Disclaimer: Dear partners, if you wish to share the information in this letter, please only use the public version available on our website. Our partners shared this information with us in confidence, so we must prevent leaks by treating this document as confidential and privileged. We appreciate your understanding.
Intro & TL;DR DVC Growth Fund I State of VC Meet New LPs Fund Stats & Portfolio Angel List Update Events and Announcements Asks From Portfolio Founder DVC Publications DVC Podcast Kudos
Dear partners,
You might have noticed, that last quarter, we provided just a shorter version of the report. While we appreciate the concise presentation format that offers a quick update on both the fund and the portfolio, we understand that you may still miss our quarterly long read. Therefore this quarter we’ll combine the two and include both an update on Q1 and Q2.
As we wrap up Q2 2024, we’re excited to share key milestones: our first unicorn - Perplexity and ongoing growth.
The DVC community now has over 340 members, including 138 investors, 11 of which are deal captains, and 202 founders. We added 17 new LPs and 3 Deal Advisors in the last two quarters.
Our AUM has steadily grown to $XXM, with $XXM deployed capital. In Q1, our fund size was [this part is available in the confidential version of this report]
In Q1, we invested $XX in 13 deals (10 new companies and 3 follow-ons) and $XX in Q2 we’ve made 11 deals (9 new companies and 2 follow-ons). Our portfolio now has 112 deals: 90 initial and 21 follow-ons (+1 deal on the same valuation). No exits in Q1, and [this part is available in the confidential version of this report].
By the end of the eleventh quarter, investments were highest in Infrastructure/Devtools and Healthcare industries, in the Q2 2024 RPA overtaking Creators Economy to come in third place. Infrastructure/Devtools led capital deployment with [this part is available in the confidential version of this report]
We held 103 DVC events, enhancing our brand and helping portfolio companies with fundraising, partnerships, and talent attraction. Our flagship AI Rabbit Hole Conference in San Francisco drew over 500 AI experts, industry leaders, founders, and VCs. Check this out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTsebcJlFs8
We can't stop building our products and automation to stay efficient and flexible. We've implemented custom metrics to track portfolio performance and identify the best. We plan to invest in these companies from the Growth Fund I.
An insightful Axios article, based on a Sante Ventures study, found that smaller venture funds are more likely to generate a 2.5x return than larger ones. As shown in Chart (read below), funds between $0-50M account for a significant 27% of all funds that provide at least a 2.5x return to their LPs.
We're seeing a lot of activity in the market, in Q2 2024, global venture capital investment reached $94.3 billion, with AI startups capturing 28%. Despite increased investment, the number of deals fell for the ninth consecutive quarter. The U.S. led VC activity, but investment in Asia and Latin America slowed. Exit activities and M&A were cautious, with a slight improvement toward pre-pandemic levels. In Q2 2024 seed valuations slightly increases from, $12.6M in Q1 to $14.3M, when round sizes descried from $3.5M in Q1 to $3.4M in Q2 2024. But, the median Series A (bridge) valuations hit a record $60.7M with a round sizes for $5M — the lower mark from Q1 2021.
If you don't feel like reading our report, just check out the highlight decks below. (delete val.)
[this part is available in the confidential version of this report]