Welcome to Issue #37 of our newsletter series, News From the First Row.
Thank you to Kirby Winfield for sending some startups our way! That said, no intros are required - any startup can share their investment opportunity here.
📣 Announcements
For the full feed, check out (and follow) our LinkedIn page.
Welcome, Kayla Renz, as First Row Partner’s Chief of Staff
We are excited to have Kayla Renz join the First Row team as our Chief of Staff. As our portfolio and funds have expanded, Kayla helps us build the future of First Row as a powerhouse pre-seed venture firm. First Row is differentiated by our use of inquiry-based approaches to see non-obvious opportunity in future and the world around us. Kayla brings her own experiences with startups and investment impact to the table. Check out the full announcement on LinkedIn.
Join us at these upcoming community events
THURS, MAY 16 @ 8:30am | Pitch and Run, Seattle.
Meet at the basketball courts at Green Lake park and be ready to loop the lake. Founders will be grouped with various Seattle investors from Ascend, First Row, Anthos, and more! Thanks to our friends at Ascend Ventures for organizing popular event. Sign up HERE.
THURS, JUNE 20 @ 5:00pm | Deals & Drinks, Zoom.
Join us for our bi-monthly 'Deals & Drinks' workshop! We bring a founder together with a group of investors (a mix of VCs, prospective angels, students, angels) to present their pitch. We gather our notes and use them to facilitate a conversation about how we heard the pitch, what we observed, and what open questions we still have. Don’t miss it! Sign up HERE.
Can’t make the June 20th Deals & Drinks?
Join in the invite list and we’ll include you on the next one!
Our portfolio companies are hiring
Please let us know (hello@firstrowpartners.vc) if you or anyone in your network is interested in these opportunities:
Humanly is looking for a Demand Generation Manager
LocalAway is hiring a Community Manager and a TikTok Marketing Expert
mpathic is hiring for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer, Grants Administrator, and VP of Finance (checkout their LinkedIn post)
Prisms VR has several roles open: https://www.prismsvr.com/careers
Velt is hiring for a Founding Fullstack Engineer (Frontend leaning) [India only] and a Founding Fullstack Engineer (Backend leaning) [India only]
Wave AI has several roles open: https://wave-ai.net/careers-2/
And in case you missed it
Liftoff is looking for a Leaders who are hiring and would benefit from Liftoff. Know someone great? Suggest or reshare!
mpathic’s Dr. Grin Lord was featured on AWS Startups May Founder Spotlight 🌟
🔆 Highlights
MOHAI art tour & social gathering: Art+Tech = Innovation | April 16
On Tuesday April 16 2024, First Row Partners came together with our friends at JP Morgan Private Bank to host a private tour of the “100 Years of Junior League of Seattle: Explore the Northwest Art Project” exhibit at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) in Seattle.
We enjoyed lively conversation around the featured works of the Northwest Art Project and explored the link between art criticism techniques and collaboration around complex problem-solving and ideation. There are no clear answers when the route is uncharted, so it takes structured, deliberate idea sharing to gain clarity.
This tour was a first-hand peek into First Row’s distinctive techniques to see “today” and further ahead — where non-obvious ideas and patterns are investment opportunities.
YoungTech Event in Seattle with Minda | April 17
Minda was the featured guest for YoungTech Seattle sharing her path into investing and entrepreneurship. Group organizer Jake Laes prompted conversation around her investment thesis and what happens during the investment decision process.
The event drew more than 50 of Seattle’s next generation of Seattle’s tech movers and shakers. Check-out the LinkedIn post here.
FlyWheel Conference in Wenatchee with Yoko | April 18
Thank you for FlyWheel Conference for welcoming Yoko to give an dynamic workshop on investment decision-making. Participants listened to a pitch from M.H. Lines, Co-founder of StackMoxie, and then described the company using a “mad lib” format. The outcome? Priceless feedback and a differentiated approach to evaluating investment opportunities.
Women In Tech (WiT) Regatta | April 25-26
First Row Partners was thrilled to help design programming for and participate in the “Startup Port” sessions for the WiT Regatta:
Building the Ship While Its Sailing: Navigating Lift in Startups | Kayla Renz (Moderator)
Polishing Your Pitch: Will Require Elbow Grease | Yoko Okano (Moderator)
We enjoyed highlighting the opportunities and challenges of startup life, as well as providing a chance for the audience to “put their investor hat on” to listen to a pitch alongside seasoned investors.
Minda also participated as a panelist for a discussion about catalyzing lasting community change (Junior League of Seattle’s Women with Impact). A key part of the WiT Regatta experience is the small group breakout sessions, which we found added to the energy and quality of panel conversations.
Special thank you to Melody Biringer at Women in Tech for pulling together an outstanding week, Lindsay Randall (JP Morgan) for sponsoring the Startup Port sessions and to our amazing panelists for joining us on stage — Rhona Neben, Laura Garcia Pendergrast, Latrice Lee, Bei-Jing Guo, Dan Kihanya, Anna Fuller, Brooke Steger, Leslie Kincaid-Lawrence, Kiesha Garrison
📰 What we've been reading
Peter Walker, Carta - State of Pre-Seed: Q1 2024
TLDR: Fundraising for pre-seed companies stayed robust in Q1 2024, dominated by SAFEs (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and convertible notes; valuation caps remained flat.
”Pre vs. Post” — which is more commonly used and what are the tradeoffs? This data showed post-money SAFEs are now the default investment vehicle. Over 95% had a valuation cap, which aligns with the market we have observed in our sphere. Note: founders need to manage their cap tables with full knowledge of the “stacking” effect that raising multiple rounds on notes and SAFEs creates. Be sure to know how much of the company you have “sold” along the way to a priced round.
Founders and funders are often thinking about dilution — but always from different angles. For funders with a target % ownership before Series A, a pre-money vehicle presents challenges in “knowing” the dilution and how much more capital and allocation will be needed to achieve their portfolio model %. Will the founder oversubscribe the planned size of the round and thereby reduce their ownership %?
For founders, a pre-money structure affords clarity (such as it is…) on the market value of their existing enterprise, before new capital. They are able to distribute the burden of dilution with all pre-money round investors.
The Carta report did not specify how side letters and other price or governance terms affect pre-seed rounds. Liquidation preferences, warrants, resetting founder vesting schedules, and other mechanisms are captured outside Carta’s systems. Investors should request information on side letters that impact the cap table, during due diligence.
In addition to the question of % ownership, pre-money investors (before a priced round) also face conversion math on share price. There are 3 ways to calculate price at conversion — and some methods do not favor pre-money investors and founders.
In a post-money context, the current cap table members shoulder the dilution. It creates greater % ownership clarity for investors in the round and any subsequent conversion math for priced shares is straightforward. Our preference is a post-money SAFE.
Toby Egbuna, CEO of Chezie - Changing Chezie's One-liner
After being rejected 57 by investors for meeting requests, Toby Egbuna and his team decided to make a change: modify Chezie’s one-liner. In his LinkedIn post, Toby shares his clear and practical advice to early-stage founders on getting an investor’s attention and even gives you a template:
Your one-liner should signal two things to the investor:
1. You’re sitting on a huge opportunity
2. You see a path to unlocking that opportunity“My company [company name], helps the [# of potential customers in your market] in the [industry], achieve [2-3 desired outcomes] with [your solution].”
🖼️ Practice | Observing Art
Art & Critical Thinking. We see a bold line connection between the intuitive and critical thinking skills practiced in the arts and the work of evaluating innovation ideas and opportunities.
Looking at art with abstract and complex themes is an opportunity to slow down your thinking and reflect on how your form a point of view (metacognition.) Use the self-guided questions (provided below) to walk through this image:
Ask yourself — The “elements of art” are doing all the talking in this piece! Which ones are being emphasized to convey the artist’s idea and meaning (e.g., shapes, colors, texture, shading, scale, pattern?) Imagine those choices and how they affects the composition as a whole. How does it affect how your eye moves around in the piece? What is achieved with each the different elements? Each one plays a role in conveying emotion, ideas, movement, etc. As you consider meaning and message, what range of possibilities do you consider? Stretch yourself to list more than your initial impressions offer you. Use the title and artist information for clues in the cultural, artistic style and era. What is your point of view on the piece? What are three themes that stood out to you and why?
👋 Talk Soon!
Please reach out to us so that we can share more about our investment strategies, pipeline, and our fund portfolio!
Minda Brusse & Yoko Okano
This was a great read! Most relevant and interesting part for me was the shared reading "Peter Walker, Carta - State of Pre-Seed: Q1 2024" as well as Changing Chezie's One-liner! :)