20VC: HelloFresh CEO on Why When You Raise VC You Only Have Two Options, Why Your IPO Price is Irrelevant, Why Timing is So Important in Going Public & Why D2C is Not Dead with Dominik Richter
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 12/01/2023
20VC: Brex Acquired for $5.15BN | a16z Companies are 2/3 AI Revenues | Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket | OpenEvidence Raises at $12BN Valuation | The IPO Market: EquipmentShare, Wealthfront and Ethos Insurance
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:36 Brex Acquisition by Capital One for $5.15BN 10:54 Does Brex’s Acquisition Help or Hurt Ramp? 16:28 TikTok Deal Completed: Who Won & Who Lost: Analysis 19:30 Anthropic Inference Costs Higher Than Expected 37:50 Open Evidence Raises at $12BN from Thrive and DST 53:56 Wealthront IPO Disaster: Is $1.5BN IPO Too Small? 01:07:27 Salesforce Wins $5BN Army Contract: The Last Laugh for SaaS
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20VC: From Only OpenAI to Die-Hard Anthropic: The Downfall of OpenAI in Enterprise | Harvey vs Legora: Legal AI is a Winner Take All | $7M ARR in a Single Day and Raising $200M Across 3 Rounds with No Deck with Max Junestrand, CEO @ Legora
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the legal AI company that has scaled to 750 of the world’s leading law firms as customers and over 300 employees in just 2 years. They have raised over $200M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Redpoint and ICONIQ. AGENDA: 04:16 Why Does Everyone Think Harvey When They Hear Legal AI? 07:35 Why OpenAI is Toast? Switching to Anthropic! 11:47 24 Months: Which Foundation Models Will Win? 23:53 Lessons Scaling from Europe into the US 28:53 Do Americans Work As Hard As They Say? 32:20 Why Seat...
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20VC: Raising $400M for 20VC: Fundraising Lessons | Getting Marc Benioff Through 53 Cold Emails: How to Master Cold Outbound | 7 Lessons from 101 Decacorn Founders with Harry Stebbings (Simon Squibb Edition)
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:03:00 – Harry's Wild Start: Making £1.75M at 19 in 36 Hours 00:06:00 – How Harry Got Marc Benioff on 20VC with Cold Emailing Alone 00:07:30 – Raising $70M on WhatsApp – Relationship Building Secrets 00:12:00 – Decision Framework: What Would Pat Grady (Sequoia) Do? 00:15:00 – Chase Your First Million – It Unlocks Everything 00:16:30 – Advice for 19-Year-Olds Today: Niche Down, Interview Leaders, Publish 00:18:00 – University Is a Waste for Most | Leverage Youth & Risk 00:22:30 – How Getting Kicked Out of School Changed Everything 00:30:00 – Why Should...
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20VC: Sam Altman vs Elon Musk: The $100BN Battle | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Market Pricing Today? | ClickHouse and Replit's New Rounds: Analysed
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:30 Can VC Survive With Public Market Prices Today 15:20 The Implosion of Thinking Machines 21:13 Elon Musk vs. OpenAI: The Legal Battle 40:50 Can OpenAI Win Ads? 55:50 ClickHouse’s $15BN Deal: Analysed 58:55 Replit’s $9BN Deal: Analysed 01:08:35 There Are Only Two Types of Deals VCs Want To Do Today
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20VC: How Model Performance is Plateauing | Two Key Rules for Effective Deal-Making | Company Building Lessons from Keith Rabois, Brian Halligan and Pat Grady | Why Enterprise AI Adoption is Years Off with Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Winston Weinberg is the CEO and Co-Founder of Harvey, the leading professional services platform engineered with AI for law, tax, and finance. Winston has raised over $980M for Harvey from Sequoia, a16z, GV, Elad Gil and more with a last round price of $9.2BN post-money. Before founding Harvey in August 2022, Winston was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, specializing in antitrust and securities litigation. AGENDA: 04:10 #1 Thing Every Founder Needs to Do Everyday 05:33 Must Do Daily Routines and Productivity Tips for CEOs 12:45 How to Get Sequoia and a16z Term Sheets 15:06 Why...
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20Product: Is the Design Phase Dead in a World of AI | Has Claude Code Crushed Anthropic Already | What Roles of a PM Are Less and More Important with AI | How the Best Product Leaders Tell Stories with Noam Lovinsky, CPO @ Superhuman
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years, he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of Product Management at Google where he was responsible for all of Youtube’s applications. AGENDA: 03:43 What is Great Product Leadership in a World of AI 07:45 Does the Design Phase Die in a World of Vibe Coding 12:21 How AI Changes Product Development Most 22:23 Accelerating Product Development 29:32 AI's Impact on Product Building 34:19 Predictions for 2026 34:45 Quick...
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20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Fundraise: Have They Beaten Cursor Already | a16z's $15BN Fundraise: Is the Middle Dead in VC Today? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero and ElevenLabs at $11BN: Buy or Not?
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 05:02 Anthropic's $10 Billion Fundraise 07:54 Has Claude Code Beaten Cursor Already 15:54 OpenAI Could Still Go to Zero 26:33 Andreessen Horowitz's $15 Billion Fundraise 45:16 The Middle is Dead: Boutique vs. Large Platforms in Venture 50:01 The Future of Venture Capital 01:08:06 The Impact of Wealth Taxes on the Industry
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20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andressen Horowitz, where he leads their $1.7BN apps fund. Just last week, a16z announced they had raised $15BN for their latest funds, over 20% of all capital raised by venture firms. At a16z, Alex has led deals into Plaid, Mercury and OpenDoor to name a few. AGENDA: 04:55 How to Do 5x on a $15BN Fund Pool? 09:21 What Two Groups of Funds Will Win the Next Decade in VC? 14:39 What Three Things Are the Best Founders Able to Do? 19:22 The Best Companies Have Hostages, Not Customers 31:37 The Two Types of Deals You Want To Do In VC 38:52 The...
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20Growth: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs | Why ElevenLabs Do Not Have PMs | The 7 Part Launch Playbook to Crush All Launches with Luke Harries, Head of Growth @ ElevenLabs
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M with the latest round pricing the company at a $6.6B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna. AGENDA: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs Why Luke Said “No” to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong) How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale The 7-Part...
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20Sales: Why the Best Sales People are F***** in the Head | Why Remote Work is BS | Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruiting Sales Teams | How to Build a Sales Machine | What Everyone Gets Wrong Today in Sales with Chad Peets
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code. AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today 06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time...
info_outlineDominik Richter is the Founder & CEO @ HelloFresh, one of the largest direct-to-consumer businesses of the last decade and the #1 recipe box delivery service. Fun fact, two of the three biggest cooking facilities in North America are HelloFresh facilities with the third being Disney World Orlando. Dominik has made over 40 angel investments in the EU and the US.
In Today's Episode with Dominik Richter We Discuss:
1. The Founding of One of the Largest D2C Companies:
- How did Diminik's dreams of being a footballer translate to founding HelloFresh?
- What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
- Why does Dominik respect the brands that large banks have built?
2. To Raise or Not to Raise:
- Why does Dominik believe when you raise VC, you either have to sell or go public?
- What are the single biggest differences between raising in the US vs Europe?
- What are Dominik's biggest pieces of advice to founders raising today?
- Why does Dominik believe so many of the D2C companies should not have raised venture funding?
3. The IPO: When, How and Why:
- Why did Dominik decide to IPO the business so early?
- Why does Dominik believe that the first-day trading price is irrelevant?
- Why does Dominik believe that timing is so important when going public?
- What are the biggest pros and cons of being public?
4. The Rise and Fall of D2C:
- D2C has been crushed lately, why? Is this the end of D2C as a category?
- Is D2C an investable category for VC? HelloFresh is one of the biggest and $2.5BN market cap?
- What have been the best and worst resource allocations Dominik has made?
- Do recessions help or hurt recipe box businesses?