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Early stage venture fund investing behind massive trends transforming how people learn, earn, and own.

Avalanche VC: Q2 2023 Community Update

Portfolio News, Reading & Writing, Interns & Fellows, Mentions in the Press

Jul 25, 2023

Dear Friends of Avalanche,

We are excited to share AVC’s insights and progress from the past couple of months.

We have operated with the belief that during economic unpredictability people double down on learning, companies focus on productivity growth, and ownership becomes cheaper. Venture investment and fundraising are down from the past couple of years’ highs but builders are still building.

With massive technology and demographic changes now is the time to invest in the defining trends and platforms of the future.

Portfolio news

Humanly raised a $12M Series A led by Drive Capital. Congrats team!
Boundless Life welcomed 83 new families who represent over 25 nationalities to 4 different destinations.
Prisms of Reality completed an RCT efficacy study showing an 11% lift in learning outcomes. Full study here.
Tribute announced their introduction of 30-minute nano-connections and has partnered with upskilling platform Degreed.
Kurios was named one of the 100 best startups in Peru by Forbes Peru.
OpenAxis launched DEX, an AI-powered data assistant that can securely plug into your data, answer questions, generate interactive charts, and provide insights on the fly. Check it out here!
Whalesync published a new client case study with Adjust.
Between was selected as one of 70 out of 1,493 startups to pitch on stage at Collision 2023.
David Kim, CEO & co-founder of Between
Bikky announced their partnership with nine leading NYC restaurant brands to optimize data and marketing analytics.
Upright Education has partnered with Front Range Community College – its biggest partner in the Mountain West Region. They also have upgraded their website.

Thinking, Writing, Speaking

Team

Austin, Texas

Katelyn established a residence in Austin and has been diving into the local ecosystem. Katelyn’s been conducting one in-person meeting or event a day in town – come by and say hi!

Nived Kollanthara joined us as a Fellow for the Spring from MIT Sloan School of Management. He helped us analyze the DTC EdTech Market.

Matthew Xu joined us part-time for the summer as an analyst. Matthew is a rising sophomore at Duke who is helping evaluate deals, scour the landscape for companies we might be missing, and edit the OTF podcast.

Conferences and Meet Ups

Avalanche VC co-hosted a Seattle meet-up for 50+ founders and investors.

Katelyn attended the ECMC's Education and Workforce Innovation Conference, where we met over 30 companies in the workforce innovation space.

Katelyn attended Capital Camp hosted by Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore to deepen relationships with other investors, family offices, and founders. She met a few search funders who are buying and operating in the SMB space. This network has proven valuable as we examine companies in the ownership economy.

In the Press

Katelyn was named to Business Insiders list of 17 top venture capitalists to know who specialize in education-technology investing. Article here.
Katelyn was a guest on Episode 21 of Wannabe Angels. Link here.
Katelyn was a guest on Episode 9 of #AskWhy podcast from Mindstone, talking about lifelong learning, alternative education and AI. Link here.

What we’ve been reading:

Learn:

Long-Term Trend Assessments Are Devastating—Especially for the Lowest Achievers. Article on the latest NAEP results.

Earn:

You CAN be a digital nomad, and an HR high flier. First person account of making remote jobs work for employees and employers. Features Boundless Life, a pioneer in this space.

Own:

Discover the Shocking Cost of Forgotten 401(k) Accounts. $1.6 trillion in forgotten 401(k) accounts are estimated to exist in the United States. With the increased rate of job switching, the number of left-behind 401(k)s will increase, too.

Venture Capital/Investing:

The European Expansion Report. How US Software Companies Win (And Lose) in Europe. By our friends at Frontline VC.
The New Language Model Stack. How companies are bringing AI applications to life.
A must-read from Sequoia. It starts with ‘Nearly every company in the Sequoia network is building language models into their products’ and ends with “It’s still early.”
7 Meta Themes Correlated to Outsized Returns. A tweet thread based on over pre-seed 250 investments.

Thank you.

Please always be in touch.

As always,

Katelyn, Dalglish, Eric, & Arvind