The Flowlie Times #21
Basics of liquidation preferences, an article on market annealing, "A Quantitative Approach to Product Market Fit", and recent raises!
Hi Friends,
This is Mike from Flowlie. This bi-weekly newsletter includes the top articles about VC & PE, ranging from operations, tech, and tax advice to trends, notable guides, and news on recent capital raises. We hope you enjoy it and find some value!
3 articles we learned from:
1️⃣ Enjoy this video with basics of liquidation preferences. Learn why they exist and how they are calculated.
2️⃣ This article on market annealing: “The effort a company expends to make itself and a market pliable enough for early go-to-market. It applies when the company has a better idea than the market for what the market needs, and so has to work hard to overcome the inherent shape of the market. And it can take years of struggling for relatively modest progress.”
3️⃣ Read “A Quantitative Approach to Product Market Fit” by Tribe Capital (“$1.6B+ AUM venture capital firm”). Easy-to-understand formulas and 15 charts included.
3 venture announcements that caught our eye:
1️⃣ DeepL, an AI startup focused language translation, raised $100M+ and is now valued at $1B+. The company is not disclosing financial details but the funding round was led by IVP, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and WiL. In other AI news, ChatGPT is coming to Azure (Microsoft’s cloud platform).
2️⃣ Metaplane, a data observability startup, has closed an $8.4 million seed funding round for its platform which uses machine learning to infer data and assess its impact. The startup, which was founded in 2020 by MIT graduate Kevin Hu, former Hubspot engineer Peter Casinelli, and ex-Appcues developer Guru Mahendran, originally launched as a "customer success" product to prevent churn, but later pivoted.
3️⃣ In similar news, cloud native observability tools provider Chronosphere has raised $115 million in an extension to its series C funding round, bringing its valuation to $1.6 billion. The company's platform, which is used by DoorDash, Zillow, Visa, Robinhood, Obsidian Security and Astronomer, aims to help companies improve customer experience and reduce costs by consolidating legacy observability tools.
Interested to read more about data observability? Read here
New Features!
1️⃣ Investors can now track their rights, board participation, and update frequency with the redesigned "Record Investment" experience.
2️⃣ The round manager has been updated to allow for more term sheet items and the ability to set valuation caps as Pre-Money or Post-Money.
3️⃣ Other improvements include an expanded "Round History" sub-tab and improved MOIC calculation.
As always, feel free to email us with any questions,
Mike from Flowlie