2022 statistics of Pinto Ventures: we received 300 qualified leads; spoke with 65 teams; took forward conversations with 15 of them; took a closer look and did DD in 5 (less than 2%); and did only one new investment (to be disclosed soon). Why did we do all this work? Selecting startups to invest is just 1/5 of our time. The rest is spent supporting teams throughout the ups and downs of building new profitable growing tech businesses, which is a very different approach from other early stage investors. How do others work? A typical early stage fund needs to create results after 10+ years for their investors or LPs. Investments are done in the first 1 to 3 years across ca. 20 to 30 companies. Portfolio construction is about maximising the chances of having at least one winner in each fund. The rule of thumb is that the “winner” investment will need to yield at least 1.5 times the size of the fund. Assuming an investment in equity of 20% and dilution until exit to 10%, this im...
There is ONE Silicon Valley with angels like Naval Ravikant and Jason Calacanis leading to companies like Uber, Tweeter etc. Things in Europe are different: ecosystems are country specific with local angels and early stage VCs. This are my notes on building bridges & learning across these ecosystems.