VC Theses #77 | Next billion dollar opportunity, Funding for the Cloud, & more

May 22nd–28th | Insights from Greylock, Redpoint, Interlace, FirstMark, and others

Ali Afridi

May 29, 2022

Welcome to our new subscribers! SandHill.io aggregates and shares the latest investment themes, market insights, and best practices for operating and investing from 650+ VCs, analysts, and operators.

This newsletter curates a selection of posts featured on the website each week.

Investment Themes, Theses, & Outlooks

The next billion dollar startup is green (Lisa Wehden, ex-VC @ Bloomberg Beta)
New Alpaca Field Study: Solar Energy Generation & Storage (Daniel Fetner & Brian Shah, Alpaca VC)
The Next Cloud Data Platform (Jason Risch, VC @ Greylock)
Cloud Infrastructure Part I: Data + Machine Learning (Sai Senthilkumar, Principal @ Redpoint)
Web3 commerce: Brand loyalty programs (Erik de Stefanis, Partner @ Interlace)
3 Things: Airbnb in-a-Box, Enterprise Ready Stack, Manscaped for Women (Elaine Zelby, Partner @ SignalFire)

Industry Developments & Analyses

VC Funding for the Cloud (Jerry Chen & Jason Risch, Greylock)
The Shuttering of Digital Storefronts (Visa Kannan, VC @ Saison Capital)
The Importance of Insets: where mitigation and offsetting mix (Kim Zou & Sophie Purdom, Climate Tech VC)
The Future of Crypto Native Consumer Products (Mercedes Bent, Partner @ Lightspeed)
Summer 2022: NFT Winter? (Lisa Xu, Principal @ FirstMark)
Designing Token Economies (Packy McCormick, GP @ Not Boring)
Make Cents: What is Fintech & Why You Should Care (Medha Agarwal, Partner @ Redpoint)

Guides, Case Studies, and Best Practices for Operating

The Rise of Cash App 🤑 (Rex Woodbury, Partner @ Index)
Tips From Snowflake, Confluent, SentinelOne, And Other Top SaaS Companies On Scaling Sales Into Europe (Micah Smurthwaite, Next47)
Talent Sourcing 101: How To Fill the Top of Your Hiring Funnel (Steve Melia & Maggie Crean, OpenView Partners)
A Manager’s Guide to Helping Teams Face Down Uncertainty, Burnout and Perfectionism (First Round Review)
Working Together – Managing the Founder/CEO Tension in a B2B Startup (Max Schireson, EIR @ Battery)

Additional Reads

Running Effective Deal Reviews (Jeremey Donovan, EVP @ Insight)
Do VCs add value? 4 years later, the answer remains: sometimes. (Carl Fritjofsson, GP @ Creandum)
The Legs of the Stool and Why It's Tough to Compare Two Startups Raising (Charlie O'Donnell, GP @ Brooklyn Bridge)
The Death of a Venture Fund (Kyle Harrison, GP @ Contrary)
Obvious Things That Easily Escape Attention (Morgan Housel, Partner @ Collaborative Fund)

Did we miss something?

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