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Spike Ventures Community Newsletter — September 2022

Content at the intersection of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and our Stanford community.

Hoover Tower Stanford
Written by

Todd McIntyre

Published on

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2 min

IN THIS ISSUE: Opening Spike Ventures Fund 6, join an introduction to the fund webinar on September 22, the case for venture investing, portfolio news, and more.

Opening Spike Ventures Fund 6!

We invite you to learn more about Spike Ventures during a webinar on September 22, or schedule a 1×1 call with our team for specific questions. You can also visit our secure portal to access all fund materials.

UPCOMING WEBINAR

An Introduction to Spike Ventures

Thursday, September 22, 2:00 PM PT

Join Managing Partner Todd McIntyre and the Spike team for an overview of Spike Ventures. They will review the goal and structure of the fund, the benefits of diversifying into VC, and recent investment activity.

The Case for Investing in Venture Capital in Uncertain Times With Spike Ventures

Many investors find themselves wondering if now is the right time to invest in venture capital. Todd McIntyre (MBA ’94), Managing Partner of Spike Ventures, shares several reasons to consider doing so.

Spike Ventures Portfolio Updates

Shopify recently announced the completion of its acquisition of Deliverr (SV2, SV3) — a tech-enabled, asset-light fulfillment service that allows any online merchant to offer free two-day delivery across any channel. The transaction was valued at approximately $2.1 billion, offering a positive return for Spike investors. Venture assets benefit from being largely uncorrelated to public market performance.1

Lacework (SV1, SV4, SV5) brings automation, speed, and scale to cloud security, enabling security and DevOps teams to keep data and applications in the cloud safe. Multiple Alumni Ventures funds have invested in Lacework, most recently a $1.3 billion Series D raised at an $8.3 billion valuation. We sat down with members of our investment team to learn how AV’s network-powered approach helped us connect with Lacework and access additional investment opportunities at higher valuations.1

See video policy below.

Spike Portfolio Companies in the News

FOR CURRENT INVESTORS

Thinking of becoming an investor? Access Materials »

Visit Your Club Portal

We invite existing investors to visit your Club portal for updates from Managing Partner Todd McIntyre (MBA ’94) and our team, including webinars and events, Syndications, portfolio news, and more. Visit Club Portal »

Seeking Fellows to Join Spike Ventures

Did you know ~40% of our fellows land full-time jobs in VC or entrepreneurship? We are looking for Stanford alumni interested in joining our free Venture Fellow Program, designed for early- to mid-career professionals looking to launch a career in VC. In addition to providing our fellows with hands-on investing experience, we seek to increase opportunities for underrepresented groups in VC, promoting gender, racial, and ethnic diversity in the industry. No VC experience is required. Now accepting applications for our January 2023 cohort through October 16, 2022. For details, eligibility requirements, and a link to our application, please visit our website. For questions or to refer any qualified candidates, please reach out to [email protected].
Learn More »

What’s New at Alumni Ventures

AV Announces More Accessible Investment Minimums

AV is the third most active VC in the world (PitchBook 2021). We’ve raised more than $1B from individual, accredited investors, which has been deployed into 1,000+ unique portfolio companies since our founding. Now, we are setting more accessible minimums to help further democratize this important asset class. Read More »

AV Talent Referrals

Interested in joining a cutting-edge startup or know someone who might be? Our portfolio companies are growing and always looking for high-caliber talent. Check out their open positions on our job board. If you find a match, fill out this short form, and we will try to make a personal referral. Visit Job Board »

 1 For illustration purposes only. These investments are not intended to suggest any level of investment returns; not necessarily indicative of investments invested by any one fund or investor. Many returns in investments result in the loss of capital invested. These investments are not available to future fund investors except potentially in certain follow-on investment options. To see the performance of each exited investment for all Alumni Ventures funds over the last twelve months and our historical performance since 2014, click here. 

Want to learn more?
View all our available funds and secure data rooms, or schedule an intro call.

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Contact [email protected] for additional information. To see additional risk factors and investment considerations, visit av-funds.com/disclosures.

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Video Policy: By consuming this content I acknowledge that I may be considering an investment with AV funds for my own or my client’s account. I agree that information contained herein may not be relied upon or used for any other purpose. Offers to purchase securities are only made through formal offering documents, which describe risks (which are significant), terms, and other important information that must be considered before an investment decision is made. To see Important Disclosure Information, visit: https://av-funds.com/disclosures.

Testimonial/Endorsement Policy: Testimonials/Endorsements were provided by the participants without compensation, but each participant has a relationship with Alumni Ventures (AV) from which they benefit. All views expressed are the individual’s own and do not represent the experience of all AV fund investors or companies in which AV funds invest. Please note that testimonials are no guarantee of future performance or success. Any provider of an endorsement that is affiliated with a portfolio company Alumni Ventures has received investment funding from AV, and may in the future seek and/or receive additional funding from AV. This circumstance constitutes a conflict of interest. Providers of testimonials or endorsements were not chosen at random or according to any objective basis, but rather on the basis of their relationship with AV.

Investor Portal Update Policy: Investor portfolio data is updated once per quarter in the AV Investor Portal.

Alumni Ventures is America’s largest VC firm for individual investors based on the combination of total capital raised, number of investments, and number of investors of leading VC firms as reported by Pitchbook and other publicly available information reviewed by AV.

(1) Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for AV Funds is net of management fees and incentive allocations applied to amounts distributed to investors, and gross of incentive allocations applicable to unrealized gains on investments held by AV Funds. IRR for AV Funds includes uninvested cash, unrealized investments, and amounts distributed to investors. The IRR shown for the Russell 2000 indices are gross of fees because indices are not managed investments, and it is not possible to invest directly in an index. For additional information see av-funds.com/disclosures. All investment involves risk, including risk of loss. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. For more information on AV Funds’ investment returns, please see here.

To see additional risk factors and investment considerations, visit: https://av-funds.com/disclosures

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