Final yr marked the twenty fifth anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a yr it was. 2021 noticed phenomenal returns for our trade and it topped off greater than a decade of unprecedented VC progress.
The trade has clearly modified enormously in 2022 however in some ways it seems like a “return to regular” that we’ve got seen many occasions in our trade. Yves Sisteron, Stuart Lander & I (depicted within the photograph under) have labored collectively for greater than 22 years now and that has taken us via many cycles of market enthusiasm & panic. We’ve additionally labored with our Companion, Dana Kibler who can be our CFO for practically 20 years.
We consider this consistency in management and instinct for the place the markets had been going within the heady days of 2019–2021 helped us to remain sane in a world that momentarily appeared to have misplaced its thoughts and since we’ve got new capital to deploy within the years forward maybe I can provide some insights into the place we predict worth shall be derived.
Whereas the headlines in 2020 & 2021 touted many huge fundraising occasions and heady valuations, we believed that for savvy buyers it additionally represented a chance for actual monetary good points.
Since 2021, Upfront returned greater than $600 million to LPs and returned greater than $1 billion since 2018.
Contemplating that lots of our funds are within the $200–300 million vary, these returns had been extra significant than if we had raised billion greenback funds. We stay assured within the long-term pattern that software program allows and the worth accrued to disruptive startups; we additionally acknowledged that in a robust market you will need to ring the money register and this doesn’t come with out a concentrated effort to take action.
Clearly the funding surroundings has modified significantly in 2022 however as early-stage buyers our day by day jobs keep largely unchanged. And whereas over the previous few years we’ve got been laser-focused on money returns, we’re equally planting seeds for our subsequent 10–15 years of returns by actively investing in right this moment’s market.
We’re excited to share the information that we’ve got raised $650 million throughout three automobiles to permit us to proceed making investments for a few years forward.
We’re proud to announce the shut of our seventh early-stage fund with $280 million to spend money on seed and early stage founders.
Alongside Upfront VII we’re additionally now deploying our third growth-stage fund, which has $200 million in commitments and our Continuation Fund of greater than $175 million.
A query I typically hear is “how is Upfront altering given the present market?” The reply is: not a lot. Up to now decade we’ve got remained constant, investing in 12–15 firms per yr on the earliest levels of their formation with a median first examine measurement of roughly $3 million.
If I look again to the start of the present tech growth which began round 2009, we frequently wrote a $3–5 million examine and this was referred to as an “A spherical” and 12 years later in an over-capitalized market this grew to become generally known as a “Seed Spherical” however in fact what we do hasn’t modified a lot in any respect.
And in case you take a look at the above information you possibly can see why Upfront determined to remain targeted on the Seed Market quite than elevate bigger funds and attempt to compete for A/B spherical offers. As cash poured into our trade, it inspired many VCs to write down $20–30 million checks at more and more greater and better valuations the place it’s unlikely that they’d substantively extra proof of firm traction or success.
Some buyers could have succeeded with this technique however at Upfront we determined to remain in our lane. In truth, we revealed our technique a while in the past and introduced we had been transferring to a “barbell technique” of funding on the Seed degree, principally avoiding the A/B rounds after which growing our investments within the earliest phases of know-how progress.
After we become involved in Seed investments we normally characterize 60–80% in one of many first institutional rounds of capital, we virtually all the time take board seats after which we serve these founders over the course of a decade or longer. In our best-performing firms we frequently write follow-on checks totaling as much as $10–15 million out of our early-stage fund.
Starting in 2015 we realized that the most effective firms had been staying personal for longer so we began elevating Progress Autos that would spend money on our portfolio firms as they acquired greater however may additionally spend money on different firms that we had missed on the earliest levels and this meant deploying $40–60 million in a few of our highest-conviction firms.
However why have we determined to run separate funds for Seed and for Early Progress and why didn’t we simply lump all of it into one fund and make investments out of only one car? That was a query I had been requested by LPs in 2015 once we started our Early Progress program.
In brief,
In Enterprise Capital, Measurement Issues
Measurement issues for a couple of causes.
As a place to begin we consider it’s simpler to persistently return multiples of capital once you aren’t deploying billions of {dollars} in a single fund as Fred Wilson has articulated persistently in his posts on “small ball” and small partnerships. Like USV we’re normally investing in our Seed fund when groups are fewer than 10 staff, have concepts which might be “on the market” and the place we plan to be actively engaged for a decade or longer. In truth, I’m nonetheless energetic on two boards the place I first invested in 2009.
The opposite argument I made to LPs on the time was that if we mixed $650 million or extra right into a single fund it could imply that writing a $3–4 million would really feel too small to every particular person investor to be necessary and but that’s the quantity of capital we believed many seed-stage firms wanted. I noticed this at a few of my friends’ corporations the place more and more they had been writing $10+ million checks out of very massive funds and never even taking board seats. I believe by some means the bigger funds desensitized some buyers round examine sizes and incentivized them to seek for locations to deploy $50 million or extra.
Against this, our most up-to-date Early Progress fund is $200 million and we search to write down $10–15 million into rounds which have $25–75 million in capital together with different funding corporations and every dedication actually issues to that fund.
For Upfront, constrained measurement and excessive workforce focus has mattered.
What has shifted for Upfront up to now decade has been our sector focus. Over the previous ten years we’ve got targeted on what we consider shall be crucial tendencies of the subsequent a number of a long time quite than concentrating on what has pushed returns up to now 10 years. We consider that to drive returns in enterprise capital, it’s a must to get three issues right:
It’s good to be proper in regards to the know-how tendencies are going to drive societyYou must be proper in regards to the timing, which is 3–5 years earlier than a pattern (being too early is identical as being mistaken & in case you’re too late you typically overpay and don’t drive returns)It’s good to again the successful workforce
Getting all three right is why it is extremely tough to be glorious at enterprise capital.
What which means to us at Upfront right this moment and transferring ahead with Upfront VII and Progress III is a deeper focus on these classes the place we anticipate probably the most progress, probably the most worth creation, and the most important affect, most particularly:
Healthcare & Utilized BiologyDefense TechnologiesComputer VisionAg Tech & SustainabilityFintechConsumerization of Enterprise SoftwareGaming Infrastructure
None of those classes are new for us, however with this fund we’re doubling down on our areas of enthusiasm and experience.
Enterprise capital is a expertise recreation, which begins with the workforce that’s inside Upfront. The Upfront VII and Progress groups are made up of 10 companions: 6 main funding actions & 4 supporting portfolio firms together with Expertise, Advertising, Finance & Operations.
Most who know Upfront are conscious that we’re based mostly out of Los Angeles the place we deploy ~40% of our capital however as I wish to level out, which means the vast majority of our capital is deployed outdoors of LA! And the primary vacation spot outdoors of LA is San Francisco.
So whereas some buyers have introduced they’re transferring to Austin or Miami we’ve got truly been growing our investments in San Francisco, opening an workplace with 7 funding professionals that we’ve been slowly constructing over the previous few years. It’s led by two companions: Aditi Maliwal on the Seed Funding Group who additionally leads our Fintech follow and Seksom Suriyapa on the Progress Group who joined Upfront in 2021 after most just lately main Corp Dev at Twitter (and earlier than that at Success Components and Akamai).
So whereas our investing platform has grown in each measurement and focus, and whereas the market is transitioning into a brand new and doubtlessly more difficult actuality (a minimum of for a couple of years) — in crucial methods, Upfront stays dedicated to what we’ve all the time targeted on.
We consider in being energetic companions with our portfolio, working alongside founders and govt groups in each good occasions and in more difficult occasions. After we make investments, we decide to being long-term companions to our portfolio and we take that duty severely.
We’ve got sturdy views, take sturdy positions, and function from a spot of sturdy conviction once we make investments. Each founder in our portfolio is there as a result of an Upfront associate had unwavering perception of their potential and did no matter it took to get the deal achieved.
We’re so grateful to the LPs who proceed to belief us with their capital, time and conviction. We really feel blessed to work alongside startup founders who’re actually rising to the problem of the harder funding surroundings. Thanks to all people in the neighborhood who has supported us all these years. We are going to proceed to work exhausting to make you all proud.
Thanks, thanks, thanks.
