Venture Capital Funding

Two years ago, I stepped into something completely new—building a life insurance business from 0 to 1. Before this, I had spent years in leadership roles, navigating the structured world of actuarial science, finance, and strategy. But at Acko Life, the rules were different. Unlike traditional setups where processes, playbooks, and legacy systems guide decisions, here we were faced with a blank slate—no product, no processes, no precedent. Besides, building insurance systems for policy administration, reinsurance, operations management, accounting and claims from scratch is not for the faint-hearted. I had to unlearn some things, learn many new ones and embrace a mindset where speed, adaptability and first principles thinking mattered more than past experience. This is where I had extensive help from Varun Dua, ACKO Founder. Here is what I realised: ✅ Decisions > Perfection: The need to move fast means there’s no room for analysis paralysis. Early on, we learned that making decisions, even with limited data, is better than waiting for the “perfect” answer. ✅ Iterate Relentlessly: What looks great on a whiteboard often fails in the real world. The best way to build? Launch → Learn → Adapt → Repeat. ✅ Consumer Obsession is Non-Negotiable: In a market where life insurance has remained largely unchanged for decades, we focused on understanding what consumers really want, not just what has always been done. The 5 Whys approach came in handy—digging deep to understand the real pain points instead of just treating symptoms. ✅ Conviction Matters: When you're creating something new, skepticism is inevitable. But belief in the problem you're solving and the impact you can create is what keeps you moving forward. ✅ No Job Descriptions in 0→1: At ACKO Life, I’ve been an actuary, strategic  planner, accountant, risk manager, salesperson, and customer advocate—all at once. In an early-stage build, you do whatever it takes to move things forward. ✅ Great Ideas Come from Everywhere: Not just from leadership or industry veterans, but from engineers, designers, customer service teams, and even casual conversations. The best solutions often come from unexpected places. ✅ The Small Wins Matter: In 0→1, you don’t always have big milestones to celebrate. The real sense of achievement comes from solving that one small problem—a friction point in the customer journey or an operational bottleneck—that earlier didn’t even appear to be a problem. The last two years have been challenging yet incredibly rewarding. 0→1 isn’t just about launching a product—it’s about creating momentum from Zero. As ACKO continues to challenge the status quo in insurance, I’m excited about what’s next. If you’ve been part of a 0→1 journey, I’d love to hear your experiences—what lessons stood out for you? #Leadership #StartupLife #Learning 

Sun Burned Solar panel specialty finance companies are getting burned. Sunnova & Mosaic filed for bankruptcy in the past few days, while SunPower filed/liquidated last year, and Sunrun remains a going concern despite its cash burn. The problem with solar is not on the manufacturing side, it’s with the specialty finance solar companies. Sunnova filed for bankruptcy holding $13.5 million in cash vs. $8.9 billion in debt and will likely move to liquidate as it is difficult for highly leveraged finance companies to restructure—ouch! Solar panel ABS bondholders are also getting burned: - Senior bonds down 10-20 points (no impairment expected) - BBB-rated bonds down 30-40 points (50% impairment probability, case-by-case basis) - BB-rated bonds down 60-80 points (impairment likely) Specialty Finance got into trouble due to these 8 key reasons: 1. Overleverage 2. High cost structure 3. Tariffs for import of the panels (largest solar manufacturers are Chinese) 4. Killing the tax credit for homeowner who purchases the panels (under reconciliation) 5. Homeowners who are unable to re-sell solar power to their local utility in certain key states 6. Rising default rates (despite homeowners with high FICO scores) 7. Financing costs for solar panels has soared in the higher-for-longer environment 8. Yields rose more than the loan rate as the market deteriorated, resulting in losses for the specialty finance company Key points: 1. Like auto’s sometimes it’s not the OEM, it’s the specialty finance crowd that gets itself into trouble 2. ABL managers who financed these specialty finance solar companies will likely incur meaningful loss 3. Select opportunity to purchase distressed/discounted solar ABS 4. This should not be a surprise; the fire alarm has been going off for the past 12 months

Venture Capital is changing. The old VC model - spray and pray, wait a decade, hope for a unicorn - is being replaced. The new playbook is about owning, operating, and transforming companies with AI and capital. Less passive capital, more active control. VCs are starting to look more like PE firms, just faster, tech-enabled, and more product-native. Lightspeed just registered as an RIA, and that’s not a technical detail. It’s a strategic unlock. Now they can invest in public markets, do buyouts, roll-ups, secondaries — basically act like Blackstone in a hoodie. And they’re not alone. The shift is real: 🔹 a16z – RIA since 2019 → helped take Twitter private → built a Crypto empire → Governance-heavy plays 🔹 Sequoia – changed into an Evergreen fund, not a classic VC fund model 🔹 General Catalyst – Bought a hospital system (!), building AI-native startups and dropped the VC label entirely 🔹 Thrive – launched a $1B vehicle to build + buy AI-first companies This isn’t just a trend. It’s a category shift and a fundamental rewiring of what it means to be an investor in tech. #vc #venturecapital #investment #investor #startups #PE

My friend raised $100 million from well-known VCs and is shutting the company down in the next couple of weeks. I met with him to learn what went wrong. He asked me to share his recent startup experience with my LinkedIn community, hoping it could benefit other founders. His biggest regret on his nearly 7-year journey was accepting a significantly overvalued Series A round. He raised a large financing round at a massive valuation from well-known VCs, which generated significant media buzz. This was the kind of moment many founders post about and celebrate. He had many term sheets and took the one with the largest valuation. Turns out, that inflated valuation from his round created immense pressure and set expectations so high that securing crucial follow-on funding became impossible. Then a few product delays hit. A key hire fell through. Normal startup turbulence. Follow-on funding dried up. Morale dropped. The story shifted. He also had many early VCs on his cap table that were chasing markups. Their playbook was simple: inject capital, hype the company, and flip it to the next investor at a higher valuation. The lesson? Valuation is not validation. It’s a bet. And if it’s misaligned with reality, it can sink even the most promising company. A more grounded valuation is the key to sustainable growth and navigating the long, unpredictable startup journey. Raise what you need. From people you trust. Build a good foundation to get through any ups and downs. #founder #funding #investing #vc #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup

The Army Just Launched FUZE. A $750M Annual VC Fund for Defense Startups. Secretary Dan Driscoll unveiled the Army's new venture capital model at the Demand Signal Forum in Arlington. Former private equity exec turned Army Secretary just flipped the acquisition playbook. FUZE channels $750M annually into nontraditional contractors. The man behind it? Driscoll ran a $200M VC fund before taking office. Iraq veteran with 10th Mountain Division. Yale Law grad. Sworn in by VP Vance in February. He calls traditional acquisition a "calcified bureaucracy" and he's not wrong. How it works. • Scout external tech, not internal solutions • Live pitch events starting October at AUSA • Other Transactional Authorities for rapid contracts • "Colorless money" flexible funding across programs First targets. • Counter-drone systems (interceptors, jammers) • Electronic warfare for spectrum dominance • Energy resilience (batteries for -40°F operations) • AI-driven autonomy and command systems Two prizes already announced. • $500K for emerging tech (October 2025) • $2.5M for counterstrike capabilities with U.S. Army Europe The shift is stark. Traditional acquisition takes 10+ years. FUZE promises prototypes to programs of record in months. Army labs and 75th Innovation Command vet the tech. Winners scale to production. Critics worry about over-focusing on tech while recruiting struggles. But Ukraine proved agile beats legacy. When commercial drones outpace billion-dollar programs, the model needs disruption. Three ways in. • SBIR/STTR grants for early stage • xTech challenges for specific problems • Direct pitches at AUSA mid-October Startups like Anduril benefit. Legacy primes lose their moat. The Army's telling innovators "we're open for business." Is your tech ready for a VC-style pitch to the Pentagon?

One of the advantages of long exposure to corporate venture capital is learning to distinguish short-term noise from structural change. GCV's new report, "World of Corporate Venturing 2026: Corporate venture capital booms, defying sluggish VC market," captures one of those shifts clearly: CVC is becoming a dependable pillar of the innovation ecosystem. While parts of the venture landscape have been forced to pause, recalibrate, or retrench, many corporate venture teams have continued to engage. That continuity matters. It reflects longer horizons, more durable mandates, and an increasing recognition that participation in innovation ecosystems comes with responsibility. For founders building companies where progress is measured in years, not quarters, this reliability is foundational. Capital is necessary, but conviction over time is what enables real systems to be built. When CVC is designed well, it can offer both staying power and access to operating capabilities that materially accelerate learning, validation, and scale. What gives me optimism is not that CVC has “arrived,” but that it is improving. We are seeing higher standards around discipline, clearer mandates, and a more thoughtful approach to value creation. The next inflection point is breadth of excellence—expanding the number of CVCs that operate with rigor, patience, and genuine partnership with founders. This survey serves as a reference point and a way to understand where we are, where we are falling short, and where collective effort can improve outcomes for entrepreneurs globally. As Chair of the GCV Leadership Society, I see this work as an ongoing commitment to better data, clearer benchmarks, and a stronger shared understanding of what good corporate venture capital actually looks like in practice. Thank you to everyone who contributed. Progress at this scale only happens when an ecosystem is willing to look at itself honestly and act accordingly. 📊 The full survey results can be found here: https://lnkd.in/eKifYNkt

I have worked in VC for 10 yrs learning how to select, manage and successfully exit early stage technology companies. Here is a list of VC specific accounting & legal terms that investors expect tech founders to know/measure in their businesses 1. Burn Rate: The rate at which a startup is spending its capital, typically on operating expenses, before it becomes profitable. 2. Runway: The estimated amount of time a startup can operate before running out of funds based on its current burn rate and available capital. 3. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): The cost a startup incurs to acquire a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses. 4. CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value): The estimated total revenue a startup expects to generate from a customer throughout their relationship with the company. 5. Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using a product or service within a specified period, often measured monthly or annually. 6. LTV/CAC Ratio: The ratio of Customer Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost, used to assess the efficiency and sustainability of customer acquisition efforts. 7. MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue): The total revenue generated from subscription-based products or services on a monthly basis. 8. ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue): The total revenue generated from subscription-based products or services on an annual basis. 9. CAC Payback Period: The time it takes for a startup to recoup the cost of acquiring a customer through the customer's subscription or purchases. 10. Gross Margin: The percentage of revenue remaining after subtracting the cost of goods sold (COGS), indicating a startup's profitability. 11. Run Rate: An extrapolation of a startup's current financial performance to estimate its annual performance. 12. GMV (Gross Merchandise Value): The total value of goods or services sold on a platform or marketplace, excluding fees and discounts. 13. Liquidity Event: An event, such as an acquisition or IPO, that provides investors with the opportunity to realize a return on their investment. 14. Dilution: The reduction in ownership percentage of existing investors or founders when new equity is issued, such as in subsequent funding rounds. 15. Liquidation Preference: A clause in a VC investment agreement that specifies the order in which investors receive proceeds in the event of a liquidation or exit.

A new global arms race is underway — and it’s getting costly. The demand for weapons in the Russia-Ukraine war is claiming a lot of the world’s capacity, even as the U.S. pulls back. The commitment by many Western countries, including Canada, to big increases in their defence budgets will only add to that demand. By one estimate, there could soon be another $1.9 trillion budgeted in the coming years for defence spending — and that’s just in the West. Where will all that money come from? And who will produce all the equipment, technology and weapons it will go shopping for? To bridge the gap, a lot of companies and public sector enterprises will need a new generation of capital to scale their innovation labs and production lines, and tackle new markets. It’s about much more than procurement and order books. The new defence and security sector will need new forms of capital, from venture to long-term equity. I’m in London and met today with a group of bankers, defence leaders and government officials to discuss a novel approach called the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, a British-inspired idea that would pool capital from member countries. Those countries could then each borrow from the bank to finance expanded defence budgets, especially if their own borrowing costs in the open market are going up. Another novelty: This new form of multilateral bank could support guarantees for banks to lend to defence and security companies, making them much less risky. Here’s one of the challenges: The defence sector is made up of large multinational companies, which have a straight line to capital, and a vast array of smaller suppliers that don’t. Those small and medium sized enterprises, including a lot of Canadians, could soon see a massive increase in orders that they may not be ready for. That’s why many will need new equity investors or venture backers, depending on their size, to quickly expand. It’s not just defence firms. Lots of dual use security companies will be in the mix, too. Think of cyber, sonar and space, even health. An added challenge: many financial institutions, including government agencies, have shied away from defence companies, especially if they make lethal weapons. A new playbook may be needed, including definitions for security and defence. Eighty years ago this fall, the United Nations was created to help protect the world against major wars, largely through the rule of law, global standards and investments ion peacekeeping and human development. Now the focus is on deterrence. Starting in the 1940s, the UN approach used multilateral finance — think of the World Bank — to keep the world together. Can a similar approach to defence and security work? If it does, it may need to serve its own “dual purpose” — buzzwords of the season — to both deter conflict through strength while promoting peace through prosperity. RBC Thought Leadership

ASPIRING VCs: When I hire a junior investor, I want them to already know what I call the "Big 13." 1. Term Sheets 2. SAFEs + Convertible Notes 3. Cap Tables / Returns Waterfalls (MOIC, IRR) 4. Startup Metrics (Growth, Efficiency) 5. Unit Economics 6. Cohort Analysis 7. Valuation (Public Comps, Precedent Txs, DCF) 8. Investment Memos 9. Excel + PPT 10. Venture Debt 11. Fund Performance Metrics (DPI, TVPI, RVPI) 12. How Exits Work (M&A, IPOs, Secondaries) 13. The LP Universe (HNWI, S/MFO, E&F, DBPP, SWF) If you can CREDIBLY DEMONSTRATE your knowledge of the Big 13 before/during an interview process, the risk of hiring you in the eyes of the senior VC goes down considerably. The senior VC will feel comfortable dropping you into fast-moving deal diligence processes knowing you can complete the following types of requests*: "Draft a term sheet to invest $2m at an $8m valuation. Refresh the option pool to 15% and convert all outstanding securities before our investment." "Calculate the gross-margin adjusted, fully-loaded CAC Payback Period and LTV:CAC ratio. Use the annualized churn rate to estimate the customer lifetime." "Run a cohort analysis on both NDR and DAUs. See if the retention curve is flattening and engagement rates follow a smiling curve." "Pull data from our fund admin to create a performance report for our LP newsletter. Show current and forecasted DPI, TVPI, and RVPI. Ensure you can drill down into each portfolio company to support the forecast." *These are all tasks I've been asked to complete as a junior VC.

Venture capital’s growth story is real - but so is its concentration. The result? 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫. Since 1995, the venture asset class has matured from a niche corner of private markets into an institutionalized segment of global capital. But when you zoom out, the real story isn’t how much money has flowed into venture - 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨. I mapped every closed North American venture capital fund from 1995 to 2024, segmented by fund size. The top chart shows total fundraising; the bottom shows the composition of that capital - what % came from small (< $250M) versus large (+1B) mega-funds. The results show a massive structural reallocation: in 1995, 𝟔𝟓% of all VC capital came from sub-$250M funds; today it’s just 𝟏𝟑%. Meanwhile, funds over $1B now account for 𝟔𝟒% - by far the highest share on record. 🔍 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 1️⃣ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥. Headline fundraising numbers obscure the fact that much of today’s “available” capital is concentrated in a small number of multi-stage funds. That capital behaves differently - price matters less, speed matters more, and experimentation takes a back seat to scale. 2️⃣ 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬. The math breaks when funds get too big - returns compress, ownership falls, and even outliers at times struggle to move the needle at the fund level. Yet the pressure to deploy only grows. For GPs, fund size is your strategy - staying disciplined on scale often preserves flexibility, alignment, and return potential. 3️⃣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠. The $250 - 999M fund sits in an increasingly tight spot - too small to match the scale and pricing power of multi-stage platforms, yet too large to lean fully into early-stage risk. It’s a segment being structurally squeezed from both directions. 4️⃣ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐫. With so few firms now controlling so much capital, venture risks becoming increasingly consensus-driven - large funds chasing the same companies, at the same stages, with the same theses. Capital scale brings efficiency, but it also erodes differentiation. Venture’s growth story has always been told through capital raised. But the composition of that capital is the real signal. The next decade will test whether scale delivers better outcomes - or whether the industry’s edge was always in its smaller, scrappier beginnings. 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐞 🤓