Venture Studio Index - September 1, 2022
A new type of studio role, funding announcements, EIR interview, 16 new studios + reader survey
Venture studio news
Tegus interview with former EIR at Polymath, Entangled and Atomic. Discusses challenges in recruiting CEOs, and how studios tend to overweight track record and underweight passion for the project
I think often the screening process is over screening for very learnable traits and is under-appreciating like sort of unmovable qualities that it is part of their DNA, as they're going to be that way and maybe like leaning towards valuing some of those more, because people who have the skills already are also probably have a little bit more awareness that they have those skills and are a little bit less committed to like fighting through it.
So I think that looking for like that determination and drive and someone who like has the right compassion to build the team and like the right leadership traits and there's just, I think, other things beyond like sales is pretty learnable if you care about what you're doing. Like founder sales is super easy, if you believe in the thing you're doing. And so I don't think it's like, right, really screening hard for sales, but it's probably not necessary.
(Tegus)
Cyberstarts, a cybersecurity focused venture studio and accelerator, closes $60mm for its third seed fund, bringing total AUM to $374mm. Cyberstarts was founded in 2018 and has already backed at least 5 unicorns (press release)
RYZ Labs, a studio launched by former Amazon and Lyft alums, emerges from stealth mode. The studio lists two startups, including a fitness training service with 21 employees. (LAINNO)
Post by Slimmer.ai, an AI focused venture studio, discussing their journey launching and selling a startup in only 8 months (Medium)
Interesting jobs
Redesign Health - Staff Knowledge Manager
Design, build, implement, and maintain a knowledge management framework that provides internal and end-users access to the organization's intellectual capital..Define, develop, and maintain principles, style guides, standards, and processes to guide and govern the creation, maintenance, management, and delivery of content…Work closely with information architects, program management, product, marketing and engineering to evaluate and implement tools for content creation, management, and publication.
Submit new venture studio roles to jobs@venturestudioindex.com or reply to this email
Venture studio startup funding from July & August
Flagship Pioneering startup Senda Biosciences, a programmable medicines platform, raised $123mm from investors including Samsung Life Sciences Fund and Mayo Clinic (press release)
Expa startup Aero, a semi-private airline, raised $65mm led by Albacore Capital Group (Techcrunch)
The Production Board startup Pattern Ag, which provides soil microbiome analysis, raises $35mm led by Conti Ventures (FinSMEs)
finleap startup Element, a Berlin based insurtech, raises €21.4mm from VZB (Finextra)
X Genesis startup Centivo, which provides digital health plans for self-funded employers, raised $20mm from JP Morgan’s health unit (MedCityNews)
Cyberstarts startup Island, a secure web browser for the enterprise, raised $10mm from Cisco Investments (Ctech)
Pioneer Square Labs startup Yesler, a lumber marketplace, raised $5mm led by Crosslink Capital (Geekwire)
High Alpha startup Trava Security, which provides cyber risk management and insurance to SMBs, raised a $4.5mm seed extension led by Mercury Fund (Inside Indiana Business)
Ideas42 Venture Studio startup Nickels, a white-label credit card coach for banks, raised $4mm from FIS Impact Ventures (Crunchbase)
Re/Wire Health Studio startup Bristle, an at-home saliva test for oral health, raised $3mm from Initialized Capital (Axios)
Submit funding news to data@venturestudioindex.com or reply to this email
Database additions
This week we added 16 additional venture studios and 22 startups to the database, which now totals 355 studios and 1,736 startups.
Note many recently launched studios and startups are still in stealth, so recent years are understated.
Submit studios and startups to data@venturestudioindex.com or reply to this email
Reader survey
Thank you to the hundreds of venture studio professionals reading this substack every week.
Please help make Venture Studio Index better by filling out a short (<1 min), anonymous survey on what we should add in September: