Weekly Round Up: 12/31/20

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:

📶Wondering what investment themes and trends will materialize in 2021? Read predictions from 20 partners at VC firms including Greenspring managers Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Bessemer Venture Partners and CRV here. 

“Nanosatellites were the creation of decades of Moore’s Law, which exponentially decreased the size and increased the power of commercial off-the shelf electronics to allow for the invention of a cube sat, or nanosatellite. Why this is significant is before the before the creation of the nanosatellite, the only way to get an asset into space was a massive, school bus-sized satellite that would take years, if not decades, and tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars to design, build and launch.” Hear more from Tess Hatch, VP at Greenspring manager Bessemer Venture Partners, as she discusses the future of the aerospace industry with Tom Keene on Bloomberg here. 

Foundation Capital-backed Graphcore, which develops chips and systems that ultimately accelerate AI workloads, has raised $222 million in Series E financing. Read more on this round here. 

"Consumer habits that started during COVID are so long-lasting that they will be permanent habits. I believe that they'll be sticky." Read more about how the “Zoomification of society” is likely to persist into 2021 and beyond, including insights from Nicole Quinn, Partner at Greenspring manager Lightspeed Venture Partners here.

“2020 has been a year to remember for SaaS IPOs, and it's even more impressive it all happened in around six months in the midst of a global pandemic.” Greenspring manager Meritech Capital analyzes this and more on their recent blog post here. 

Looking to catch up on tech news in the final hours of 2020? Greenspring manager NFX has put together a recent blogpost recapping the top 11 questions they asked tech leaders in 2020, each linked to their corresponding podcast episode. Topics include characteristics of a strong product manager, what makes a billion dollar startup and more here.

“Venture capital as an asset class has survived the pandemic’s stress test.” Read TechCrunch’s analysis here of why seed stage funding flourished this year with interviews from venture capitalists including Mar Hershenson, Founding Managing Partner at Greenspring manager Pear VC. 

Congratulations to Redpoint Ventures-backed R2C, a static source code analyzer and creator of Semgrep for being recognized in the Forbes Cybersecurity Awards 2020 as the Most Disruptive Innovator! Check out all the winners here.

We are excited to announce the launch of Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained, a podcast about Limited Partners who think differently about allocating to venture. With this podcast, we sit down with LPs to unpack what makes a strong GP/LP relationship, how they think about investing and portfolio construction, deal diligence, the macro environment, and more. In our inaugural episode, Greenspring Partner Hunter Somerville sits down with Ryan Rathman and Travis Haney from the State of Michigan Department of Treasury Bureau of Investments. Listen to the episode here.

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.