We dive deep into our sectors. Our research drives our insights and thesis-driven approach.

Don Valentine once said “I like opportunities that are addressing markets so big that even the management team can’t get in its way.” Don founded Sequoia Capital and led investments in companies like Cisco, Oracle, and Apple.

The construction industry has had an interesting few years. Like with other major industries, COVID had a devastating impact on the sector and brought forth a myriad of problems, including project delays, labor shortages, higher material costs, tighter insurance markets, and more. While 70% of construction companies indicate that they were negatively affected by COVID, the sector remained on the frontline during the pandemic.

As global temperatures rise, ironically, so are energy costs. These days, retail electricity prices are rising at their fastest rate since 2008 — largely spurred by spiking natural gas costs. Never a group to let a good crisis go to waste, innovators are responding to the challenge with a surge of financing for virtual power plants (VPPs) and distributed energy resources (DERs).

Last month, we hosted roughly two hundred of the most influential capital allocators in the venture industry for the first ever Emerging Manager Circle Summit. Despite the general fear of a recession looming, the optimism around the emerging manager landscape was pronounced. And why wouldn’t it be?

As many of you know, we’ve been looking for an InsurTech “co-pilot” for nearly a year. This was an incredibly difficult hire. While we have a deep passion for insurance, it’s not as heavily pursued amongst younger talent, perhaps more tempted by crypto and other buzzier thesis areas. Having interviewed dozens of candidates, we struggled to find someone who had the cerebral horsepower and passion for insurance that we required for this role.