Portfolio News: Q4 2021
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome 2022! Although 2021 was a tough year in many regards, it was also an incredible one. Start-up funding hit an all-time high. We’re seeing more interest from people to follow their passion and become founders. And in many ways, it feels we’re entering a golden decade for technology. […]
2021: The Version One year in review
2021 might be remembered as the year the world started to fully embrace the opportunity that the technology sector has to offer… Start-up funding hit an all-time high as did fundraising for new VC funds (coincidentally, we also raised two new funds for a total of $100m in fresh capital). Round sizes increased significantly across […]
Announcing our investment in EnPowered, a payment platform to increase the rate of cleantech adoption
We’re excited to announce our investment in EnPowered, an on-bill payment platform designed to make it easier for businesses to invest in energy-efficiency projects. We co-led their $12M seed raise, along with our friends at Golden Ventures and Inovia. Great technologies exist to help businesses reduce their electricity usage, emissions, and energy bills. The problem? […]
Announcing our investment in Gadze Finance
Building a successful investment franchise over the past few decades required finding a distribution advantage as products have been mostly undifferentiated. The largest and most successful US franchises — Blackrock (founded 1988), Vanguard (founded 1975), and Fidelity (founded 1946) — are now managing close to $20 trillion in assets. While traditional finance offers few options […]
Resetting venture capital return expectations: is 10x the new 3x?
When I started Version One Ventures in 2012, every experienced VC shared the same rule of thumb: we had to return 3x net consistently to stay in business (i.e. 3x the invested capital net of fees over a period of about ten years for a net IRR in the low twenties). Ten years (almost) and […]