👋 Hi, I’m Andre and welcome to my weekly newsletter, Data-driven VC. Every Tuesday, I publish “Insights” to digest the most relevant startup research & reports, and every Thursday, I publish “Essays” that cover hands-on insights about data-driven innovation & AI in VC. Follow along to understand how startup investing becomes more data-driven, why it matters, and what it means for you.
Brought to you by Affinity - Insights you need to find, manage, and close more deals
2023 was volatile. Its twists and turns left many investors reeling. Will 2024 be any different?
Find out in a discussion featuring Affinity, Foxe Capital, SaaS Ventures, and Intel Ignite speakers. The session reveals findings from a survey of 700+ investors about the 2024 dealmaking environment, and how VCs are adapting their strategies to a changing market.
Welcome to our monthly wrap-up episode where we’ll cover January’s most relevant content at the intersection of VC, startups, data, AI & productivity. I read it all so you don’t need to - here we go👇
INTERESTING RESEARCH & REPORTS📈
This section is a teaser for what you can expect from our new weekly “Insights” episodes launching next Tuesday: Alternating formats that “Digest” the most interesting startup research & reports from the previous two weeks + “Synthesize” all available research to create a deep knowledge base for various startup topics.
What are the patterns of successful startups? We ran the numbers on 25k+ teams and found:
Number of executives: 3-6 is best, single founder is worst
CEO: Important to be founder, external CEO is bad
Age: Teams with higher age are more successful; little difference between 25 to early 40s
Education: Master and PhD similarly good, Bachelors and no degree both bad
Equity for Advisors: What's the Benchmark? When it comes to equity grants for advisors in US startups, recent Carta data from 47k+ advisor grants reveals some intriguing benchmarks: