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Clockwork Perspectives
The Climb and Crash of SVB
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) raises concerns about its impact on the startup ecosystem, with implications for venture debt availability. SVB's tailored approach and extensive network made it a significant loss, requiring the industry to adapt.
Clockwork Perspectives
2023 - What's Ahead?
Investors can find opportunities in the evolving market despite challenges, with private investments offering potential returns, emphasis on financially healthy companies, diversification, and positive outlook for core crypto assets.
Clockwork Perspectives
2022 Carbon Series Part 2: Analysis of Present-Day Carbon Market Funding
Private investing has a big impact on climate mitigation, but more funding is needed for emerging technologies. Cleantech investors are increasing, specializing and diversifying to maximize opportunities and address climate change.
Clockwork Perspectives
2022 Carbon Series Part 1: Global Carbon Market Primer
Discover the role of carbon markets in fighting climate change, including carbon taxes, cap-and-trade systems, and regulated and voluntary markets, and how they contribute to environmental protection and clean energy investments globally.
Clockwork Perspectives
2022 - What's Ahead?
Private markets in 2022 are anticipated to see more institutional investment, secondary offerings, geographic expansion, digitization of portfolio operations, and further innovations in crypto and blockchain.
Clockwork Perspectives
SEC weighs stricter disclosure requirements for larger private companies
SEC is reconsidering disclosure requirements for larger private companies, as private capital availability increases and public listings decline. Investors and entrepreneurs should stay informed as changes unfold.
Clockwork Perspectives
Diligence Series: Exploring Exits
Explore exit opportunities in the venture capital industry by analyzing recent transaction landscapes, key questions, and information gathering techniques. Map the exit and investment landscape to identify potential buyers and M&A trends, providing valuable insights for investors and founders.
Clockwork Perspectives
Diligence Series: Breaking Apart the Business Model
The Diligence Series discusses the significance of the business model in investment due diligence. It compares the business model to a car engine, highlighting the need to understand its mechanics, sustainability, and financial performance.
Clockwork Perspectives
Do Private Markets Earn Their Keep? Part I: Buyout Funds
Explore the insights from a report on the worthiness of private equity markets and the performance of buyout funds, including the narrowing return premium, the value of top-tier managers, and the changing sources of returns.
Clockwork Perspectives
An Engineer’s Introduction to Private Investing
Investing in private companies involves limited information updates and the risk of bankruptcy, but successful returns can outweigh the uncertainties and make it worthwhile.
Clockwork Perspectives
Venture Backed in Latin America: A Booming Ecosystem
Latin America's venture capital scene is thriving, with successful startups and growing investments in sectors like fintech. The region's favorable conditions and promising market potential make it an attractive destination for venture capital.
Clockwork Perspectives
Diligence Series: Contextualizing the Market
Discover the essential elements of market analysis in private investing with this insightful blog post. Explore market sizing, competitive landscape assessment, and market trends and risks to gain valuable insights for evaluating investment opportunities.
Clockwork Perspectives
Preferred Equity: An Overview
Preferred equity in early-stage financing is discussed in this blog post, covering its advantages for companies and investors, key terms, and a practical example.
Clockwork Perspectives
Diligence Series: Meeting the Team
Learn how to assess the team behind a business venture in this blog post, exploring factors such as leadership ability, collective dynamics, and expertise to gauge their potential for success.
Clockwork Perspectives
The New Startup Cities
Emerging US cities like Austin, Miami, Richmond, and Charlottesville offer attractive conditions for startup founders, including lower costs, skilled workforce, supportive infrastructure, access to capital, and favorable policies.
Clockwork Perspectives
Diligence Series: Weighing the Value Proposition
Understanding the value proposition of a business venture is crucial before investing. This blog post guides readers in framing the problem, defining the solution, and assessing the opportunity-solution fit.
Clockwork Perspectives
What a recession would mean to startups
Navigating a recession is tough for startups, but this post offers tips to raise capital, monitor budgets, diversify revenue, and focus on problem-solving. Despite challenges, recessions can also create growth opportunities.
Clockwork Perspectives
Introducing the Diligence Series: Applying a Simple Framework
Analyzing private investment opportunities requires a structured approach. This blog post presents a concise framework covering key aspects and considerations for investors and founders during the due diligence process.
Clockwork Perspectives
Common Equity: An Overview
Common equity represents ownership in a company and entitles the holder to a share of the profits. This blog post explores the benefits and considerations of common equity for both companies and investors, including the alignment of interests, potential dilution, and unlimited upside.
Clockwork Perspectives
Decentralized Finance: New Paradigms on How We Business
The crypto industry and decentralized finance (DeFi) are experiencing a surge, with the total value locked in DeFi increasing from under $1B to over $80B in a year. Major financial institutions are taking serious bets on the industry, reimagining the way we conduct commerce.
Clockwork Perspectives
Should you join an accelerator? 3 Big Questions to Ask
Key questions for founders considering an accelerator program are highlighted, including program alignment, available resources, and costs (equity or cash compensation). Proactive research and seeking feedback from other founders are crucial for making an informed decision.
Clockwork Perspectives
Convertible Notes: An Overview
Convertible notes are investor-friendly loans to early-stage companies, offering enhanced upside and downside protection. Key terms include investment amount, maturity date, interest rate, discount, and valuation cap.
Clockwork Perspectives
Greasing the Sales Engine with Metrics
Track sales and business development metrics in two categories: activities (things you can control, like outreach and meetings) and results (outcomes, such as total sales and conversion rates). Use CRM platforms for effective tracking.
Clockwork Perspectives
Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE): An Overview
SAFEs (Simple Agreements for Future Equity) are popular fundraising tools for early-stage startups, offering a standardized and straightforward way to raise capital. They provide flexibility for founders and low legal costs for investors, making them ideal for pre-revenue or early-revenue businesses.
Clockwork Perspectives
The Flippening: Founders vs Funds as Lead Investors
Routable's $30MM Series B round, led by prominent angels like Sam Altman and Jack Altman, highlights the growing influence of solo capitalist investors. Clockwork Universe is leveraging financial technology to strengthen collaboration between entrepreneurs and investors, fostering innovation in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Clockwork Perspectives
Key Performance Indicators: What Are They And Why Do They Matter?
Discover the significance of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for founders, including customer metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Churn, and Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), along with financial metrics like Burn Rate and Runway, to assess the real-time health of their businesses and make informed decisions.
Clockwork Perspectives
Performance Metrics: How Are Your Investors Judging You?
Understand the key return-oriented metrics investors use to evaluate the success of their investments, such as IRR, DPI, RVPI, and MOIC. These metrics determine the potential returns and timeline for investors in the early stages of a company's growth.
Clockwork Perspectives
The Building Blocks Of Successful Investor Reporting
Create impactful investor updates with a structured approach. This article suggests sections like introduction, key asks, core metrics, team updates, fundraising status, and business-specific aspects. Transparency and candor are essential for engaging investors effectively.
Clockwork Perspectives
Striking The Balance: Investor Communications DOs And DON’Ts
Maximize your investor relations strategy by communicating regularly and consistently, providing clear updates with a structured letter format. Be explicit with investor asks and maintain organized data to streamline reporting. Foster engagement by encouraging questions and feedback, and be responsive to your investors' inquiries.
Clockwork Perspectives
An Honest Approach To Investor Relations
Investor relations are crucial for founders even after securing funding. Transparent communication fosters collaboration, opens doors to networks, and enhances chances of future funding.
Investor Series 
Interview With Mat Gantar
He supports innovative founders, prioritizing strong teams and healthcare digitalization to improve lives. They face challenges in managing priorities and enjoy mountaineering.
Investor Series 
Interview With Connor Browne
He seeks businesses with strong management, predictable revenue, and solid margins, aiming for positive impact and drawing inspiration from Warren Buffett.
Investor Series 
Interview With Will Weatherford
Former Speaker of The Florida House of Representatives turned private investor values leadership, focuses on regulated markets for innovation, aims to make a positive impact, stays focused, and emphasizes the importance of strong leadership teams.
Investor Series 
Interview With Max Zamkow
Motivated by smartphone revolution, values market wisdom, focuses on healthcare innovation, aims for positive impact, manages multiple roles, emphasizes ample runway, enjoys bourbon, recommends "The Little Engine That Could."
Investor Series 
Interview With Andres Azcarraga
Discover the world of private investing, exploring motivation, team value, innovation themes, impact, challenges, lessons learned, information sources, and personal interests in this insightful post.
Investor Series 
Interview With Janine Sickmeyer
Overlooked Ventures: Backing underestimated founders, driving innovation in overlooked industries, and making a social impact. Learn about their investment journey, challenges, and favorite resources, along with captivating book recommendations.
Investor Series 
Interview With Jaime Novoa
Gain insights from a venture capitalist at K Fund, emphasizing the importance of founding teams, emerging innovation, job creation, investment management, lessons learned, industry sources, personal interests, and a recommended book.
Investor Series 
Interview With Hadley Harris
Hadley explores his journey into private investing, focusing on founders and highlighting web3 and AI as exciting innovation themes. They emphasize their commitment to supporting founders and maintaining a focused investment strategy, while sharing personal interests and recommending the book "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke.
Investor Series 
Interview With Rich Diemer
CAV Angels is a not-for-profit organization focused on education and early-stage investments, prioritizing potential rewards exceeding risks. They seek innovation in various sectors and aim to make a positive impact while managing growth and emphasizing trust in investments.
Investor Series 
Interview With Enrique Zambrano
Enrique talks about his journey in private investing, focusing on the value of the team when evaluating opportunities. They highlight innovation in mobility and aim to make a lasting impact. Challenges include time management, and the recommended book is "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke.
Investor Series 
Interview With Susan Moring
He talks about his journey from working closely with startups to venture investing, emphasizing the value of investing in founders they believe in. They highlight opportunities in bringing cutting-edge technology to legacy industries and aim to accelerate the startup ecosystem in underserved regions. The challenges of deal evaluation and the need for streamlined processes are discussed, and book recommendations are provided for better communication and enjoyable reading.
Investor Series 
Interview With Dave Sachse
Dave shares their private investing journey, driven by their mission to support startups in non-traditional tech hubs and prioritize customer value in investment decisions.
Investor Series 
Interview With Thomas Klocanas
Experienced in European Tech & Payments, Thomas found their passion for private investing. They prioritize founder-market fit, embrace the digital asset and web3 category, seek impact beyond financial returns, and navigate time management challenges. Their book recommendation is Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour".
Investor Series 
Interview With Eric Perez-Grovas
Entrepreneurial passion, visionary investment opportunities, digital innovations for quality of life, economic returns, talent acquisition challenges, and the book recommendation "High Output Management" by Andy Grove.
Investor Series 
Interview With Alexander Piskunov
Transitioning from high finance to private investing, I prioritize founders with strong selling capabilities and focus on innovative themes like robotics and quantum computing. Outside of work, I explore ancient history to inspire the next generation.
Investor Series 
Interview With Matt Harbaugh
Transitioning from investment banking to private investing, I prioritize teams with industry experience and technical capabilities. I focus on innovation themes like AI and autonomy, aiming to support high-growth startups in my region and provide strategic value.
Investor Series 
Interview With Carey Ransom
Experienced investor driven by visionary founders, positive impact, and time management challenges. Twitter insights, coaching kids' sports, and recommended books: "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" and "Range."
Investor Series 
Interview With Michael Saxon
Trolley Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on providing a better funding solution for early-stage companies in Central Virginia. They aim to have a positive impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem while managing their investments efficiently, with a focus on both innovation and inspiring founders.
Investor Series 
Interview With Lucy Wang
Discover the journey of a private investor, highlighting the importance of technical innovation, unique insights, and addressing real-world challenges. Explore time management struggles and the rewards of following personal convictions.
Investor Series 
Interview With Alejandro Zelaya
Invariantes Fund is the first early-stage VC fund in Guatemala, prioritizing the team in investment opportunities and focusing on innovation themes like cybersecurity and autonomous vehicles for global impact.
Investor Series 
Interview With Jill Royster
Insights from a private investor's journey: emphasizing product-market fit, founders, challenges, strategic partnerships, high valuations, and recommended industry sources. Also highlights non-business interests like travel and family time.
Investor Series 
Interview With Sunny Dhillon
Explore private investing insights, the importance of strong teams, emerging innovation themes, impact goals, investment challenges, lessons learned, preferred industry sources, personal hobbies, and a recommended book in this informative blog post.
Investor Series 
Interview With Ariana Thacker
Investing in ambitious founders and driving impact through ethical investments, the author emphasizes the strength of founders, convergence of consumer and science, and diverse portfolio alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
Investor Series 
Interview With Jai Malik
Learn about the journey of a private investor from an operational background to venture capital. With a focus on innovation in industrial sectors and a mission to impact national security positively, the investor shares valuable insights and challenges faced while managing investments.
Investor Series 
Interview With Paul Nolde
Former banker turned private investor seeks investment opportunities that genuinely excite and interest them. Aiming to foster entrepreneurship in Virginia, they balance fundraising for the fund and diligent opportunity discovery. Enjoys mountain biking and recommends the book "The Shadow in the Wind."
Investor Series 
Interview With Nisa Amoils
Discover Nisa's 10-year journey in private investing, focusing on innovation themes, impact, challenges, and investment lessons. Emphasizing the importance of democratizing the venture and digital asset spaces, the post recommends "Backable" by Suneel Gupta.
Investor Series 
Interview With Kevin Leonard
Join the private investor's journey, emphasizing the value of strong management teams in investment opportunities. Discover emerging innovation themes, challenges in managing investments, and the investor's non-business interests, including a book recommendation: "Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage."
Investor Series 
Interview With Vaughn Blake
Embark on a private investor's journey, driven by an early passion for investing and a focus on asymmetry in investment opportunities. Explore innovation themes like the energy transition and frontier-tech, aiming to improve the world's quality of life, while also facing challenges in portfolio management.
Investor Series 
Interview With Odile Roujol
Ex-CEO Lancôme turned serial angel investor and Fab community founder, focusing on purpose-driven startups in well-being, sustainable fashion, and community building, making a positive impact by guiding and supporting founders.
Investor Series 
Interview With Alejandro Diez Barroso
Learn about the journey of a venture capital investor who saw a need in the market and got into investing to support entrepreneurs in Latin America. Discover the key factors they value in investment opportunities, the impact they hope to make, and the challenges they face in managing their investment activities.
Investor Series 
Interview With Sep Alavi
Experienced VC investor's journey from capital markets to tech, backing great founders. Excitement for blockchain, digital assets, and ESG impact. Challenges: educating investors, managing deal flow. Recommended read: "Life After Google" by George Gilder.
Interested on a unique global private market investor profile?
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