising Moments of the 2024 MTV VMAs

• Looksmaxxing and Gen Z / Alpha Youth

  1. Why Are Gen Z Boys Chewing on Rock-Hard Gum?

  2. Inside looksmaxxing, the extreme cosmetic social media trend

  3. Inside the ‘looksmaxxing’ economy: Jawbone microfractures, expensive hairspray, and millions to be made off male insecurities

  4. What in the World Is Mewing? And Will It Actually Sculpt Your Jawline? Here's the Truth

• Frugality and ‘underconsumption’ are the latest Gen Z trends on TikTok

Tweets to think about

No GPs Allowed is a long newsletter — I didn’t design it to be a quick read at the beginning of your day. This is meant to be a long newsletter you go back to, aggregates all the industry news you need to know, and gives you all the links to access information and more. That being said, Gmail cuts off this newsletter 100% of the time due to its length. So, I’m conducting a poll.

Investor Feature: Parker Jay-Pachirat

How and why did you want to become a VC? Few skills are as powerful as understanding when and why things change.

I’m obsessed with the future and identifying patterns to understand how our world will change. I love working with founders, building companies from 0-1, and helping business models survive and scale.

Before joining the world of venture capital, I spent several years at early-stage tech startups, focusing on product and strategy. I also served as Chief of Staff at a fintech startup, where I acted as a strategic advisor to the CEO and played a pivotal role in scaling the company from inception to exit. This hands-on experience provided me with unique insights into the startup ecosystem, founder dynamics, and the lifecycle of a business.

One of the main components of my job is to understand how, when, and why the world is going to change. Equally as important is leveraging my interpersonal and practical skills to help founders with relevant and insightful ideas succeed.

What’s your investment philosophy in 5 words? Team > idea. Revenue > intellectual novelty.

Early-stage success hinges more on the team than the idea. Revenue generation and a clear path to profitability are paramount over intellectual novelty. Seek founders with a proven track record of building and launching impactful products rapidly. Alignment between founders and investors is crucial. Successful founders are receptive to feedback and adaptable, able to pivot without hesitation. Ultimately, the focus should be on financial returns, not personal attachment to a concept.

Strangest place you’ve met a founder? Berghain

#1 tip for folks trying to break into VC & new VCs?  Work at a startup.

The best VCs I know have either spent time working at a startup, or have founded something themselves. Having firsthand startup experience sharpens your ability to evaluate companies, teams, and business models. This practical knowledge allows you to spot cracks, risks, and opportunities that others might miss. Most importantly, founders trust VCs who have navigated the ups and downs of building a startup. Investing is like a marriage; trust is crucial for winning deals and providing impactful guidance throughout a startup’s journey.

Identify and cultivate your edge.

What sets you apart as a VC? Is it deep technical expertise, or are you a super-connector who can help founders hire, secure capital, and find acquirers? Identify your natural strengths, both inside and outside the VC world, and leverage them to add value for your portfolio companies. Rather than defining your edge solely through the lens of VC, consider what you excel at personally and how that can translate into meaningful contributions to startups.

Get clear on your “why”.

My top advice for anyone entering VC: Be honest with yourself about your motivations. Do you want to make the world a better place? Perhaps a role in a charity or non-profit would be more aligned. If you aim to drive returns for companies, stakeholders, and limited partners, then you’re on the right track. Your "why" will directly influence your success and legacy in venture capital. Passion for the sectors you invest in and a love for working with founders can be crucial differentiators.

Focus on a specific industry or vertical — and get obsessed.

A common piece of for aspiring VC’s is to ‘develop your thesis’. While developing investment theses is essential, how you develop them matters as much. Identify and get obsessed with the industry/vertical you want to focus on. Understand its history, current trends, and future developments. Build relationships with key players across the spectrum—from engineers, developers, and operators to founders and investors. By deeply understanding the pain points and opportunities within a niche, you’ll be better equipped to identify and support high-potential founders and businesses. Theses will emerge naturally as you spend ample time writing, thinking, learning, and talking about a problem space you are passionate about.

Investor you admire most? I have a lot of respect for Michael Dempsey, Managing Partner at Compound VC. I discovered Michael through his superior writing and appreciate his deep-dive approach to venture capital.

VC Theses & Startup Tips

• The Subscription Value Loop Calculator: a tool for measuring your consumer subscription app's performance vs. benchmarks

• Not All Startups Need VC. Here Are 6 Other Viable Funding Sources

VC Jobs

This edition is getting too long so here are all the posts/announcements of available VC jobs!

+Serena is hiring a Venture Analyst!

VC $$$

You can drop your salary details here (anonymously) to be shared in future editions. VC compensation is an exceptionally opaque part of the “breaking into VC” process.

• Title: Vice President

• Fund Size: 100-500M

• Base Salary: $150,000

• Cash Bonus: 0

• Carry: 5%

Resources: Discounts + Tools

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listening (music) 🎧 it’s okay i’m okay, Tate McRae

listening (podcast) 🎧 What Went Wrong: Cleopatra

reading 📖 Pachinko & Paul Gauguin is an artist ripe for cancellation

(re)watching 🎥 The Gilded Age, Emily in Paris S4 P2, The Perfect Couple

fav nyc spot of the week 🗽 Sushiro 

my favorite non VC / startup related tweets of the past week