Early stage deal flow

I’ve been seeing some great deals in the early stage lately. Nearly every company I’ve come across is raising on a SAFE still and postponing their Series A and Series B until the markets settle a bit. With that said, the valuation caps are much more aligned to investors like me who write smaller checks.

I’ve largely kept my wallet closed over the last 6 months except for a couple opportunities. I wanted to see where valuations would settle and how the latest trends in AI would shake out.

I still don’t have an amazing grasp on the AI trend, but I suspect that it’s overhyped and the biggest benefactors will be the incumbents. For that reason, I’m holding off on any major AI investments right now. Part of that is that I just don’t have access to the great AI investments out there.

Beyond AI, there seems to be some amazing founders building some interesting products. I’m pretty excited to start writing checks again in this bear market. There will be some great companies built during this time that have much better fundamentals and plans than what we saw in 2020-2021.

For me, I need to make sure to temper my excitement. There’s going to be a lot of good companies to invest in, but I’m in search of the great ones. I never want to be in a position where I can’t write a check to one of these can’t miss opportunities because I overextended too early.