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

Recently, we’ve seen incredible interest in AI-enabled services. We’ve long been believers in technology’s potential to unleash value in service businesses (previous investments include companies like Vettery, Block Renovations and Leap), but we think it’s essential to determine the scope and sustainability of technology’s impact on a company’s economic performance to determine if the thesis makes sense. We refer to this as “measuring the moat”.

We started Equal on the belief that we were entering a new technology super-cycle, one that would rapidly transform the way we work and live. Over the last 6 years, we’ve seen massive technology developments, enabling the thesis that we’ve held sacred since Day One – that these technologies would become so mainstream that they would enable rapid digital transformation of the old world economy. While value will undoubtedly be created by the foundation technology innovations themselves, the opportunity in thoughtfully deploying instances of these technologies throughout industries is far larger.

Almost three years ago, Equal published Lessons from Plaid for a Future Energy Unicorn, outlining a vision for the future of energy data. In the piece, we proposed the need for a platform that could unlock data hidden across siloed devices and stakeholders. Since developing this thesis, we’ve gained deeper conviction that we are at the cusp of energy’s “Digital Moment.”

As many know, Equal’s journey as an Emerging Manager has not been a straight forward one. I left my job at Lightbank in 2018 with zero knowledge of raising a fund or managing LP relationships. I had delivered returns for my prior fund and felt confident there was a gap in the market for our product, but I vastly underestimated the challenges ahead. I’ve unveiled some of those challenges and will choose to keep others private to my inner circle, but the process of starting and sustaining Equal remains one of the most trying experiences of my life.

As we (and others) have written about in recent months, the venture market is experiencing some systemic challenges that have the potential to depress returns for some time. Simply put, there is too much capital seeking too few opportunities, particularly at the seed stage. Multi-stage firms have eliminated pricing discipline at seed stage and the proliferation of seed firms has made the task of investing at this stage as competitive as it’s ever been, leading me to believe that indexed seed investing in today’s environment will produce poor returns.