Another month of building Daring Ventures in the books and we’re continuing to make great progress! We thank you for your continued support for what we are building here at Daring Ventures.
A Quick Recap
Why We Are Here
Daring Ventures is the inevitable result of lives spent forging paths into rooms never meant for us. Our unique backgrounds as both “insiders” & “outsiders” make Daring Ventures truly a category-of-one investment firm. We are uniquely equipped to find, nurture, and win with the non-obvious.
Building a Firm, Not a Fund
A core part of our strategy since October has been to de-risk the fund for our future partners by building institutional-quality operations from day one.
We are now turnkey and remain ready to deploy capital into our active pipeline of deals.
May Updates
While building infrastructure, we've also been executing and the early indicators are encouraging:
Opened diligence on a company in the sales intelligence space
Continued to source deals adding 30 to our pipeline
Joe was featured on the Breaking into VC Podcast
Portfolio Highlights
Hostie
Randall, Brendan, & the Hostie team were in Chicago for the National Restaurant Association Conference, the biggest restaurant conference of the year.
Several partnership discussions are underway with marquee players in the space.
PraxisPro
Cam & the PraxisPro team are kicking off their seed round early due to strong initial customer adoption and expansion. Use of proceeds will be to accelerate growth and expand the team to execute on their pipeline.
PraxisPro and Vanigent BioPharm formally launched a strategic partnership focused on transforming commercial enablement for contract sales teams in life sciences.
Steer
Steer just rolled out on MarianaTek, one of the leading wellness industry software platforms.
Maddie Tufts shares her journey from Bumble & Private Equity to starting an influencer marketing company on the Womansplain podcast here.
Beagle Labs
Beagle Labs is closing their seed round—we can’t wait to share who they’ve secured!
DV Team made 10+ investor intros!
Launched public beta of SPARKY, a new product providing property owners with insights about their homes and recommended actionable insights for safety and structural improvements.
Over 5,000 homes inspected to date.
Focus for June: Fundraising!
We plan to kick off our formal fundraising efforts very shortly and are thrilled to begin sharing Daring Ventures more widely.
We appreciate any and all suggestions, ideas, event recommendations, etc. as our firm takes this exciting new step.
And, of course, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t kindly ask for any introductions to folks in your networks. This could be potential LPs for our current raise, a future raise, or just someone you think we should know.
As first-time fund managers, we are privileged to have such a deep bench of supporters and are grateful for the help each of you has provided so far. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us if there is any way we could be helpful to you.
Thinking Out Loud
We believe in building in public. You can find us 'thinking out loud' here:
📝Adventures in Ventureland Chronicles our cross-country quest to understand America’s emerging tech hubs. Read It Here
📝Out of Scope Substack Joe’s newsletter exploring overlooked talent, the limits of credentialism, and the rise of human skills. Read It Here
🎙️Let's Be Heard Podcast Maddi ****turns whispers about women's health into powerful conversations. Latest Episode: Hormonal Medicine with Elizabeth Ruzzo, PhD, founder of adyn
Daring Ventures in the Wild
Birdie’s in Brooklyn was a packed house for our HospitalityTech mixer co-hosted with LastCall, a software platform that helps bars stay packed and boost sales. Presented in partnership with Safra National Bank.
Lauren Hinton representing Daring Ventures during the GP/LP Cocktail Hour at Maxwell Tribeca hosted by Reitler.
Past Travel—did we miss someone we should connect with? Let us know!
CalPERS Catalyst in Sacramento, CA
GP / LP in the D in Detroit, MI
Joe Alalou at CalPERS Catalyze event in Sacramento.
Upcoming Travel—should we look forward to seeing you? Is there someone we should meet?
F3 June 25th through 27th in Milwaukee, WI
Behind the Scenes
On her way to Charleston, SC for the Dig South summit, Maddi’s go-to airport snack quickly morphed into a great new friendship.
Turns out, she was sitting next to one of the founders of the brand Pop Daddy, John Zebari, while eating one of his products!
John shared some great advice about what it takes to build in the notoriously competitive snack space, some war stories from his prior life as an executive in Big Snack, and teased some of the unexpected flavors coming in Q4.
Let’s just say we’re excited.
Anyway, you never know where you’re going to meet amazing founders!
Also this is not an ad… yet 😉
Co-founder & GP Maddi Holman pictured with Pop Daddy Pickle Pretzels… oh and Pop Daddy co-founder John Zebari!
Closing
Thanks again for all the support!
Warmly,
Maddi Holman & Joe Alalou
Your two GPs