New essay: What makes a round "easy"

Congrats to @oatay and @dtsao from @BillionToOneInc on the IPO! And thank you @snowmaker for picking them back in 2017 and being such a great partner to them during @ycombinator.

5/ The Codex: theventurecodex.com/ The extension: chromewebstore.google.com/de… The post explaining it all a bit more: open.substack.com/pub/postro…

4/ P.S. about the data: - If you spot any incorrect data, tell us and we’ll fix it. - The Codex relies on publicly announced rounds, so if a round isn't disclosed or some investors aren't listed, the data may be incomplete. - Investor titles and affiliations change frequently. We update these through sweeps of VC websites, but it takes time to capture every change.

3/ The Codex is free for now and in beta. So is the extension we built for it. It could definitely be better. Tell us how.

2/ Use it to: - Look up companies and their funding history - Look up other investors and figure out what they’re actually doing - Build the right list of investors for your companies when they’re ready to raise

1/ I’ve worked with hundreds of VCs and keep running across the same problem: there’s no simple tool to research rounds and competition. So…we built it. The Venture Codex is a better way to do research before investing and before helping your companies fundraise.

May God bless and keep the mayor...far away from us.

Incredible to see @roelofbotha continue Sequoia's tradition by empowering new leadership while he's still at the top of his game. @Alfred_Lin and @gradypb are at the top of every founder's list of preferred partners, and will be for a long time.

At some point bunch of founders seem to have decided that the most ambitious thing they could do was to raise the largest possible SAFE. I’ve never understood that.

Don't worry NYC, socialism can work!

The number of easily avoidable, well documented, boneheaded mistakes made by founders during fundraises – even those with gold plated cap tables – isn’t a sign those founders are dumb/bad. It’s just that fundraising is a complicated system that most founders interact with infrequently. Most investors, on the other hand, do it all day every day. That imbalance is tough.

Rabbi Avi's been building bridges his entire life. The force of his statement here says quite a lot about the threat so many of us feel from Mamdani.

Some say beware speaking out against @ZohranKMamdani – if he wins, he’ll make life difficult for Jews. The opposite is the case: the more we raise a voice against an antisemite, the more we’re protected rather than rendered vulnerable. Make sure to vote. Urge your friends, Jews, and non-Jews, to say no to Mamdani.

Great analysis from Josh Blanchfield @ avos.

An offer to give you a high priced safe is not a “pre-empt.” An offer to have you pitch the partnership is not a “pre-empt.” A strongly suggestive outline of theoretical terms is not a “pre-empt.” A Series A term sheet in your hands is a pre-empt.

One of my favorite things about startups is how quickly you can go from “two hackers with a couple of laptops” to “two hackers with a couple of laptops + an army of people who know what they’re doing + capital to do ambitious things + legions of customers.”

Other data for the week, including Claude's Picks: postround.substack.com/p/ser…