Terrence Rohan
@tmrohan
Seed Investor: Figma, Front, Granola, Hugging Face, Notion, Robinhood, Vanta, etc. Also building, 🏴☠️💸 (http://otherwisefund.com)
Every single successful startup I know has persevered through at least one: - struggled to raise - co-founder split - failed first product/low early PMF - adversarial board/investors - layoffs These don’t typically hit the headlines, but almost every success has at least one.
It used to be rare for a young VC to spin out and launch a new fund. It is now more rare for them to stay.
Seed was born because VC did want to underwrite that early risk. Today, that inefficiency is gone. Seed is now hyper efficient and competitive; valuations and round sizes have ballooned, too. That change also signals there is more opportunity at seed than ever before.
Today, we’re announcing @TrustVanta's Series D and new valuation – $4.15 billion – led by @Wellington_Mgmt alongside @sequoia, @ycombinator, @CrowdStrike, @GoldmanSachs, @jpmorgan, @craft_ventures, and @Atlassian. Vanta’s mission is to help businesses earn and prove trust.
Sharing an update on @figma: we publicly filed our S-1 with the SEC today, and have applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “FIG.” figma.com/blog/s1-public
Authenticity is an under-discussed trait of great founders. It is a vague "you know it when you see it" term. Practically, it means someone is: 1) Genuine - original, not copying anyone. N of 1. 2) Congruent - consistent beliefs and actions. Predictable, principled. 3) Real…
Announcing Charlie + Linear for Agents: • The fastest way to clear your backlog • Triage & plan bug fixes with Charlie • Assign Charlie → production-ready PR
In VC 1 out of 10 deals needs to work. In PE 9 out of 10 deals need to work. In VC it is better to invest and be wrong than than to pass and miss. In PE its the opposite. Pairing PE and VC is awkward. I doubt it will produces top returns.
The number of people who have uploaded medical test results to Chat GPT is remarkable. It will take time, but huge portions of healthcare will become self directed. This “power to the individual” has transformed other industries, and it will do the same to healthcare.
Investing in just the team is the most common thing for a VC to say and least common thing for a VC to do.
Update: Circle is now profitable and on track for $50M+ ARR by EOY. We just had our best month ever with 100% annualized growth and $200K+ in free cash flow 💸 (And what's crazy is our monthly growth continues to accelerate.) NGL: Getting to this milestone wasn't easy.…
Circle growth rates after hitting $1m ARR EOY 2020: 2021 - 4x 2022 - 2x 2023 - 2x run-rate Goal now is to get profitable while growing as fast as we can next year. Nothing beats default alive
Granola in your pocket! 🔥🔥🔥
Say hello to Granola for iOS. When we launched @meetgranola, we wanted to bring the magic of AI notetaking to your Zoom calls. Today, we're bringing that magic to your in-person conversations. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
It’s the opposite. AI will proliferate products and feature parity will become the norm. In this commoditized world, your brand may become your most important moat.
If your brand is your moat, you won’t have a moat for much longer.
The iPhone’s unintended impact on human well being is just coming into focus.
Founders personality builds culture which then builds your moat. Artists craft product and build brands. Executors outpace and build scale. Defensibility originates from within and should an extension of what you do best.
Thrilled to be revealing a glimpse into what I've been building with Kelsie over the last year! A key bottleneck on the path to superintelligence is understanding causal relationships. We plan to fix that at Causal Labs, starting with AI physics models to predict and control the…
We’ve raised $6M to build AI physics models to predict and control the weather. Big thanks to @KindredVentures, @refactor, @BoxGroup, @factorialcap, Otherwise, Karman VC, and our wonderful angels. Come help us solve the world’s most difficult problems. We’re hiring!
The founder of a top YC company in the current batch on Venture Capital: "People used to climb Everest and they needed oxygen. Today, people climb it without oxygen. I want to summit Everest and use as little oxygen (VC) as possible." Vibe shift.
How a founder answers a hard question is more important than their polished pitch.