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Q4 2020 Portfolio Review

Version One Ventures

Pienza , a Seattle based B2B startup studio led by Bizible founder Aaron Bird, raised $5.1M. . Manny Medina of Outreach was named to Comparably’s Top 50 list for Best CEOs in 2020 as rated by employees. . Zenput was named a Great Place to Work ! . Jam raised a $3.5M seed to Figma-tize product collaboration. Product news.

Portfolio 148
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Recapping Q4 2019

Version One Ventures

Congratulations to Manny Medina and everyone at Outreach , which was named the Fourth Fastest Growing Company in North America on Deloitte’s 2019 Technology Fast 500™. Outreach was named to this prestigious list thanks in part to triple-digit year-over-year revenue growth and the largest customer base in the sales engagement category.

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Techstars is evolving and growing

David Cohen

I was personally absolutely super sad about closing the original Techstars accelerator location in Boulder after this next class, as well as Seattle (another of the original locations.) The separately funded partner accelerator programs which operate in more than 30 locations worldwide are unchanged. We’re sorry for that.

Denver 163
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Upfront Ventures Adds Hamet Watt as New Investment Partner

Both Sides of the Table

I am thrilled to announce that we have added Hamet Watt as a Partner at Upfront Ventures. But as sweet as that success has been (we invested pre-revenue in a small team) today my even more important news was the further expansion of our partner ranks. We have been on a drive to add more operational partners. What does that mean?

Partner 340
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Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Class 17 – Organizational Design – Safi Bahcall

Steve Blank

A little company in Seattle called Microsoft. The idea sat there for a decade until a naval officer named Deak Parsons discovered it, went around to every bureau chief, pounded the table on why it mattered, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, until he got them to cough up a check for $5,000 to fund the project. They were running out of cash.

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A review of the first eleven Techstars Unicorns

David Cohen

I served on the board of directors until the IPO, and during that time we were able to recruit great firms like Foundry Group, SoftTech VC (now Uncork Capital), Bessemer Venture Partners, and Bain Capital Ventures. Techstars funded the company via our Techstars Seattle Accelerator in 2011. 2: Uber (2009). 6: Outreach (2011).

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Embrace Losing – It Will Make You Stronger

Both Sides of the Table

I had lost a previous deal where the team said they liked me but didn’t know my partners well enough so I promised myself never to let that happen again. So I organized a team dinner with all four of my partners and all three of their founders. Next year I’m going to spend time in Seattle and Boulder in addition.

China 333