Iterative Venture: Founders Friday Talks + New Deal 📡

"Before we can stand out, we must first get clear on what we stand for." - Simon Sinek

Welcome to everyone who just joined Iterative Venture! 🙌 We have so many exciting events and deals coming up this month - please spread the word about us by sharing this newsletter!

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Hello Iterative Community,

It’s already a cliche by now to talk about how the pandemic fundamentally challenged the way we had lived our lives.

Some of us have experienced complete isolation from families, friends, and the communities we identified ourselves with, while others rediscovered their relationships with their surroundings as all noises from the outside world became ever more distant.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve connected with several of you individually to understand what brought you to Iterative Venture and what we can bring more. While everyone responded with different stories, we realized there is one thing in common that we all are doing more nowadays: Searching for our WHY.

“Discovering your WHY is like panning for gold in the river of the past”

The gold is there, lost in the debris of the river, hidden by rushing water. Only when you take the time to pan for the significant moments of the past, retrieving them nugget by nugget, will they turn into treasure.” - Simon Sinek, Find Your Why

On every Friday of this month, a group of Facebook alumni founders is getting together to talk about their “whys”: why they took a leap of faith to pursue the entrepreneurial journey, what they had to (un)learn certain things as new entrepreneurs, how they iterated, and why they continue to keep going.

We look forward to having you in the conversation and share your whys -the purpose, reason, and belief that drive us. Please RSVP for the events below!

Iterative Venture Update

• Kargoo deal is live! 🎉 We are excited to co-syndicate the deal with Flight VC & Gaingels. You can access the deal on AL via the link.

  • A delivery connection platform that connects shoppers with verified travelers to deliver products by renting the traveler’s unused luggage space

  • Backed by Lightspeed Scout Fund, Sixers Innovation Lab (by Seth Berger, Founder & CEO of AND1), and Yellow (Snap Inc’s Accelerator)

  • Since the launch in Nov 2020, the platform has already reached 8K+ orders, 16K+ users, and $3M+ product requests to date.

  • Targeting $2B SOM and 650M middle income households in LATAM with limited access to U.S. products (e.g., iPhone, PlayStation, Health Supplements)

  • Raising $1M in the $6M SAFE Seed round

    

    Click the image to view the deck

• Upstock.io deal is fully subscribed and now closing! We will provide an update to the investors shortly.

Upcoming Events 📆

• Crypto Panel Discussion: Bitcoin Bullish vs. Bearish @ 12 PM PST on Fri, 7/16 - RSVP

  

  • Topics: Crypto ecosystem, Technology behind crypto, Crypto and Macroeconomics, Defi/ NFTs/ Asset tokenization

  • Panelists: Dave Goldblatt, Leila Khazaneh, Fredric Moezinia, and Mike Jarmuz (moderator)

• How I Got Started: FB alumni founders talk @ 4 PM PST on Fri, 7/16 - RSVP

  

  • Topics: How they turn their ideas into startups, (un)learn things as new entrepreneurs, find first customers, secure first investment, and all the highs and lows in their journey

  • Panelists: Ruben Schultz, Erez Druk, Elliott Clark, Jacob Schonberger (moderator) and more!

• ML/ AI Founders & Experts Roundtable with SignalFire @ 12 PM PST on Fri, 7/23 - RSVP

  • Topics: a group of alumni founders and experts in the ML/ AI space to network and discuss the latest industry trends and opportunities

  • The event is open to the public but will be led by a panel of experts. Please reach out if you’d like to participate as a panelist.

  • Partnered with SignalFire - Ilya Kirnos (Founding Partner & CTO), Adam Vogel (Partner, Data Science), Oana Olteanu (Principal, Venture)

• FB Alumni Founders Talk with Krishna Gade, Founder & CEO of Fiddler AI @ 12 PM PST on Fri, 7/30 - RSVP

  

  • Fiddler AI is an explainable AI platform that helps companies and enterprises build AI solutions.

  • Recently closed $32M Series B round, led by Insight Partners, and backed by existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lux Capital, Haystack Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Lockheed Martin, and The Alexa Fund.

  • Recent Articles:

    • Why investors are backing this former Facebook manager’s ‘explainable A.I.’ startup on Fortune

    • Forbes AI 50 Companies To Watch in 2021 on Forbes

Let us know how we did!💡

As we continue to grow and scale, we’d love to hear from you about how we can be better and what you’d like to see more of. Want to get involved with the Iterative community? We’d love to have your help supporting the community. Please use the link below to give feedback & share your interest in joining our efforts.

Keep iterating 💪