2. 2
We invest on day 0:00 in exceptional technical teams
building capital-efficient internet companies.
3. 3
2019 Review and looking to 2020
AGM Agenda
• Team Update
• Notation I Review + Value Drivers
• Notation II Review + Case Studies
• NYC Update
• Reviewing 2018 AGM goals
• 2019 Strategy Updates and Looking to 2020
4. 4
A unique set of skills to help founders
succeed
Team Update
Alex Lines
Partner
Katherine Wu
Principal
Nicholas Chirls
Partner
Thomas Bailey
Partner
Expertise: Infrastructure, hard
tech & product. Engineer
experienced in distributed
systems & scalability, building
products and companies in NY
for over 10 years.
Expertise: Product, growth,
and capital raising. Previously
Head of Seed Investing at
betaworks and led product for
several betaworks projects
and previous startups.
Expertise: Financial, data and
network analysis for blockchain
projects. Leads cryptocurrency
and blockchain investing. Angel
investor and has built large-scale
crypto-mining facilities.
Expertise: Business development,
marketing, regulatory and
communications. Legal
background and fmr. operator at
Messari, a NYC seed-stage
blockchain startup.
5. 5
In the top quartile, almost fully invested, with a lot of room
still to grow
Notation I is maturing...
28
Investments
made
$175k
Median initial
investment
4.8%
Median initial
ownership
2.1x
TVPI net
multiple
1.2x
1.5x
1.9x
2.2x
Q1 2015 Q1 2016 Q1 2017 Q1 2018 Q1 2019
Notation I 1st Quartile (Cambridge)TVPI multiple as of Q2 2019
94.9%
Percentage of fund
dollars invested
1st Quartile (Cambridge) illustrates the top quartile TVPI progression for Cambridge's set of US venture funds with 2015 vintages.
13.5%
Company Y % of
total port. value
14.5%
Company X % of
total port. value
12.0%
Company Z % of
total port. value
Notation I TVPI drivers
$Y
Company Y post-
money valuation
$X
Company X post-
money valuation
$Z
Company Z post-
money valuation
6. 6
Lots of potential fund returners and value drivers
Notation I Value Drivers
Notation I potential fund returners Other Notation potential value drivers
Redacted Redacted
7. 7
Timber is developing Vector, a rapidly growing open source
logging project
Timber builds observability infrastructure for managing the
incredible amount of systems data produced by modern web
stacks. The team recently launched Vector, a high-
performance open-source router for logs, metrics, and events.
The project is getting a lot of traction and growing quickly.
$200k
Initial
investment
Firstmark
Lead Series A
investor
A%
Initial
ownership
$B
Latest
valuation
I can honestly say that Timber would not be
here without Nick and Alex (and the Notation
family). They understood the problems we
were trying to solve on a deep level before
any other investors did, and have been in
our corner ever since. They're never pushy
and are always willing to dig in with us on
tough problems when we need it. I would
work with them again in a heartbeat.
Zach Sherman
“
CEO
Timber
Notation I - Case Study
8. 8
Podia is building a next gen platform
for online creators to run their businesses
Podia is everything you need to sell online courses,
downloads, and memberships without worrying about the
tech. On less than $X raised, the company surpassed $Y
ARR, growing Z% MoM, and expects to be profitable in
2020.
$150k
Initial
investment
Steadfast
Lead Seed
investor
C%
Initial
ownership
$D
Latest
valuation
I had no plans to raise venture capital when
first starting Podia. When I met Nick and
Alex, their thinking around venture and
company building immediately resonated
with me. They were the first investors I’d
met where I felt as if they were working with
me from the start, all the way to where we
are today. They’ve always been there to pick
up the phone and help through all of the ups
and downs a startup goes through in the
early years.
Spencer Fry
“
CEO
Podia
Notation I - Case Study
9. 9
Still a baby, but some encouraging signs...
Notation II
Indify
Nemedio
Amperon
StreetCred
15
Core
investments
$410k
Median initial
investment
83.0%
Raised follow-
on financing
9.5%
Median initial
ownership
Core Investments
Unannounced
Texino
Talos*
Unannounced
ChargeLab*
Unannounced
Seasons*
Gen0
Redesign Science*
Bison Trails*
Non-Core Investments
Redacted
Liquid Crypto Investments
Redacted
*2019 Investments
44.8%
Dollars called as
% of the fund
1.5x
Net TVPI
multiple
10. 10
Notation II - Case Study
Indify is disrupting the music financing
business
Indify uses a proprietary data product to find up and coming
musicians earlier than anyone, including the traditional music
labels. In exchange for a percentage of streaming revenue,
Indify funds early artist growth. We led the first pre-seed
round, and have helped them navigate towards growth and
capital.
$400k
Initial
investment
Unannounced
Lead seed
investor
E%
Initial
ownership
$F
Latest seed
valuation
It is safe to say we would not be where we
are without Notation. They believed in us
first, coached us consistently, and helped us
build something users love. There is no
better team to be your first investor.
Keshav Garg
“
CEO
Indify
11. 11
Notation II - Case Study
Bison Trails has built a world-class blockchain
infrastructure business
Bison Trails provides best in class blockchain infrastructure
for proof-of-stake crypto networks, quickly becoming the go-
to provider in the space, and one of the fastest growing
companies we've ever worked with. We co-founded the
company and it's raised over $30M in capital in the past year.
$G
Initial
investment
Blockchain Cap
Lead Series
B investor
H%
Initial
ownership
$I
Latest
valuation
In a short list of VCs who will actually
bust their asses for you, Nick, Alex,
Thomas, and Katherine share spots.
Unreal grit and unrivaled humility on
this team.
Joe Lallouz
“
CEO
Bison Trails
12. 12
Core areas of interest
Spruce uses real-estate data in
novel ways to offer title insurance at
a fraction of the historical cost, and
delivers this through an innovative
new product experience and API.
The product represents a
fundamentally better experience for
customers at lower cost and friction.
Infrastructure
Blockchain & Open Source
ML / CV / AR
Fintech Healthcare
Education
Energy
ProptechBio / Chem
Active industry verticals
Marketplace
Technical founding teams combining data & software to create fundamentally
new customer experiences
How we invest
Sample company highlight
13. 13
The NYC tech opportunity set and talent pool
continues to grow
Where we’re going
$2B
$4B
$6B
$8B
$10B
2010 2013 2016
NYC annual exit outcomes
2014 2019
138
46
NYC startup valuations > $200M
"Since 2015, New York-area pre-
seed investments represents
19.4% of all pre-seed activity
across the U.S., whereas NY
represents only 10.5% of overall
activity across stages."
NYC pre-seed activity
NYC talent growth
Source: Pitchbook
NYC engineering driven companies
NYC
Top market for tech
degree completions
17.2%
Growth in total tech
occupations
48.6%
Growth in tech degree
completions
17.1%
Growth in average wage for
tech occupations
Source: Stack Overflow NYC Eng reportSource: 2019 Primary NYC summitSource: 2019 Primary NYC summit
14. 14
Lots of late-stage capital flowing into NYC, but angel / seed
categories still green field
Where we’re going
NYC VC activity Institutional NYC Tech VCs
Graduated Above $100M+
Institutional NYC Tech VCs That
Lead - Sub $50M
Source: Pitchbook
15. 15
Notation AGM
Our 2019 goals in review
Maintain our focus on technical founding teams in NYC in
our core areas of interest, but dip our toes in other geos
and themes
Bison Trails Co project
Lighten blockchain exposure as % of portfolio
Maintain focus on 3 pre-seed investment types
Actively consider more opportunistic investments
Reviewing our 2019 goals from last year's
AGM
16. 16
2019 in review – The good
stuff
Notation AGM
Our core team is now the foundation for success into 2020 and
beyond. We may add one more technical analyst in 2020
We are more balanced across the portfolio in terms of time spent,
allocations, and core areas of interest
Although still super early, there are some very solid signs of growth and
follow-on financings in Notation II (earlier than we had in Notation I)
We put "network check" investing on hold for now and instead Thomas is
leading the way on a liquid crypto allocation - We've made two small
investments to date here
17. 17
Addressing Challenges and Looking ahead to
2020
Notation AGM
Valuations continue to creep up and it's harder than
ever to find opportunities below $4M pre. We have
a number of options available to us (none of them
necessarily mutually exclusive):
• Bigger initial checks
• More incubation
• Scale people investing
• Go deeper on other Tier 2 geos
Pro-rata continues to be a significant challenge at
Series A and beyond (and sometimes even at seed)
We're making a concerted effort to re-vamp our
dealflow strategy and system for 2020 and beyond,
given some of the recent dynamics in the market:
• VC dealflow tends to be high noise / low signal
• Need to be more systematic about fostering
unique deals within our network and with angels
• Continue to expand F&F fund effort in Notation III
• Consider re-orienting part-time partner program
• More systematic data tracking
* We will have more to report on our progress and
strategy here in the coming quarters