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Hotel prices above $1200 is peak. SF was packed this week.
I was in town for a day for meetings and attending some of the events around the big Databricks event in town. Hotel prices were as high as I have seen them in years and the streets were flooded with people. When you meet with founders and other VC investors, there is talk of AI, is this a bubble, are some of these valuations real, and the energy being at all time highs. More and more founders I talk to are hiring sales reps in SF as well as coming to town for weeks during their fundraiser.
On the wealth management side, multiple people mentioned to me how they thought it was interesting that $SPCX ( ▼ 7.02% ) employees negotiated lower fees from advisors. As an investor in the wealth tech space, the need for advisors, and tax aware products has never been stronger. Our portfolio companies Frec, SyntheticFi & Seeds are seeing tons of demand as well as Secfi. Finding alternatives to the AQR tax loss harvesting products which require $3m minimum account sizes continues to be the talk in wealth circles.
I met up with the VC guys at Fiat which have a new office and they just happen to be next to the Corgi cafe. After all the Corgi comments on twitter post their last round, along with their 7 day a week work schedule I had to snap a photo. The cafe was packed and is open 24/7!
I also was excited to see a new Waymo vehicle which was different than the normal Waymo’s I have taken.
With the speed at which companies are growing, the expectations continue to change for founders raising. $5m is the clear Series A revenue expectation in most cases. Many founders who have raised one round of financing are making sure to call it pre-seed vs. seed to give themselves optionality when needing to raise again. AI companies and what that means is being scrutinized like it should and founders have to continue to really explain their moat which must include a go to market and sales strategy. There is more money now then there has been in the last few years for startups, but there is also a lot of money chasing the same deals. Exciting times to say the least.
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