The anti-portfolio

April 15, 2024

The return of New York Fintech Week is a time where VCs from all around the country descend upon the city and between the gatherings and lunches and dinners, it turns into quite the week. I had the chance to attend a number of these events and this year more than ever felt like we’ve hit a bit of the mainstream. 

Over the course of these last 5 years of fundraising, we’ve spoken to nearly 1,000 investors (they’re all on the distribution list for the company updates that go out every 2-3 months!). We do the little things like this right and these company updates help prospective VCs stay in the loop on our progress and also keep them excited about what we’re up to. It’s doing this that also helped us close our Series B as there was no shortage of investors who passed on us in prior rounds but chose to come in because they were so impressed with our progress. 

I managed to catch up with a number of these investors last week, especially the ones who saw us at our Pre-Seed and Seed rounds and who’ve been following our story through these updates. One of the consistent themes was just how happy they were for our success, to the point where they shared that we even made it onto a few of their anti-portfolio lists. The anti-portfolio list is something created by many VCs every year to review which companies they passed on that have done well and what made them pass, in order to help them figure out how not to make that mistake again. For us, many of them passed because they didn’t quite understand the market or the potential, even if the team was strong and they had every belief that we would figure it out. Conversely, the companies they invested in that ended up doing poorly were ones where they had some reservations about the team that came up in diligence but they had so much conviction in the market and the idea that they were willing to look past it. Team above all else, it’s the old adage in venture that proves itself time and time again and we are not a team to bet against. 

We’ve made it onto the anti-portfolio list for several of these investors and that’s the best compliment we could ever be paid.