SF Breakfast with Nicolai Thomson

Breakfast this morning with Nicolai Thomson of Jenesys AI. A great guy building a great business which is generating a lot of VC interest.

AI investors - if you haven't met him you should. Sadly, not one of mine.

SF coffee with Francesca Marsden

A pleasure to have coffee in San Francisco today with Francesca Marsden of Sterling Bio Machines.

Despite our matching outfits, we forgot to take a selfie so I set ChatGPT to the task from our profile pictures. Here is the result!

Quantum birthday

In the UK I'm 51, in San Francisco still 50.

I just hiked the Dipsea Trail to celebrate, representing two of my portfolio companies. Can you guess which ones?

Other Teletubby named trails are available.

Birthday candies

Yesterday was the son in my profile picture's tenth birthday. I'm in San Francisco and missed it 😢 .

We did a video call from See's Candies and he chose his selection. Thank you to the kind staff there for putting up with a very slow selection!

My first ever Waymo

My first ever Waymo, courtesy of a fund I met.

I rarely make such a bad impression that they'll pay to get rid of me. Full marks for creativity!

I love tech so much - this is one of the highlights of my San Francisco trip.

AI is disrupting the world

AI will generate an accelerated industrial revolution. I wrote for Channel Islands Business Brief on the subject below.

Thank you Amanda (Mandy) Eulenkamp for the opportunity.

Burritos with Grace

Probably my busiest day in San Francisco so far.

Four funds, coffee with a fellow Brit, an event this evening, and a burrito lunch with the wonderful Grace Gong of Smart Venture Podcast.

Beautiful San Francisco

Six meetings today including three funds, a founder in stealth who just had his YC interview, and lunch at this incredible spot.

San Francisco is beautiful with the sun out.

Now I'm heading to see some standup.

Coffee with Edwin Abl

Six meetings today including coffee with Edwin Abl, go to market expert and all round lovely guy. Hit him up if you need support.

Now I need to remember to eat.

IPO vs Pref stack

One reason the market for acquisitions might be closed if your sale valuation would be lower than your previous valuation is that your choices are:

- Sell privately and the founders get killed by the preference stack, or

- IPO and the pref stack gets wiped out (prefs don't survive IPOs).

Theoretically, you could negotiate somewhere in between but it's hard and some VCs will have told their investors the investment has held its value because of the preference.

Great food and advice

Anyone can “start,” only the thoroughbred will “finish!”

Thank you Sohunan of San Francisco for the great food and advice.

Super random

I bumped into Grant MacLennan who works one desk apart in the same office as Euan Cameron 🚀.

We've never met before. We are staying in the same hotel in San Francisco. He saw the Willo® sticker on my laptop.

Evening update - 25 Apr 24

#TodayI

Met two funds with 9 digits assets under management, one with 10 digits and one with 11.
Was helped out by a friendly staff member when neither of my payment methods worked on the train.
Attended the British Benevolent Society of California, Inc. AGM and reception.

24 hours later

I landed in San Francisco, have been awake approaching twenty-four hours, and just attended a Brex VC-Founder mixer I found via Jonathan Chang's SF IRL newsletter.

Tomorrow is filled with VC meetings in Palo Alto and Sand Hill Road.

Reminder: I'm here primarily to meet VCs who can follow on in my portfolio focused on UK early-stage digital tech startups.

Why go to the States

A reminder of why I'm flying to San Francisco:

- It is hard to achieve the biggest outcomes without selling in the States
- It is helpful to have a US VC on board to do that
- Warm intros help and most European VCs don't have those connections
- I am meeting funds so they know me well enough I can make those intros
- I will learn their requirements so I only send them the right things
- I can feed that back to my portfolio companies so they can present themselves well and make sure they are on the right path if that's the path they choose
- Given the biggest outcomes often require going to the States, I can feed their requirements into my investment criteria

See you on the other side.

Drawing a crowd

Yesterday I was fortunate to have the pleasure to speak at the Rare Founders conference and demo day.

Adam Phillips of SeedLegals hosted the fireside chat and we had great questions from the audience.

Martin Barnes drew these incredible sketches to summarise the conversation.

Tell me in the comments what you think they mean.

Burning time with Weirdo

At the airport, reading Sara Pascoe's Weirdo, and waiting to fly to London to speak at tomorrow's Rare Founders conference and demo day, courtesy of Vasily Alekseenko and SeedLegals.

Please come and say hi!

US vs European venture capital

I fly to San Francisco on Wednesday to meet VCs who can follow on in my portfolio and to understand what they are looking for.

What do you think Europe does better or worse than the US in venture capital?

What do you think the US thinks of European venture capital?

I will report back after the trip.

Alma College: Lessons on Due Diligence

Great to speak at Alma College: Lessons on Due Diligence today alongside the fantastic Rupa Ganatra Popat of Arāya Ventures.

This is one of a series of events run by Alma Angels to help angel investors who want to learn more about investing.

If you are an angel investor interested in supporting female founders, please check out Alma here.

Recording with Advik

This afternoon I'm recording a podcast with 15yo Advik Kapoor.

He first asked me last summer. I agreed more recently. I was nearly too late - I'm about the least impressive person he's had on.

He shared this image in the prep notes. Super helpful to know the target audience. He's impressive.