Premoney Lookback

Welcome to “week 37.” This week is a bit different! We completed a look-back analysis, and are very excited to share the results here. Very simply, we looked back at all of the companies we featured, and took stock of which ones raised money since we featured them. We’ll continue to do this as we progress and periodically release more status updates.

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Premoney lookback analysis

This weeks newsletter is a bit different! I took some time to do a lookback analysis where I followed up with the founders previously featured to see how their fundraising went since being featured.

This is the first lookback analysis I’ve done, and will use this as a foundation for determining if, how and when to raise a fund of my own. Overall, I’m VERY EXCITED about the types of founders I’ve met, the results they’ve seen, and the intro’s I’ve been able to make.

Some context on the lookback:

Requirements:

Over the past ~9 months, I’ve featured ~120 individual companies who fit the “Premoney” requirements of :

• Are currently raising money

• Haven’t already raised more than $500k (admittedly some exceptions)

• Have some level of traction & in an industry with lots of opportunity (subjective, I’m aware).

As part of the selection process, I’ve very actively made sure to maintain a representative balance of demographics amongst the founders. There is a severe venture gap amongst female and bipoc founders which is not only ridiculous, but also sets a foundation of opportunity that perpetuates lack of representation in tech more holistically.

Purpose:

The goal of Premoney is to help lower the barrier to high quality venture discussions between founders and investors. The longer term vision is to turn Premoney into a small fund which helps to kickstart the venture raise process for these founders, by investing a small amount in each.

This lookback analysis is meant to be a retrospective to give me (and you!) an indicator of if these companies I’m identifying are “high value.”

Proxy indicators:

The main data points that I collected for this analysis are:

• Did the company successfully raise since being featured?

• If so, how much

• …and from who?

Lookback Results

Summary:

👀 Total Companies featured: 120

🤝 Total F/Bipoc founded companies: 75 (62%)

💰 Companies that successfully raised since featured: 55 (45.8%)

💰📈🚀💰Total amount raised: $78.5 Million

Top industries: B2B SaaS, Fintech, MarTech, Wellness & Productivity

Top business models: Subscription, Freemium, Marketplace

Notable funds: YC, General Catalyst, First Round Capital, Sequoia, Maven Ventures, Harlem Capital

*Note: Many companies are still raising, or having closed/disclosed.

Demographic breakdowns:

# of Companies who raised:

Of the 55 companies who successfully raised, 58.5% of them had teams made up of f/bipoc founders.

Total amount raised (of $78.5M):

F/Bipoc founding teams raised 67% of all money raised by Premoney companies.

It’s important to showcase the success of F/Bipoc founders to both perpetuate better representation in tech & support access to funding. Also note that in the below results, overlap exists between f/bipoc founded companies.

Female founded companies:

• # of Companies: 48

• # Successful raises: 19 (39% of featured)

• $ Raised: $36.6M (46% of total raised)

Top Industries: Food, Wellness, Fintech, Productivity

Bipoc founded companies:

• # of Companies: 52

• # Successful raises: 22 (42% of featured)

• $ Raised: $28.6M (36% of total raised)

Top industries: Fintech, Martech, Marketplaces, Sales tools

Takeaways:

I’d love to hear your thoughts, desires for further analysis or collaboration - please send me a note directly and we can figure out how to work together!

My main takeaway on this lookback is to recognize that the historical dealflow coming through the Premoney list, successfully contains a high level of quality (using raise-success as a proxy) across demographic lines.

Generally, the analysis gives me confidence that I can deploy capital in to future companies in a way that:

• Supports high potential teams

• Contributes to a better represented tech world

• Indicates high levels of potential ROI assuming an even small % of funded founders have a successful exit.

“Raise” your hand!

If you’d be interested in supporting a “Premoney Fund” in the future, either via guidance or as an LP, I’d love to connect!

O