4 ms·

Database of VC investment announcements

124 points by kjam___ 4y ago

troydavis 4y ago
Neat. If an RSS feed of new memos existed, I'd subscribe. If an RSS feed already exists, consider adding the feed URL to the site header so that visitors can use "RSS auto-discovery" - https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery. And thanks for creating this.
- kjam___ 4y ago
  Not yet, unfortunately. But will look to add soon.
- gen220 4y ago
  FYI, many VC funds' blogs have RSS feeds you can subscribe to [1] [2] [1] https://www.sequoiacap.com/feed https://www.sequoiacap.com/feed [2] https://a16z.com/feed https://a16z.com/feed
welder 4y ago
I searched but don't see some startups that raised series-A. That means their investors didn't publish a public memo? Good question to add to an FAQ if you have one.
- kjam___ 4y ago
  Yep that's right! It currently tracks about 50 top global VCs and adding more each day, but most likely the investor didn't publish a public memo. Good shout re: the FAQ will look to add.
  - michaelmior 4y ago
    About 50 top global VCs sounds very different from "every VC."
    - kjam___ 4y ago
      Fair. We currently capture the top VCs, and adding more each week. Typically it's only the big VCs who publish these memos. But you're right to call this out so we updated the title :)
nilsbunger 4y ago
If we train a LLM on this data, which VC firm will it make partner at, and which quartile will its performance be in?
- m-watson 4y ago
  We all know someone already is doing this and they will make the "this memo does not exist" site. HN front page next week.
SnoJohn 4y ago
Sorry to quibble, but these aren't investment memos. They are PR statements announcing an investment. An investment memo is an internal document that lays out a business model, a competitive analysis, a risk assessment, the reasoning behind investing or not, and how it should be valued. Really nice site though. Well designed and works smoothly.
- kjam___ 4y ago
  Yep, you're right these are the public investment notes the VCs share which will definitely have a positive PR spin to them. But it can still give some helpful insight into the thesis behind their investment.
  - civilaircraft 4y ago
    Absolutely there's value here and it's a great site - kudos! Just would be helpful if you changed the wording as "investment memos" are actual documents in the investment world that these are not (would be similar to calling a product announcement a "product manual").
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  I agree. The website is well done, but it’s a database of press releases. The press releases are designed to be advertisements for the company, which will inherently hide a lot of the valuable nuance that internal investment discussions cover.
  - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
    Yes, it would be nice if the title could be updated to reflect that they're fundraising announcements/PR. Those are intentionally extremely flattering and very shallow. They're almost the polar opposite of what goes into the investment memo, which is a much more complete, honest(-ish), and sober distillation.
    - dang 4y ago
civilaircraft 4y ago
These are just the VC investment announcements - I was hoping to see the actual investment memos which delve into the analysis of the market, product, business model, technicals, team, risks, etc. (which I would be surprised if they were made public at all). Although over the last few years, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of vc firms didn't really do in-depth investment memos...
japanesejay 4y ago
Great idea! Thank you for putting this together. I’ll have to dig deeper but the first two randomly selected companies had an announcement of their investment and not a formal investment memo that would be submitted to their IC. However it’s very interesting to understand the investors perspective at the time of their participation.
- kjam___ 4y ago
  Yes that's right these are the public memos they publish (not the memos they take to IC). It will have a PR spin to it, but it does still provide some insight into their thesis.
O__________O 4y ago
Example of what an investment memo might look like from perspective of Sequoia as it relates to DoorDash: - https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/doordash-venture-capital-investment-memo/ https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/doordash-venture-capital-inv...
Aashn 4y ago
Nice, pretty useful info for founders
nutanc 4y ago
It's 2023 and the site does not have a neural search interface :) For example pass the text from https://www.vcinsights.co/memos?recordId=recu0WgZCKeNxjVpf https://www.vcinsights.co/memos?recordId=recu0WgZCKeNxjVpf to chatGPT and get the following summary: 1. The use of AI in sales email coaching: Lavender uses AI algorithms to score emails and suggest edits, as well as generate a personality profile for prospects. 2. Strong team with deep understanding of end users: The co-founders of Lavender have a strong passion and focus in sales, and have designed the product with deep understanding of its end users, sales development representatives and account executives. 3. Strong customer love and community: Customers have seen significant increases in cold email conversion, booking more meetings and reducing email creation time. Lavender has built a tight-knit community of sales leaders and SDRs, with customers even getting tattoos and recording music for the company.
- say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
  trying to learn better prompting.. What steps did you take to produce this? I got something drastically different from ChatGPT when I copy-pasted the entire page and said "summarize this: <paste>" followed by prompt 2: "summarize this in bullets"
rajnathani 4y ago
FinSMEs (https://finsmes.com https://finsmes.com) is a great source for this. The information and format of the articles are succinct and to-the-point.

124 points by kjam___ 4y ago

Neat. If an RSS feed of new memos existed, I'd subscribe. If an RSS feed already exists, consider adding the feed URL to the site header so that visitors can use "RSS auto-discovery" - https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery https://www.rssboard.org/rss-autodiscovery. And thanks for creating this.

kjam___ 4y ago
Not yet, unfortunately. But will look to add soon.
gen220 4y ago
FYI, many VC funds' blogs have RSS feeds you can subscribe to [1] [2] [1] https://www.sequoiacap.com/feed https://www.sequoiacap.com/feed [2] https://a16z.com/feed https://a16z.com/feed

welder 4y ago

I searched but don't see some startups that raised series-A. That means their investors didn't publish a public memo? Good question to add to an FAQ if you have one.

kjam___ 4y ago
Yep that's right! It currently tracks about 50 top global VCs and adding more each day, but most likely the investor didn't publish a public memo. Good shout re: the FAQ will look to add.
- michaelmior 4y ago
  About 50 top global VCs sounds very different from "every VC."
  - kjam___ 4y ago
    Fair. We currently capture the top VCs, and adding more each week. Typically it's only the big VCs who publish these memos. But you're right to call this out so we updated the title :)

nilsbunger 4y ago

If we train a LLM on this data, which VC firm will it make partner at, and which quartile will its performance be in?

m-watson 4y ago
We all know someone already is doing this and they will make the "this memo does not exist" site. HN front page next week.

SnoJohn 4y ago

Sorry to quibble, but these aren't investment memos. They are PR statements announcing an investment. An investment memo is an internal document that lays out a business model, a competitive analysis, a risk assessment, the reasoning behind investing or not, and how it should be valued. Really nice site though. Well designed and works smoothly.

kjam___ 4y ago
Yep, you're right these are the public investment notes the VCs share which will definitely have a positive PR spin to them. But it can still give some helpful insight into the thesis behind their investment.
- civilaircraft 4y ago
  Absolutely there's value here and it's a great site - kudos! Just would be helpful if you changed the wording as "investment memos" are actual documents in the investment world that these are not (would be similar to calling a product announcement a "product manual").
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
I agree. The website is well done, but it’s a database of press releases. The press releases are designed to be advertisements for the company, which will inherently hide a lot of the valuable nuance that internal investment discussions cover.
- im_down_w_otp 4y ago
  Yes, it would be nice if the title could be updated to reflect that they're fundraising announcements/PR. Those are intentionally extremely flattering and very shallow. They're almost the polar opposite of what goes into the investment memo, which is a much more complete, honest(-ish), and sober distillation.
  - dang 4y ago

civilaircraft 4y ago

These are just the VC investment announcements - I was hoping to see the actual investment memos which delve into the analysis of the market, product, business model, technicals, team, risks, etc. (which I would be surprised if they were made public at all). Although over the last few years, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of vc firms didn't really do in-depth investment memos...

japanesejay 4y ago

Great idea! Thank you for putting this together. I’ll have to dig deeper but the first two randomly selected companies had an announcement of their investment and not a formal investment memo that would be submitted to their IC. However it’s very interesting to understand the investors perspective at the time of their participation.

kjam___ 4y ago
Yes that's right these are the public memos they publish (not the memos they take to IC). It will have a PR spin to it, but it does still provide some insight into their thesis.

O__________O 4y ago

Example of what an investment memo might look like from perspective of Sequoia as it relates to DoorDash: - https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/doordash-venture-capital-investment-memo/ https://www.alexanderjarvis.com/doordash-venture-capital-inv...

Aashn 4y ago

Nice, pretty useful info for founders

nutanc 4y ago

It's 2023 and the site does not have a neural search interface :) For example pass the text from https://www.vcinsights.co/memos?recordId=recu0WgZCKeNxjVpf https://www.vcinsights.co/memos?recordId=recu0WgZCKeNxjVpf to chatGPT and get the following summary: 1. The use of AI in sales email coaching: Lavender uses AI algorithms to score emails and suggest edits, as well as generate a personality profile for prospects. 2. Strong team with deep understanding of end users: The co-founders of Lavender have a strong passion and focus in sales, and have designed the product with deep understanding of its end users, sales development representatives and account executives. 3. Strong customer love and community: Customers have seen significant increases in cold email conversion, booking more meetings and reducing email creation time. Lavender has built a tight-knit community of sales leaders and SDRs, with customers even getting tattoos and recording music for the company.

say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
trying to learn better prompting.. What steps did you take to produce this? I got something drastically different from ChatGPT when I copy-pasted the entire page and said "summarize this: <paste>" followed by prompt 2: "summarize this in bullets"

rajnathani 4y ago

FinSMEs (https://finsmes.com https://finsmes.com) is a great source for this. The information and format of the articles are succinct and to-the-point.