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Recent Posts
Portfolio
We’re already a full quarter into 2019, and as expected, it’s shaping up to be a busy year. The Version One portfolio is filled with great startups doing incredible things, and here’s a selection of what has been happening (that we can talk about publicly): Company news and product releases: Outreach launched Galaxy, the app […]
Crypto / Blockchain
Crypto / blockchain has always been as much of a business model innovation as a technical innovation… Technical innovation: running a decentralized ledger / platform at scale Business model innovation: issuing tokens to give users / participants in the platform a stake in the project By issuing crypto tokens, platforms gave early users an incentive […]
Entrepreneurship
Over the past couple of months, we have written about a range of themes that have been interesting to us lately. Through public brainstorming, we have met some inspiring entrepreneurs, been introduced to some cool companies and received some great feedback. All in all, we have been enjoying the process of refining our thesis in […]
Entrepreneurship
Start-ups, by definition, are risky. But traditionally, start-ups have looked for the least risky position in the value chain. And for many, this is being a platform. Successful platforms build an ecosystem of contributors that create content for the platform. Or, they build a marketplace where sellers decide which products might sell or not. In […]
Version One
Here at Version One, we had two nightmarish weekends in early February when our accounts were hacked by pretty sophisticated and aggressive hackers. As we’ve since learned, hackers love weekends, because it’s a time when targets may not realize the hack right away and the customer service at service providers is limited. But thanks to […]
Marketplaces / Social / Collaboration / Network Effects, Entrepreneurship
I recently caught up with my good friend Bala Subramaniam, who is the Head of Fulfillment at Instacart. You may remember Bala’s talk on supply-demand equilibrium at our data-driven marketplace meetup back in May 2017. Bala is a seasoned product, business, and technology leader. Before Instacart, he was at LinkedIn and Microsoft. I always learn a ton […]
Health / Biology
We are continually refining our thesis on healthcare, from looking at clinical-grade at-home diagnostics to biotech and therapeutics. Our previous posts on this topic haven’t included digital health and wellness apps, but these consumer-facing products certainly play an important role in transforming healthcare and democratizing its access. The consumerization of healthcare through apps continues to pick up […]
Health / Biology
Over the past year, some of the most interesting and intellectually-stimulating pitches we heard have come from startups in biotech, specifically companies developing therapeutics. From non-hormonal contraceptives that work for men and women to muscle-promoting gene therapy, the potential impact of these new drugs is both immeasurable and inspiring. So, it comes as no surprise […]
Marketplaces / Social / Collaboration / Network Effects
We at Version One are becoming increasingly convinced that stronger local communities can help solve many of the problems we are currently facing. When you think about it, most things that people truly care about are local issues. Do we have access to good schools? Is our neighbourhood safe? Do we have access to good […]
Entrepreneurship
The world seems more volatile than ever before. There’s an explosion in the number of issues, combined with an ever-accelerating news cycle to cover each issue 24 hours a day. Much of today’s uncertainty can impact start-ups… When will the US government shutdown end? Are we heading into a US-China trade war? Will both of […]
Entrepreneurship
Hiring is key to the success of any business, but it can especially critical for startups. Most founders appreciate the importance of making good hires; however, when a startup is scaling rapidly, process often gets left behind. In our experience, successful recruiting is a combination of process discipline and checks and balances. Here are three […]
Portfolio
We are well into 2019. And yes, this is the time of year when people are thinking about resolutions and looking ahead. And while we are very excited about the new year and new fund, we also want to spend a few minutes to reflect on last quarter. Q4 was an important quarter for our […]
Version One
Happy new year! Each week we like share our thoughts on a range of topics from vertical markets to general startup advice and our reflections on investing. We’re proud to say that we wrote a blog post every week in 2018 – and we’ve done that now for the past three years. In case you […]
Version One
2018 was a big year for Version One, and it’s hard to believe another year is drawing to a close. We invested in seven new companies and participated in many follow-on rounds. Of the new investments, one is in encryption, one is in security, one is in consumer hardware, one is in bio/healthcare, and three […]
Entrepreneurship
In case you missed our posts from the previous weeks, we have been summarizing what founders should focus on at each stage of their startup’s journey. Priorities and strategies change as a company grows – starting with finding product-market fit after a seed round to figuring out distribution between Series A and Series B. And […]
Entrepreneurship
Last week, we kicked off a blog series to help founders determine their company’s core priorities and strategies at each stage of the progression from seed to Series A and Series B. In the previous post, we outlined what startups should focus on right after raising a seed round. The next stage in the journey […]
Entrepreneurship
At V1, we have had the privilege to sit on many of our portfolio companies’ boards from (pre-)seed to Series B (and beyond). We have seen these companies grow and go through the different stages in the start-up journey. And over the years, we have observed common patterns emerge at every phase. We actively help […]
Health / Biology
Traditionally, startups in healthcare have had challenges with distribution. This is not any different from companies in other industries, but innovation is not fully “permissionless” because of regulation, the many stakeholders involved (i.e. government, payers, hospitals/clinics, physicians, caregivers, and patients) with competing incentives, and the power of incumbents that continue to consolidate the market (i.e. […]
Crypto / Blockchain, Portfolio
When Lolli launched in August, co-founder Alex Adelman wrote, “Over 60% of Americans have heard of bitcoin, but very few actually own any.” For all of us in the tech bubble, this is a good reminder of the relative inaccessibility of cryptocurrency. Many of us have Coinbase accounts (a V1 portfolio company) and don’t think twice […]
Entrepreneurship
Over the past decade, new platforms have driven down the cost of starting a tech business. For example, you don’t need to buy servers anymore – you can just host your site on AWS. And distribution has become immediate, efficient, and highly targeted thanks to Google and Facebook. The impact extends beyond technology companies too. […]