In the past two decades, the venture capital industry has exploded beyond the wildest imaginations.
What started as a sleepy industry in Boston and Menlo Park has now spread to dozens of cities around the world. The National Venture Capital Association estimates that venture capital firms have deployed more than $ 130 billion in 2018 and 2019, and thousands of new investors have joined the ranks in recent years to find the next big startups.
All this activity poses a dilemma for the founders: who actively writes the checks? Who is the leader in a specific or vertical market? Who is convinced to make revolutionary investments? Who, in the end, do you want to have by your side for the next decade as your startup grows?
There are lists that classify VCs by their output feedback. There are lists that classify young VCs according to their future potential. There are lists of VCs who claim investments in various sectors. There are lists that try to find out volume, impact and other quantitative measures. There are internal lists of accelerators that share the collective wisdom among the founders.
Who actively writes checks? Who is the leader in a specific or vertical market? Who is convinced to make revolutionary investments? Who, in the end, do you want to have by your side for the next decade as your startup grows?
All of these lists and rankings have an important function to fulfill, but for all of the investor compilations, we couldn't find a single one who answered a simple but vital question publicly: who are the venture capitalists who are leaders in specific verticals who should be a founder's first stop during a fundraiser?
Today's venture capital industry is made up of thousands of investors from different specialties and far too many passive investors who are willing to participate in rounds but do not actively participate in transactions unless other investors are not committed. Many do not actively push for business or lead the charge of forming a syndicate of investors.
With all of this in mind, we are excited to launch a new initiative which we hope will help answer these questions and help the founders find that first check - ClearTipsNews list.
Over the next few weeks, we will be collecting data around which individual investors are genuinely willing to write the proverbial "first check" in a startup's fundraising cycle and to catalyze deals for the founders - seed, Series A or otherwise (i.e., among your Series A investors, the first person who was willing to write the check and throw the ball with other investors) Once that we have collected, cleaned and analyzed the data, we will publish the lists of the most recommended "first control" investors in different vertical sectors, stages of investment and geographical areas so that the founders can see which investors are potentially the best suited to their business.
The founders used to be specialized; after all, they have to live and breathe their startups every day. So it can be shocking to start talking to generalist investors who have little knowledge of a category and ask superficial questions only to make a judgment with irrelevant advice. One of the biggest impulses for us to put together The ClearTipsNews List is that, like the founders, we also have a hard time cutting the noise around the interests of individual VCs.
We would say it is almost impossible. There is more technology spending than ever before. Vertical markets are becoming more and more competitive - the market cards that previously had ten to fifty companies have grown to hundreds. The only way to compete today is to specialize, and this has never been more true for VCs.
In total, The ClearTipsNews List will publish the most highly recommended drafting editors in 22 different categories, ranging from D2C and e-commerce brands to space and everything in between. Through an analysis of the data on total investments in each space, we believe that our 22 categories should cover all or most of the venture capital activity today.
To succeed in this project and create a useful resource for the founders, we need your help. We want to hear from business creators and we want to hear them directly.
To make this project a success and create a useful resource for the founders, we need your help. We want to hear from business creators and we want to hear them directly. We will collect endorsements submitted by the founders through the form linked here.
Through the form, the founders will be invited to submit their name, their startup, the stage of the company, the name of the only "first check" investor they wish to approve, and some minor logistical elements. We are asking the founders here for their formal approval. We ask you to limit your recommendations to one (1) person per fundraiser.
While many investors may have helped you on your journey, we are particularly interested in the person who helped you the most to start and end a tour. The one who catalyzed your turn. Whoever guided you through the fundraising process. The only investor that you would ultimately recommend to other founders who are trying to find their venture capital champion.
Our main goal is to help founders, dreamers and business creators find investors who will invest in them today, and with your help we believe we can. The ClearTipsNews list is not intended to identify all the possible investors under the sun who could make an investment in a space or simply the big famous VCs whose reputation can sometimes seem more related to their number of followers on Twitter as opposed to to their bold term sheets.
Our hope is that this can be an indispensable resource for founders looking to raise funds in the future and with that in mind, we are very determined to improve the glaring gaps in representation in the venture capital industry. . It's no secret that the VC world always looks like a list of country club members, dominated by white men with strong opinions and strong voices. Looking at the data, it is clear that there are groups that are particularly under-represented, with only a small part of the industry made up of Black, Latinx and women investors, for example.
We want to amplify these voices and we want to hear in particular the founders of color, the founders and other under-represented groups. We also want to ensure that our recommended investor lists are sufficiently representative and highlight under-represented investors who may not have had equal opportunities in the past.
We want to help builders get through the political and fundraising troubles of BS whose founders complain on a daily basis, and help them identify qualified prospects who are genuinely active, engaged, specialized and who are best placed to help founders to raise funds and grow now.
Thank you for your support and we are delighted to build ClearTipsNews list with you - and for you.
