Iterative Venture: The Facebook Value & New Agtech Deal [EarthSense] 🌏
Welcome to everyone who just joined Iterative Venture! 🙌 We have many exciting events and deals coming up soon - please spread the word about us by sharing this newsletter!
As much as we reminisce the fully-stacked micro kitchens and the sunny courtyard at the Classic Campus, a lot of Facebookers share special memories of walking down the hallways filled with bold posters and flyers.
In our first FB Alumni Founders Talk, Krishna mentioned how he brought the spirit of “Nothing at Facebook is somebody else’s problem” as one of the guiding principles in building Fiddler.ai.
In her recent newsletter, Deb Liu also quoted “Don’t Mistake Motion for Progress” as her favorite post back in Facebook, as it reminded her of the importance of aligned execution.
It’s remarkable how so many of us kept pieces of Facebook values with us and continued to reflect and grow with them throughout our journeys.
Q. What was your favorite poster? Please vote here! We are interested to find out which value is the most memorable one that stayed the longest in everyone’s heart. We will publish the result in our next newsletter! 🏆
Iterative Venture Update
[New Deal] EarthSense 🌏 - Robotics & AI Agtech startup with $1.5M+ revenue in Year 1 & Industry-leading serial entrepreneurs & Proven exit strategies.
EarthSense develops autonomous ground rover & AI solution that delivers 90% cost reduction, 30% faster time-to-market, and 100x more quantitative data to agro-chemical and seed companies ($2.5B/ year market)
Iterative Venture secured a $200K allocation in this heavily oversubscribed $2M Seed round for bringing technical expertise in computer vision, AI, and edge computing technologies. See the full memo: here.
Take advantage of this opportunity to invest with us: LINK
Strong momentum is building in the agtech space as it’s at the heart of the global sustainability push and combating climate change. See the report.
Kargoo deal is closed! 🎉 The Kargoo team is getting ready for some exciting updates in an upcoming press release. Stay tuned!
Please find the Q&A sessions for the upcoming deals in the event section below. We’d love to collect feedback from the Q&As before moving forward with syndication.
Upcoming Events 📆
FB Alumni Founders Talk with Franklyn Chien, Founder & CEO of PrizePool @ 12:30 PM PST on Fri, 8/13 - RSVP
PrizePool is a Fintech startup that offers prize-linked savings account that makes saving money fun and exciting through gamification. Its mission is to incentivize Americans to save more and build a better financial foundation.
Recently closed $10 million Series A round, led by M13 and seed investors including Accomplice, Bling Capital, World Innovation Lab.
Before founding PrizePool, Frank cofounded LearnSprout, an EdTech data analytics company, which was acquired by Apple in 2015.
Recent Media Coverage:
Forget Interest. Startup PrizePool Hopes to Bring in Savers With Cash Prizes on Wall Street Journal
Prize-Linked Savings Startup PrizePool Announces $10M in Series A Funding on FinTech Futures.
Venture Capital Due Diligence Best Practice with Wayne Hu, Partner at SignalFire @ 1 PM PST on Fri, 8/20 - RSVP
We initially invited Wayne for a private, small-group session last week (link to the recording). However, the depth and the richness of the discussion were too good to be kept in our back pocket, so we formally invited him for a fireside chat to discuss everything about due diligence!
Founders - please check out Wayne’s new YouTube channel covering fundraising 101, pitch strategy, and many more helpful contents!
[Deal Q&A] Officely with Founder & CEO, Max Shepherd-Cross @ 4 PM PST on Wed, 8/12 - RSVP (deck will be distributed via email upon RSVP)
Platform to manage a hybrid workplace through AI-based desk booking and workforce/ events management
Hockey stick growth: 90% M-o-M growth in MRR; 35% M-o-M growth in MAUs and paid business accounts; 59K users on the waitlist
Instantly profitable: $10K LTV: $350 CAC ratio
Team: Founders have worked together for 5 years previously founding a hotel technology startup (HotelFlex (YC S17)) which formed key learnings for desk bookings
Raising $1M on SAFE with $10M cap. Existing investors include Y Combinator, ASDF Ventures, CalmStorm Ventures, SCM Advisors, Hashtag Blessed, and various other angles.
Market View and Interesting Reads 🔍
This week, we recommend reading the Q3 2021:U.S Venture Capital: Momentum Out of Uncertainty by PitchBook.
With the historically low yields, investors make more bets in riskier assets like VC investment. See the interesting historical trends in the chart below.
As of 2021 YTD, 33.8% of the capital was invested in Software vs. 22.5% in 2006.
The share of non-traditional investor capital has nearly doubled since 2015.
Compared to 2016, early- and late-stage dealmaking conditions have become 2.5x and 2.0x more startup-friendly, respectively.
Other interesting contents:
Our favorite read: Deb Liu’s recent article on “From Vision to Execution” embodies the Facebook way of building product, company, and career!
Statsig: Former Facebook teammates raise $10.4M in Sequoia-led round to launch features development on TechCrunch
Facebook open-sources robotics development platform Droidlet on VentureBeat
AI-generated Art Scene by ML @ Berkeley lab
Power-Law Returns in Venture Capital on AngelList Venture
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 💪