2024.05.15
Christine Tsai
Dear Partners of 500 Global,
Looking back at the first three months of 2024, the venture capital landscape has undoubtedly recalibrated. This is evident even in the early stages of investment, where seed-stage companies in the US are on track at the current pace to raise approximately what they did in 2018. Long gone are the days of growth at all costs. Today, strong business models, profitability, and sustainable growth are king. Additionally, recent listings in the IPO market, as evidenced by companies like Reddit, Astera, Ibotta and now Rubrik, have brought a wave of optimism that the markets continue to thaw and bring a hopeful outlook to 2024 Despite the global pressure on VC, we’re proud to have maintained our rankings in 2023 as one of the most active VC firms globally across investments and exits according to PitchBook.
Portfolio Reflections
Above: With Melanie Perkins (co-founder & CEO of Canva) at Canva’s recent SF investor gathering to celebrate their 10-year anniversary.
Towards the end of 2023, Canva’s founders came to the SF Bay Area to (belatedly) celebrate their 10-year anniversary with investors. It was a fantastic event that highlighted their amazing achievements over the past decade, and it was a great reminder of how our investment in Canva back in 2012 represents so much of what makes 500 Global unique.
Canva has not only revolutionized the design space with its user-friendly platform and innovative features, its product-led growth and AI innovation continue to empower millions of people around the world. You can read here about what excited us about investing in Canva back in 2012, and why we continue to be excited about their future.
Backing Talented Founders Everywhere
Above: Global Accelerator Program (GAP) Batch 34 founders and the 500 Global team celebrate the culmination of Demo Day on March 6th, 2024
On March 6th, we hosted Batch 34 Demo Day of our Global Accelerator Program. The group of 16 startups was our last hybrid batch, spending 2 months working from their own HQs and 2 months in-person at our Palo Alto HQ office. At least nine companies are either innovating directly in AI infrastructure or leveraging AI technology to solve problems in LegalTech, EdTech, and Travel and Logistics. These founders hail from Budapest, Singapore, London, Toronto, San Francisco, LA, and Chicago, represent more than 12 different nationalities, and are alums of companies like Google, Meta, Square, X (fka Twitter), Grab, Yext, and The Moonshot Factory. 37% of these have at least one female co-founder. We were also fortunate to have a Batch 5 alum, Natalie Gordon (Founder and CEO of Babylist), kick off Demo Day with a fireside chat where she shared about the growth of Babylist from a small startup to a $400M revenue company, her own journey as a founder and CEO, her take on the consumer sector, and advice for founders building today.
Batch 35 will kick off on May 6 and will be our first fully in-person batch since Batch 26 at the end of 2019. May 6th will be Growth Bootcamp Week (formerly known as Hell Week) for our new batch, and we’ll open up the office to alumni and other 500 portfolio companies. During this opening week, we will have a series of exciting speakers joining us, including Ali Moiz, Founder and CEO of Stonks, and David Ha, Co-Founder and CEO of Sakana AI.
Despite the macro and global challenges, 500 continues to rank as one of the most active venture capital firms in 2023, according to PitchBook. From celebrating big moments with companies like Canva, to embarking on new journeys with early-stage founders in the upcoming Batch 35 cohort, we remain steadfast in finding incredibly driven, globally ambitious founders wherever they’re based and supporting them throughout their journey.
Above: 500 Global team celebrating with David Ha (co-founder & CEO of Sakana AI) in Tokyo on the day of their Evolutionary Model Merge release.
Hear more from our Managing Partners around the world:
- Founding Partner and CEO Christine Tsai was a recent guest on the European VC (EU.VC) podcast to talk about her journey building 500 Global over the past 14 years, lessons learned, and fundraising tips.
- Managing Partner Tony Wang’s commentary on the impact of Microsoft’s hiring of Inflection CEO Mustafa Suleyman was featured in Bloomberg, FT and PitchBook.
- Managing Partner Bedy Yang spoke at Web Summit Rio on building startup ecosystems through education and the secrets to fundraising in tough times.
- COO and Managing Partner Courtney Powell, spoke at the 0100 Conference Europe in Amsterdam on a panel about aligning venture investing with positive change in society and the environment. In the lead up, she authored this article about her 2024 outlook.
- Managing Partner Vishal Harnal spoke on a panel at Fortune’s Innovation Summit in Hong Kong, providing insights into the next megatrends for VC.
Throughout May and June, the 500 Global team will be at a number of events around the world. Please drop us a line if you’ll be at any of these below:
- May 5-8, Los Angeles: Milken Institute Global Conference
- May 6-7, Dubai: Dubai Fintech Summit 2024
- May 10, Palo Alto: 500 Global’s AI Salon (held at our HQ office)
- May 15-15, Tokyo: SusHi Tech Tokyo 2024
- May 20-21, New York: SALT iConnections NY
- May 29-31, Calgary: Inventures 2024
- May 30, Atlanta: Southeast LP Summit
- June 11, Dana Point: California LP Summit
- June 11-13, Rio de Janeiro: FII Priority Rio
- June 17-20, Toronto: Collision
- June 23-26, Maryland: SelectUSA Investment Summit
Questions or thoughts to share? We’d love to hear them. Please reach us at ir@500.co.
Thank you,
Christine Tsai
CEO and Founding Partner, 500 Global
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