Your Window Into the Innovation Economy

Like many of our peers in the venture community, we believe we’re entering into a new part of the venture cycle. We’ve already seen a dramatic reset of public market valuations — with impacts also affecting the private markets.

Nearly all of our belongings hold value, from homes to vehicles, furniture to collectibles, etc. Factors like age, wear and tear, upgrades, and demand can impact the valuation of these objects, and their physical traits are helpful in determining their worth. On the other hand, it’s much more complex to put a price on the value of an intangible asset, such as the current and potential worth of a young, fast-growing startup.

One of Alumni Ventures’ most crucial assets is our broad network of venture capital partners. We are strictly a co-investor, following other established lead investors into rounds. That means we don’t negotiate terms or take Board seats, giving us more time to source promising opportunities. It also affords us the latitude to build diverse portfolios while investing alongside VCs with significant domain experience.

According to a PitchBook report, global investors closed as many climate-focused funds in 2021 as were raised during the previous five years combined. Alumni Ventures Managing Partner Matt Caspari and Partner Erik Hammer spoke with Venture Capital Journal to discuss the influx of capital VCs are deploying into ClimateTech. They shared their thoughts on the profitability of climate-focused startups, consumer demand for sustainability, and the lessons investors and entrepreneurs alike have learned from companies like Tesla.

Low-code development platforms are an increasingly popular option for web and mobile app developers. According to Forbes, some of the many benefits of this tech include lower cost and maintenance burden, increased productivity across teams, quicker innovation and development, and rapid prototyping. Low-code development also makes it easier for entrepreneurs to test new ideas, products, and services. As a result, the value of the global low-code development platforms market is expected to reach $94.8 billion globally by 2028.

Third-party vendors (suppliers, partners, customers, etc.) are crucial to a company’s growth and success. Yet, onboarding these vendors is among the most time-consuming, opaque, and manual processes within an enterprise. Companies face a wide spectrum of risks across several domains (legal, privacy, procurement, compliance, etc.) and need to coordinate with multiple stakeholder groups to ensure that they’re sufficiently mitigating each one. Growing data security concerns, privacy regulations, evolving sanctions, and a heightened emphasis on ESG only add further complexity and burden to the overall process. As a result of these bottlenecks, onboarding new vendors can take mid to large enterprises over 90 days.

While radar has historically been associated with aviation, the technology has been utilized by automotive manufacturers since the late ‘90s in a number of safety features. Radar sensors are used for convenience features, such as adaptive cruise control; and in critical safety systems, including collision avoidance and emergency braking systems. Beyond these applications in conventional passenger vehicles, radar development has grown dramatically with the advent of commercially available autonomous vehicles and autopilot-like systems.

There are a number of smart reasons to consider adding venture capital (VC) to your investment mix. VC can play an important role in a sophisticated wealth-building strategy, yet it’s still missing from the majority of investors’ portfolios. If you’re one of the 10+ million accredited investors in the U.S., it is easier than ever to start investing in high-growth startups. In our conversations with potential investors, we’ve found that many misperceptions persist about VC investing. Here we’ll share with you the top three, with the goal of busting these myths once and for all.

Alumni Ventures’ Blockchain Fund offers a portfolio of high-potential, venture-backed companies innovating in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3, and other blockchain-related products. In this video, Managing Partner Ray Wu shares his background and discusses how the team sources and evaluates blockchain opportunities.1

Alumni Ventures’ spring Blockchain Fund will offer a portfolio of high-potential, venture-backed companies innovating in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and other blockchain-related products. The spring fund is actively managed by three experienced investment professionals, Managing Partner Ed Tsai, Principal Yiwen Li, and Analyst Drew Wandzilak. In this video, Managing Partner Ed Tsai introduces himself and discusses how the team sources and evaluates blockchain opportunities.1