Startup Crystal Ball

PitchBook Peers into Startup Future, TTV Goes Big for Sixth Fund, and a Startup Looks to Usher a New Era in Workload Security.

Author

Adam from VC Brags
March 21, 2023

Welcome Shareholders,

In this daily edition of the Brags Newsletter, we'll cover how PitchBook looks to evaluate future startup success with its AI Tools, An early-stage fintech VC completes its biggest raise for its sixth fund, and a startup raises funds to become the next big thing in workload identity management.

So sit back, grab a snack, and enjoy!

Venture Today 👏

  • The VC Exit Predictor, a tool launched yesterday, utilizes PitchBook's venture capital and private equity database to assess a startup's growth potential.

When provided with a VC-backed company's name, the VC Exit Predictor generates a score indicating the likelihood of acquisition, going public, or not exiting due to self-sustainability or events preventing an exit, such as bankruptcy.

PitchBook follows a long list of firms looking to find competitive advantages in making investment decisions by employing AI. VC firms like SignalFire, EQT Ventures, and Nauta Capital employ AI platforms to identify promising companies.

PitchBook conducted a back-test of the VC Exit Predictor using a historical dataset of companies with known exits, including well-known firms like Blockchain.com, Revolut, and Bitso. The tool demonstrated a 74% accuracy rate in predicting successful exits, on average, across the set.

While VC Exit Predictor performs well on PitchBook's test set, its resilience to unpredictable black swan events, such as pandemics, global conflicts, or natural disasters, remains uncertain. Algorithms have historically faced challenges in these situations due to limited training data. For instance, the tool maintains a positive outlook on crypto companies, despite the recent industry-wide downturn.

Who's Raising?

  • TTV Capital, an early-stage fintech venture capital firm based in Atlanta, has recently closed its largest fund to date at $250 million, surpassing previous records since its founding over two decades ago.

The fund, which initially targeted a $150 million raise, saw overwhelming interest from investors, which resulted in an oversubscription of $100 million. Throughout 2022, TTV Capital invested in 18 early-stage fintech companies spanning various sectors, including payments, banking, investing, cybersecurity, Web3, and embedded finance.

The firm's average initial investment ranged from $2 million to $7 million, and it also maintains an exploratory fund for investments starting at $250,000. TTV Capital's portfolio now boasts over 100 financial technology companies, with seven of them having achieved the prestigious unicorn status.

Startup of the Day

  • Maryland-based security startup Aembit, specializing in federated workload communication management for DevOps and security teams, has raised a $16.6 million seed funding round from Ballistic Ventures and Ten Eleven Ventures.

Aembit's workload identity and access management service streamlines user and device access to cloud workloads like APIs, databases, and other resources without requiring code modifications from developers.

Aembit intends to use the new funds to expand its marketing team and enhance its product. The company, which has so far targeted large enterprises, plans to launch a self-serve product, enabling outreach to be small and medium-sized businesses as well.

Memes and Other Things


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