Avalanche VC: October 2022 Update
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Avalanche VC: October 2022 Update
NYCTechWeek, Odysessy + Idaho, Worksphere + Envoy, OpenAxis + Citibeats
Dear friends,
It’s been a manic fall with the full return of conferences, travel, and in-person meetings. The rush to the end of the year is just beginning. We thrive in these times.
We continue to be impressed by the tenacity and execution of all our founders in the Avalanche ecosystem amidst changes in the macroeconomic environment. At our stage, we know it’s all noise. Building great products and creating value and delight for customers/users are what count.
We are actively investing and believe tailwinds in our emerging reality will bring massive opportunities for those ready to capture them.
Onwards and upwards,
Katelyn, Dalglish, & Eric
News from the portfolio companies
Worksphere was acquired by Envoy. CEO and co-founder Aakhil Fardeen announced the deal in September. The combined teams share a mission to efficiently manage hybrid workplaces, so everyone inside can connect, collaborate, and thrive. Congrats all!
Odyssey (FKA Agora) launched their partnership with the state of Idaho to administer their Empowering Parents Program. They also announced their Seed Round led by a16z in Forbes: With ESAs Soaring, Tech Platform Odyssey Emerges To Help Families Access State Funding
Sarah Haggard from Tribute posted on LinkedIn about her journey and resiliencehaving resilience in overcoming a pulled term sheettermsheet at seed round. Tribute graduated from the EngageVC GTM accelerator this week and has seen continued logo renewal and expansion!
OpenAxis partners with Citibeats to democratize data. Here. CEO Alex Damianou was interviewed by Kyla Scanlon on How To Make Data Make Sense.
The Social Institute wrote a blog on “Students are turning to TikTok as their main search engine. Does this threaten students’ media literacy?” Key stat: 1 in 5 TikTok videos contain misinformation on serious topics.
KURIOS CEO Carlos Lau writes “The War for Digital Talent is Real and It's Here, in Latam” in Mexico Business News.
Boundless Life announced that their third location for digital nomad parents will be in Tuscany, Italy.
GenusAI announced Creative Automation for Product Catalogs, the latest in efforts to capitalize on generative AI.
Bikky announced their $5.25M seed round. We are proud pre-seed investors.
Dylan Gambardella, the co-founder and CEO of NextGen HQ, a business hub dedicated to helping young entrepreneurs reach their goals, says that he's teaching students "skills that matter" to prepare them for the workforce.
"To us, the 'skills that matter' include confidence, communication, grit, wellness, and a growth mindset, among others," Gambardella says. "We're big believers in teaching skills that promote career success … Employers desire to connect with prospective employees that can contribute from day one."
AVC team out and around
New York Tech Week
We co-hosted an event at New York Tech week with Verci, a community for lifelong learners, that brought together over 100 founders, investors, and thinkers around new notions of citizenship and the network state. Thank you to everyone who turned out for a fantastic conversation. We continued to be impressed by how passionate people are in this space.
Meals and deals
Katelyn hosted a dinner with the Edgi Learning team and deep thinkers in the future of learning.
Avalanche VC Offsite
We held the first annual Avalanche VC team offsite in Sonoma last weekend. It was the first time we had all been together in-person. Zoom is fantastic but a little IRL can be magic!
Avalanche VC Online Thoughts
Katelyn gave a keynote titled “Massive Trends in Education Technology” for the Penn GSE Catalyst program in September.
Here is the presentation and here is the video recording.
Dalglish wrote two essays to help founders understand their strengths and deploy feedback to better support growth and development.
On Superpowers: What’s your differentiating edge? What comes easily to you and not to others? The answer may surprise you, and Dalglish suggests we disarm our inner venture capitalist for this exercise.
On Feedback: Think beyond the sandwich when giving and taking feedback in your performance reviews this Fall. The key points:
It matters what words you use
Subjectivity and emotions are data, not distraction
Don’t get personal, get interpersonal
Eric has been using Twitter as a scratchpad to refine our thinking on Citizenship 2.0. We have an OTF essay coming soon…
What we’ve been reading:
Learn:
Reading and mathematics scores decline during COVID-19 pandemic. Here from The Nation’s Report Card.
The Evolution of EdTech: Activity in Private and Public Markets a data report by Dealroom and Brighteye Ventures.
Earn:
Global Digital Nomads: Thailand joins race to lure foreigners in path to economic boom: Measures to attract foreign workers aim to add economic value.
Research shows employees are most productive in hybrid work environments . . . but there’s a catch.
Gallup Research reports voluntary attrition costs US businesses $1 Trillion.
The same survey asserts attrition is preventable:
“52% of voluntarily exiting employees say their manager or organization could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job. But 51% didn’t hear from their managers in the 3 months prior to them quitting.”
Whalesync’s report on The State of No Code Data Sync is not to be missed.
Own:
The Crypto Story: Where it came from, what it all means, and why it all matters. A 40,000 word guide by Matt Levine.
America’s $7 Trillion Retirement Crisis Is Only Getting Worse. Economic turmoil took a toll on savings in the first half of 2022 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg as many in the US lack employer-sponsored plans.
Venture Capital/Investing:
Outperformance: The Power of Power Laws: Which Investments Generate the Greatest Venture Returns: Enterprise or Consumer? By Sapphire Ventures.
Venture Capital Is Ripe for Disruption: A world where a billion is a drop in the bucket
On age of founder and probability of a successful exit
Thank you for reading!