Weekly Round Up: 11/13/20

At Greenspring we believe in venture capital's ability to propel innovation, job creation and positive societal change. We celebrate those who think differently, take measured risk and challenge perceptions. Here's what's trending in VC this week:

💪Venture capital is one of the key forces powering the U.S. economy and we are proud of the work many venture-backed companies are doing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NVCA recently posted about some of these great businesses, including Carbon Health, (backed by Greenspring primary manager Bullpen Capital), Hopin (backed by Greenspring primary manager Accel), DoorDash (backed by Greenspring primary managers NFX, Benchmark and CRV), WeeCare (backed by Greenspring primary managers Amplify and Fika). Check it out here. 

Join Greenspring Partner Seyonne Kang and Justina Lai, Chief Impact Officer and Shareholder at Wetherby Asset Management, for a webinar in partnership with Responsible Investor on Wednesday, November 18^th at 11:00 ET / 16:00 GMT. This webinar will help investors understand the impact investment opportunity set among early stage private companies, what technology solutions are emerging to solve for today’s most pressing issues, and how venture is the asset class of choice for sustainability-minded investors seeking to make the greatest impact on society, the environment and portfolio returns. Register here. 

Mary D’Onofrio, Partner at Greenspring manager Bessemer Venture Partners, discusses her experience as a #WomanVC, as well as her involvement in the creation of the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index and Bessemer’s Cash Conversion Score on the Women In Venture Capital Podcast. Listen here. 

What does a COVID vaccine mean for the future of SaaS and cloud? Mary D’Onofrio, Partner at GA manager Bessemer Venture Partners, says digitization is here to stay: “Stocks are forward-looking … with more visibility into returning to ‘normal,’ the market anticipates that cloud companies will still be able to capitalize on the [market expansion] and growth opportunities that COVID helped to propel”. Read more here. 

Notdog, anyone? Meat replacement startups such as Beyond Meat have exploded in the US market over the last few years and are gaining traction across the globe. While the vertical is becoming more mature, Tess Hatch, VP at Greenspring manager Bessemer Venture Partners, remains “eager to invest in companies that use non-traditional ingredients or processes that exactly mimic the end result.” Read more here.

Lightspeed Venture Partners backed-Cameo, founded in 2017 as a platform for fans to receive personalized messages from celebrities, has exploded in popularity during lockdown. Check out CEO Steve Galanis’s views on “founder-market fit,” distributed work, network effects and more in this article with GQ Magazine here.

“The goal of this guide is to provide a concrete, human behavior-centered overview of how to build a sellable product. Each section ends with questions you can bring back to your team to help you figure out how to build a product you can sell.” Check out the latest from Partner Merci Victoria Grace of Greenspring manager Lightspeed Venture Partners discussing Product Fundamentals for Go-To-Market here. 

“If the dominant question in March 2020 was how defensive should we be, the big budget question for 2021 is how offensive should we be.” With some tech companies not just surviving but on a relative basis thriving, Greenspring manager Scale Venture Partners discusses how companies should think about budgeting for potential re-acceleration in 2021. Read more here. 

ICEYE, a company manufacturing Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites, has raised $87 million in Series C financing led by Greenspring manager True Ventures. Read more here. 

Measuring ROI is both complex and crucial to enterprise success. Check out this report from Forrester, whose investigative analysis concluded that WalkMe™’s Digital Adoption Platform yields a 368% hard ROI. When WalkMe is first implemented, companies feel the effects immediately, needing less than 3 months to receive return on their initial investment. Read more here. 

A huge congratulations to our partners at OpenView, CEO Alex Shootman and the team at Workfront on their acquisition by Adobe for $1.5 billion. We are so proud to have been your partner over the last 10 years and can’t wait to watch how you help customers create, manage, and deliver marketing campaigns at rapid speed and scale in your new home at Adobe. More on  this here. 

We are thrilled to be profiled by National Association of Investment Companies - NAIC, the largest network of diverse-owned PE firms and hedge funds, in this recent member spotlight interview featuring Managing Partner Ashton Newhall, who discusses his path to founding Greenspring Associates, how portfolio companies Xometry and Bright Health are making an impact during the pandemic, and more here.

“COVID-19 has illuminated how critical technology investment is to the health of our economy, the necessity of science and healthcare investment for humankind to survive and flourish, and the financial equity divide in our society. VC is uniquely capable of closing this divide through access to capital, the financing of innovative tech and life sciences, job creation, and intergenerational wealth creation.” Check out more from an interview with Partner Hunter Somerville here. 

This week, we were proud to honor the brave men and women who have served around the world, including our Greenspring team members featured below, to protect what we hold most dear. Thank you for your service. #VeteransDay #RemembranceDay

The content here is for informational purposes only and should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice. It does NOT constitute an offer or solicitation to purchase any investment or a recommendation to buy or sell a security. In fact, the content is not directed to any investor or potential investor and may not be used to evaluate or make any investment.