Alexander S. White

"So what exactly is a venture studio?" I'm not sure how many times I've had this conversation over the last few years. At least a few times / week. For aspiring venture builder - especially those in institutional settings, 'getting' the model - and understanding how it differs from others - is critical. So, we're starting at the beginning. On March 19, I'm sitting down with Matthew Burris for the first session of the The Venture Studio Forum's University Track Speaker Series. Matt is widely credited for helping to define the venture studio asset class - he co-authored the Venture Studio Index and built the Three-Role Framework that the industry uses to classify studios. He's spent more time researching what makes a studio a studio than anyone I know. If you're at a university, research institution, or economic development org trying to figure out whether a venture studio makes sense for you, this is where to start. Note, this event kicks off a five part-series we're running through the VSF, all focused on helping institutions understand and evaluate the model. Here's the full program: Mar 19: What Is a Venture Studio? Apr 16: University Studio Examples May 21: Funding Mechanisms Jun 18: Finding & Working with Studios Jul 16: Sourcing & Evaluating Founder Talent Registration link in the comments!

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💡Emerging GP Fundraising Insight #8: Rolling Closes Keep You Moving Small funds can't always afford to sit still until the target is hit. Rolling closes let you start deploying earlier, build a track record, and show momentum to prospective LPs. One GP told me that for Fund I ($5M target), he took capital as it came, signed, wired, and got to work. It wasn't perfect, but it kept the lights on and the deals moving. Sometimes the "sign and wire as it comes" approach is the only way to get moving. Takeaway: Momentum is a fundraising asset and rolling closes can help you keep it. Has anyone here used rolling closes as a strategic advantage?

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You can't reindustrialise with casino money. Dan G.'s piece "No Crying in the Casino" on the Odin blog is the sharpest diagnosis of venture capital's structural crisis I've read this year. He traces financialisation from 16th century bullionism through Carlota Perez's technological revolutions to the present casino culture. He's right about all of it. But the prescription has a gap. Gray calls for reindustrialisation, and the technologists building uranium enrichment, marine robotics, and drug discovery labs are exactly the right companies. The problem is that the capital funding them is still structured for extraction. The numbers don't lie. Total venture funding collapsed 69% from Q4 2021 to Q1 2025. Across every AngelList vintage from 2017-2024, the median fund returned less than $0.38 on the dollar. GP-led continuation vehicles exploded from $6B to $67B as fund managers found ways to sell assets to themselves rather than return capital. My partner James Thomason calls this the option premium problem. Installation-period speculation serves a real function: each startup is an option on a different configuration of the technology. The dot-com bubble built the infrastructure Amazon ran on. But venture capital's current architecture doesn't capture the option premium. It consumes it through fees and financial engineering. Reindustrialisation needs instruments designed for production, not speculation. Revenue-linked capital that pays investors from real performance. Permanent structures that don't expire before the technology matures. Governance that aligns stakeholders instead of creating zero-sum fights over liquidation proceeds. You can't build the deployment period with installation-period tools. The reindustrialists need reindustrialised capital. Full Venture Capital 2.0 edition link is in comments!

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Marc Benioff is on 20VC podcast with Harry Stebbings, Jason M. Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll https://lnkd.in/gRNxaAMU Benioff comments AI Over-reliance Risk:Warns against "doctors who are using AI and they're so overreliant on an AI that's inaccurate that all of a sudden you know they are giving their patients bad advice and becoming intellectually lazy." This highlights a significant "warning sign for all of us around AI." Focus on Practical Applications: Advocates for using AI "for what it can be used for and also realize you know some of the major issues with it." "Agentic" Software as the Future: Salesforce is moving aggressively towards "agentic" software, where AI agents collaborate with humans. "I don't think that there will be a piece of software that we sell that will not be agentic." This is seen as a fundamental architectural shift for enterprise software companies. Data Cloud as AI Foundation: Salesforce's AI is "part and parcel with our data cloud." The necessity of a federated data cloud to harmonize company data is crucial for AI accuracy and impact. Salesforce's data and AI together are "more than a billion in revenue," making it their "fastest growing cloud product" in 26 years. Role of Human Talent: While AI enables efficiency, does not believe in a "mass exodus of the SDR class." Instead, AI allows for the redeployment of talent "up the value chain," making the company more efficient and enabling focus on higher-value activities. Refutation of "CRUD Databases" Claim: Strongly disagrees with the notion that "SAS apps are just going to be CRUD databases" due to AI, calling it "crazy talk." He believes "I need apps and I need agents and I need them to work together."

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I thought n8n was supposed to be dead? Today, however, they announced they've raised $180 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, despite the consensus being that Google's Opal, ChatGPT's Agent Builder, and others would kill n8n. This funding proves: -- The AI race is not just about models but rather about orchestration. What separates winners is the ability to integrate them reliably into workflows, with humans in the loop, guardrails, observability, error handling, and flexibility. n8n leans into that orchestration layer. -- Nimble, composable platforms still win over "all-in-one" products. The narrative that one tool or one company will subsume everything is seductive, but history shows that ecosystems, developer communities, modular integration, and adaptability matter. n8n has a strong community, a flexible architecture, and is making bold bets at this intersection. -- Competition is validation, not obsolescence. Yes, tools like Opal or Agent Builder will push the envelope in UI, prototyping, and getting non-technical users started. But they don't (yet) match the depth of control, extensibility, domain access, or operational stability that power users and enterprises demand. -- Timing, growth, and momentum matter. Over the last year, n8n reports 6x user growth and 10x revenue growth. The fact that VCs backed this aggressively now signals confidence in where the market is headed, not dwelling purely on where it's been. It's a powerful reminder: you don't need to be the biggest name in the room to win. You just have to know exactly who you're building for.

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NEA's new site is already hitting hundreds of thousands of annual visitors and supported a $468M fund close, just months after launch. How did we help one of venture's most successful firms unlock immediate growth through digital? Here are the 7 things we did: 1. We led with founder stories, not firm credentials. Instead of another "About Us" manifesto, we captured portfolio founder voices and let their success stories speak for NEA. The site became less about the firm, more about the outcomes they create. 2. We removed every barrier to publishing. Partners had incredible insights trapped behind IT tickets and approval chains. We built a headless CMS that lets them publish in minutes, not days. Since launch: 40+ long-form pieces, multiple new content series, zero bottlenecks. 3. We made search actually work. With hundreds of portfolio companies, visitors need instant access to specific info. MeiliSearch delivers any result in milliseconds. Bounce rate: 48%. Pages per visit: 2.34. 4. We turned compliance from blocker to enabler. Cookie policies. SEC requirements. GDPR updates. What used to require developer tickets now happens with one click. Legal can update site-wide in real-time. No delays. No risk. No friction. 5. We designed for how people actually browse. 58% of NEA's visitors are US decision-makers on mobile. We optimized every pixel for thumb navigation. The difference between "works on mobile" and "built for mobile" shows in every metric. 6. We built systems that scale, not pages that age. New partner joins? Live in 5 minutes. Midas List announcement? Updated same week. We created a component library that multiplies effort rather than requiring it. The site evolves as fast as the news cycle. 7. We focused on outcomes, not outputs. The results speak for themselves: Traffic matching Greylock despite a smaller content team. A $468M fund close with seamless digital support. Recognition as one of only two mega-funds in "40 Stunning VC Websites." ——— Your website is either growing your business or killing it. There is NO in between. Most companies launch and forget. Winners iterate and measure. If it provides results it is infrastructure not overhead.

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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If a company can unify identity for advertising, the expectation is that it can unify opt-out enforcement just as effectively. Regulators seem to be signaling that compliance is evaluated at the ecosystem level, not the product level. That turns architectural fragmentation into regulatory exposure. The recent $2.75M CCPA settlement involving a major streaming platform reinforces this shift. This wasn’t about whether a “Do Not Sell” link existed. Regulators tested what happens after a user opts out, across devices, environments, and services tied to the same account. For streaming and media companies, that’s where things get complicated. Users move across: Web Mobile apps Smart TVs Roku / FireTV Logged-in experiences Ad-supported tiers Opt-out logic has to travel across account IDs, device IDs, MAIDs, household graphs, and measurement layers. That propagation layer is rarely clean. Most teams are navigating inherited architectures, evolving ad-tech stacks, and rapid product cycles. But it does raise harder questions: - Are opt-outs truly account-level? - Does suppression behave consistently across surfaces? - Would testing web vs mobile vs CTV produce identical outcomes? - How to demonstrate for runtime validation, not just configuration evidence?

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For many founders, the path from bootstrapping to venture-backed growth is filled with both promise and pressure. Knowing when to bring in outside expertise—specifically, a venture capital consulting firm—can mean the difference between stalled growth and a successful funding round. In this post, we’ll highlight five clear signs your startup is ready to benefit from venture capital consulting services, and how acting early can unlock smarter decisions and better outcomes. https://lnkd.in/gmumR5D2

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Last week I wrote about the VC-to-angel migration. Smaller checks. Faster decisions. No LP drama. Just conviction and a wire. But here's the thing about conviction: it's only as good as your signal. VCs have teams, deal memos, partner meetings, reference calls. Angels have... gut feel? That's the gap. When you're writing your own check in 48-72 hours, you don't have time for a 6-week diligence process. But you still need to know: Is this founder going to grind through the trough of sorrow - or quit when it gets hard? Do these co-founders actually work well under pressure - or will they implode at the first real conflict? Is this someone who can hear hard feedback - or will they burn every bridge when things go sideways? Here's my workflow now: I build a custom venture GPT for every company I'm evaluating. It holds my analysis, my investment brief, my questions. It has my favorite resources. I talk to it throughout diligence - pressure-testing the market, the model, the narrative. For the people side, I use The Fulcrum. Founder psychology. Team dynamics. How they operate under stress. The idea came from some leadership assessments, some emotional IQ and one very cool app for autistic children to better understand their homework!! GPT for the business. Fulcrum for the humans. And my own head tying it together. Together? It's the most clarity I've ever had writing angel checks. And honestly — it's fun again. → thefulcrum.life

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If you’re comparing venture studios to VC funds, you’re asking the wrong question. Venture studios aren’t venture capital. They’re something else entirely. Studios are closer to private equity than venture capital. Why? A few key differences: We don’t just write checks. We build the companies ourselves. We enter at Day 0, not Series A. We validate ideas, assemble teams, and scale with operational support from day one. That means more control, more ownership, and if done right, superior returns. Venture studio managers also raise from a very different set of LPs. High-net-worth individuals. Family offices. Strategic operators. And raising from them isn’t just about performance metrics. It’s also dinners, events, long conversations, and emotional alignment. That’s fun at the start. But over time, it becomes a full-time job in itself. In this model, you don’t just manage capital. You manage relationships. And when you’re also leading product reviews, hiring calls, and sprint retros, you’d better have a deep reserve of energy. Studios win by being builders and communicators. If you can���t do both, don’t do this model.

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💥 Metropolis Technologies Raises $𝟭.𝟲𝗕 💥 Funding comes in 2 rounds: $500M equity round led by LionTree and $1.1B from J.P. Morgan. Metropolis is now 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 $𝟱𝗕. With the fresh funding, the plan is to take their "recognition and payment-automation" tech beyond parking assets. This would include retail stores, drive-throughs, gas stations, hotels and partnerships with real estate/asset owner. Congrats to Alex Israel, Peter Fisher, Courtney Fukuda, Travis Kell, Ryan Hunt,Chris Sherman, Robert Bland, Paul Rooney, Lookman Olusanya and the rest of the Metropolis family. #fundraise #parkinginvestment #parking #parkingindustry #metropolois Parking Today Media Parking Network B.V. National Parking Association International Parking & Mobility Institute (IPMI) Tim Maloney Advisory Tim Maloney Reservations Lab

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founders that have only ever worked within a large company tend to be empty vessels. the most valuable skill at a big company is identifying who has (or could soon have) power and then aligning with and advocating for their ideas as if they were your own. take a spin through the recent YC class and you see a pattern of big company mids all founding the same AI for xyz... its not really their idea, it just sounds good. the board meetings will be especially painful. founders acting like they work for the investors, seeking approval, lost in the woods. there are exceptions. but they tend to be founded before zirp. when founding a company was hard and low prestige and there wasn't capital at every turn. an empty vessel doesn't jump into the abyss without first raising a $5m round from the 9 figure 'seed firms'. 

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