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VCFamilia - Fund Raises, Deal Flow Circles, and Storytelling Series!
Our 2024 Programming kicks off today at 2pm PT/ 5pm ET: The Storytelling Series with Robbie Crabtree | Session 1: Become a Better Communicator & Storyteller for Career Progress. RSVP below if you haven’t already!
LaFamilia Newsletter
January 25, 2024
Hola VCFamilia!
We hope you have all been enjoying the busy new year! Our 2024 Programming kicks off today at 2pm PT / 5pm ET: The Storytelling Series with Robbie Crabtree | Session 1: Become a Better Communicator & Storyteller for Career Progress. RSVP below if you haven’t already!
What to expect:
💢 Major Updates: Newsletter Cadence
🤑 The Capital Corner: Act One Ventures & Dux Capital Announcements!
📅 Programming: Storytelling Series Sessions & January’s Deal Flow Circle
💁♂️💁♀️ Investor Community Spotlight: CoreNest Capital’s Investment Hunt & Roadshows Invest Peru 2024 Event
👩🏾💻 10 VC Roles
🔊Call to action: Feedback
💢Major Updates
Based on feedback, we will be publishing our newsletter every 2 weeks, continuing to alternate between the VCFamilia Newsletter and the FounderFamilia Newsletter. We will continue to send out more tailored one-off emails on programming as needed, which is preferred from our community members. If you have any feedback let us know!
🤑The Capital Corner
💪Act One, Dux Capital, and more 💪
Act One Ventures Raises Fund III
Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, Act One Ventures, has successfully raised its third fund with $73 million in committed capital, nearly tripling the amount raised for its second fund and bringing its total assets under management (AUM) to $148 million. The achievement is significant amidst a contraction in the venture capital industry, marked by firms struggling to raise new funds.
Act One Ventures, led by General Partners Alejandro Guerrero, a VCFamilia member, and Michael Silton, has a history of investing in 47 companies since its inception in 2016, with a core philosophy of focusing on "founder-market fit."
Fund III will enable Act One Ventures to continue its support for early-stage business software companies, particularly those in verticals such as SaaS, fintech, compliance, and e-commerce infrastructure. The firm has already led four out of five deals made from the new fund, providing initial checks ranging from $1 million to $2 million.
Notably, over 70% of Act One Ventures' portfolio companies are led by women and people of color, highlighting their commitment to diversity without having a formal diversity mandate.
Dux Capital Closes 1st Round of Fund II
Dux Capital, a seed-stage venture capital firm with a focus on the Hispanic-Latino community, has successfully closed the first round of its second fund. The initial close was led by Bank of America and featured investments from prominent Hispanic-Latino investors. Additionally, the firm welcomed Susana Espinosa de los Reyes, as its third partner, a notable figure in the venture capital world and a VCFamilia member!
Founded by VCFamilia members Daniel Santamarina and José Luis Silva seven years ago, Dux Capital's mission is to provide strategic capital to empower Hispanic-Latino entrepreneurs and bridge the funding gap they often face. This success follows their first fund's achievements in supporting these entrepreneurs who contribute significantly to the global economy.
Raul Anaya, President of Business Banking at Bank of America, congratulated Dux Capital and acknowledged their role in nurturing diverse emerging managers and entrepreneurs. David Bader, Bank of America Austin President, welcomed Dux Capital to Austin and emphasized their support for Hispanic-Latino entrepreneurship as a means to strengthen the local and national economy.
Dux Capital, named after the Latin word for leader, operates from its headquarters in Austin, Texas, with additional offices in Mexico City.
📅Programming
🎟Upcoming Events
TODAY- Storytelling Series with Robbie Crabtree | Session 1: Become a Better Communicator & Storyteller for Career Progress
Join VCFamilia for the first session in our Storytelling Series for Investors, led by Robbie Crabtree, founder and CEO of Competitive Storytelling.
About the session:
As a junior VC, you want to stand out to your bosses to progress in your career. Your ability to communicate the value you're delivering inside of the firm is critical to making this happen. In this session you will learn the most effective strategies and tactics to share stories that show the success you're having as well as how best to articulate why you deserve a raise, promotion, or more responsibility.
📆Thursday January 25th
⏰ 2pm PST/ 5pm EST
💻Location: Virtual, Zoom link provided upon approval
January Deal Flow Circle
We are bringing DFCs back and will be led by Priscilla Russo! She is a powerhouse and we’re excited to have VCFamilia members set up
❓ What is the Deal Flow Circle (DFC)? VCFamilia will be hosting monthly deal flow calls on Wednesdays at 10:00 AM PT. During these sessions, VCF members will have 1 minute each to share details about startups that are currently raising. This is only for approved VCFamilia members on the slack.
⚙ How does it work? To participate in the upcoming DFC, please submit this form with details about a high-quality deal at least 48 hours before the meeting. In the past, we've had folks get into Sequoia deals together, co-invest, and find new deal flow friendships. The day before the session, we will send Zoom details and an Airtable link containing that month's deals to all contributors. Filling out the link is essential for access to other deals and the Zoom deal review session. You give, you get.
🚨 DFC Norms:
Deals shared within the DFC remain confidential unless explicit permission is granted by the referral and founder. Violating this rule will result in being blacklisted from all VCFamilia communities, events, and opportunities.
We don’t block out whoever shares a company from a round. They sourced it, they get the first spot. Period.
Times are tough right now - assume best intent and support VCF members as much as possible to get into great deals and rise together.
➡ Next Steps: If you are interested in joining the Deal Flow Circle Meeting for January, please fill out this form by January 29, 2024.
📆 Date: January 31st
⏰ Time: 10am PST/1pm EST
FounderFamilia Storytelling Series with Robbie Crabtree | Session 1: Foundations of Storytelling
Please share this event with your portfolio companies!
Join FounderFamilia for the first session in our Storytelling Series for Founders, led by Robbie Crabtree, founder and CEO of Competitive Storytelling.
About the session:
The best way to turn your startup into a successful business is to make sure that customers, partners, and stakeholders know and believe in the story. This session is designed to equip you with the storytelling skills, strategies, and tactics of the most successful founders. You will walk away with frameworks to immediately implement and practice points to develop your verbal storytelling.
📆Thursday February 8th
⏰ 2pm PST/ 5pm EST
💻Location: Virtual, Zoom link provided upon approval
Investor Storytelling Series with Robbie Crabtree | Session 2: Become a Better Communicator and Storyteller to Get Past IC
Join VCFamilia for the second session in our Storytelling Series for Investors, led by Robbie Crabtree, founder and CEO of Competitive Storytelling.
About the session:
As a junior VC, you need to know how to pitch the companies you want to back and get buy in from your IC. To do this takes a clear communication strategy and ability to retell the story from the founders in a way to excite the rest of your team. In this session we will dive into some frameworks you can deploy, highlights you need to make sure to hit, and ways to address the challenges before they derail your chances.
📆Thursday, February 29th
⏰ 2pm PST/ 5pm EST
💻Location: Virtual, Zoom link provided upon approval
For Investors: Visit our VCFamilia Q1 Programming Page to learn more about what LFF has in store for investors and RSVP for events!
📣 Spread the Word
LBAN Sole Conference
On behalf of our partners, the Latino Business Action Network (LBAN), and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative (SLEI), we are pleased to invite you to join LFF for the 9th Annual State of Latino Entrepreneurship (SOLE) Summit!
📆 Date: March 27th
⏰ Time: 11:30am- 9pm
📍 Location: Stanford Graduate School of Business
💁♂️💁♀️Investor Community Spotlight
CoreNest Capital Looking for Investments
Pedro Crespo, VCFamilia member, is now the Investment Strategy Manager at CoreNest Capital. It’s a new firm funded and founded by serial entrepreneurs with experience in Sass, Hardware, Manufacturing, AI/ML, Robotics, and Blockchain. They focus on SaaS, Fintech, AI, and Robotics and write checks from $100K to $250K for Pre-seed/Seed Stages and up to $500K for Series A. If anyone has a founder in mind who fits this description and think would make an excellent investment, please share any info or intros to [email protected]!
Roadshows Invest Peru 2024 Event- Pasadena
"Roadshows Invest Peru 2024-Pasadena" is organized by PromPeru in Pasadena, California on 1/31/24 (afternoon). The event will showcase Peru as an attractive place for tech investments within Latin America, targeting US companies and investors as the event's main audience. Learn more and register here or contact Luis Narro to [email protected].
Are you in a fund that’s raising? Do you want to nominate someone? Do you want yourself to be featured? Do you have a big announcement you want to share? You’ve come to the right place. This section of the newsletter is especially for elevating and celebrating our community🎉.
Nominate someone below!
👩🏾💻10 VC Roles
Investment Intern - Summer 2024, 186 Ventures (Boston)
Investment Associate, Scout Ventures (Austin)
Venture Analyst, Forum Ventures (NYC/partially remote)
Platform Operations Manager, Forum Ventures (Toronto / partially remote)
Summer Associate Program, Vamos Ventures (Los Angeles)
Investor/Intern, G2 Venture Partners (Bay Area)
Analyst, G2 Venture Partners (Bay Area)
Investor, Headline VC (Location Varies)
VCP Platform Coordinator, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (Chicago)
Analyst, NYC Family Office (NYC)
🔊Call to Action: Feedback
Your valuable input and feedback are integral to our mission of delivering top-notch programming for our community. We sincerely invite you to share your thoughts and ideas on the content you'd like to see. Our feedback opportunities are readily available immediately after every event in the post-event survey we send out.
Should you wish to connect with us sooner or have something to share, please don't hesitate to reach out to Andrea Zapata, our Head of Programming, via Slack DM. Your insights drive our efforts to serve you better!