---
title: "Zach Kurtz - Stealth | LinkedIn"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/c84fdb8c-0341-433f-8552-9279bbe4fe3e
source_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-kurtz"
stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/e0463f3f-bab9-45b3-b8fc-afe7976b7fcc
summary: "Zach Kurtz is a LinkedIn profile based in the New York City Metropolitan Area, associated with a stealth company and the University of Richmond, with over 1K followers and 500+ connections. His activity includes speaking at the Commercial Observer industrial conference, attending NFL Biz Week in New York, and engaging with content about AI-driven agentic brokerage in retail investing."
tags: "linkedin-profile, stealth-startup, networking, new-york, commercial-real-estate, ai-investing, professional"
key_entities: "Zach Kurtz (person), Stealth (organization), University of Richmond (organization), LinkedIn (organization), Commercial Observer (organization), NFL (organization), New York City Metropolitan Area (location), Agentic Brokerage (concept), Commercial Observer Industrial Conference (event), Biz Week (event)"
classification: "snippet"
content_hash: "sha256:97f496bdb29432c85663b727ce8ab45492d09ab71c10863292859607084ba802"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 11897
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Zach Kurtz - Stealth | LinkedIn

Sign in to view Zach’s full profile Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Zach Kurtz Sign in to view Zach’s full profile Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . New York City Metropolitan Area Contact Info Sign in to view Zach’s full profile Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . 1K followers 500+ connections See your mutual connections View mutual connections with Zach Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Join to view profile Message Sign in to view Zach’s full profile Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Stealth University of Richmond Report this profile Activity Follow Sign in to view Zach’s full profile Zach can introduce you to 1 people at Stealth Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in Sign in with Email or New to LinkedIn? Join now By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Excited to be speaking at the Commercial Observer industrial conference tomorrow in NYC! Join our panel as we chat about the subcategories within… Excited to be speaking at the Commercial Observer industrial conference tomorrow in NYC! Join our panel as we chat about the subcategories within… Liked by Zach Kurtz Attending Biz Week in New York through the NFL was a great opportunity. Being in rooms with some of the most innovative minds in business and sports,… Attending Biz Week in New York through the NFL was a great opportunity. Being in rooms with some of the most innovative minds in business and sports,… Liked by Zach Kurtz Today marks the start of a new era in retail investing: the Agentic Brokerage. AI agents, working for you—managing your portfolio… Today marks the start of a new era in retail investing: the Agentic Brokerage. AI agents, working for you—managing your portfolio… Liked by Zach Kurtz Join now to see all activity Experience & Education *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Stealth *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ******* *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ** ****** **** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ********** *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ***** ** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ****** **** *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ********** ** ******** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ********** ****** ******** *************** ************** ** ******* *** ********** ***** ** *********** undefined *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2015 - 2019 *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> ******* **** ******* **** ****** *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> **** ****** undefined *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> 2011 - 2014 View Zach’s full experience See their title, tenure and more. Sign in Welcome back Email or phone Password Show Forgot password? Sign in or By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . New to LinkedIn? Join now or By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement , Privacy Policy , and Cookie Policy . Volunteer Experience *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Server *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> St. Francis Soup Kitchen *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Dec 2010 - Dec 2014 4 years 1 month Poverty Alleviation While attending High School in Philadelphia I volunteered at the St. Francis Soup Kitchen over 40 hours each year. *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Mentor *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MIRACLE LEAGUE OF RICHMOND VIRGINIA INC *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Sep 2016 - Present 9 years 10 months Children Helping mentally handicapped children play baseball and have fun. Courses *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Accounting (Financial, Managerial) *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ACCT 201, 202 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Business Communication *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> BUAD 205 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Business Information Systems *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MGMT 320 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Calculus (Differential, Integral) *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MATH 211, 212 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Economics (Micro, Macro, American Economic History) *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> ECON 101, 102 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Ethical, Social and Legal Responsibility of Businesses *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> BUAD 392 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Organizational Behavior *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MGMT 330 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Principles of Financial Management *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> FIN 360 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Principles of Marketing *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> MKT 320 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Statistics for Business and Economics *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> BUAD 202 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Honors & Awards *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> A-10 Commissioner's Honor Roll *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> All A's List *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Fal 2016, Spring 2017 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Dean's List *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017 *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> Languages *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> English *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Native or bilingual proficiency *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> *]:mb-0 text-[18px] text-color-text leading-regular group-hover:underline font-semibold"> Spanish *]:mb-0 not-first-middot leading-[1.75]"> Elementary proficiency *]:mb-0 [&>*]:text-md [&>*]:text-color-text-low-emphasis"> More activity by Zach I’m combining my startup background with my time on the cricket pitch. 🏏 Taking a couple of months to explore after winding down Echo helped me get… I’m combining my startup background with my time on the cricket pitch. 🏏 Taking a couple of months to explore after winding down Echo helped me get… Liked by Zach Kurtz Thank you everyone that showed out for our latest "Sports x Commerce"! These events have really taken a life of their own, always awesome to meet… Thank you everyone that showed out for our latest "Sports x Commerce"! These events have really taken a life of their own, always awesome to meet… Liked by Zach Kurtz So excited to be part of the Ramp team right now — we're growing quickly and pushing the boundaries of what finance automation can do! The pace is… So excited to be part of the Ramp team right now — we're growing quickly and pushing the boundaries of what finance automation can do! The pace is… Liked by Zach Kurtz Best hires are the ones who prove you right in the first 90 days. Our team just demoed the newest version of our contract extraction engine at our… Best hires are the ones who prove you right in the first 90 days. Our team just demoed the newest version of our contract extraction engine at our… Liked by Zach Kurtz Honored to be recognized alongside this incredible group of women shaping Fintech. Honored to be recognized alongside this incredible group of women shaping Fintech. Liked by Zach Kurtz Really excited to share that we officially launched Generated Assets on Public. Enter any investment thesis to build a custom investable index in… Really excited to share that we officially launched Generated Assets on Public. Enter any investment thesis to build a custom investable index in… Liked by Zach Kurtz Exceedingly proud to be a part of the team behind this historic settlement. As a former volunteer coach, I learned firsthand what it meant to pour my… Exceedingly proud to be a part of the team behind this historic settlement. As a former volunteer coach, I learned firsthand what it meant to pour my… Liked by Zach Kurtz 🎤 I had the chance to speak at Techcrunch Disrupt Day 1 to share "What VCs Really Want To Hear in Your Pitch” alongside Jyoti Bansal (CEO, Harness),… 🎤 I had the chance to speak at Techcrunch Disrupt Day 1 to share "What VCs Really Want To Hear in Your Pitch” alongside Jyoti Bansal (CEO, Harness),… Liked by Zach Kurtz View Zach’s full profile See who you know in common Get introduced Contact Zach directly Join to view full profile Other similar profiles Allison Roberts 💃 Allison Roberts 💃 Burst 7K followers Lehi, UT View Profile Priyash Maini Priyash Maini CVS Health 5K followers San Diego, CA View Profile Dylan Barbour Dylan Barbour Vizer 9K followers San Diego, CA View Profile Ryan Narus Ryan Narus Archimedes Group, LLC 9K followers Charlotte, NC View Profile Catherine Baker Catherine Baker NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital 5K followers New York, NY View Profile Elizabeth Endres Elizabeth Endres theheard 3K followers New York, NY View Profile Kunaal Kapoor MBA, MPH Kunaal Kapoor MBA, MPH Cedars-Sinai 14K followers Los Angeles Metropolitan Area View Profile Zachary Muñoz Zachary Muñoz UNALTERED Athletics 5K followers Longwood, FL View Profile Connor O'Brien Connor O'Brien Babson College 7K followers Greater Phoenix Area View Profile Osula Lam, MAS Osula Lam, MAS Blue Shield of California 3K followers Monterey Park, CA View Profile Aagya Mathur Aagya Mathur Aavia 8K followers New York, NY View Profile Jonathan Ng Jonathan Ng Iterative Health 9K followers Cambridge, MA View Profile Lauren Waskewicz Lauren Waskewicz Be You Be Wholesome 5K followers San Diego, CA View Profile Tom Aulet Tom Aulet Ergatta 5K followers Brooklyn, NY View Profile Beth Tofel Beth Tofel FootprintID 7K followers Livingston, NJ View Profile Jason Bellet Jason Bellet Eko Health 12K followers Los Angeles, CA View Profile Alex at Hallow Alex at Hallow 33K followers United States View Profile Hank Balch Hank Balch Healthcare HQ 29K followers College Station, TX View Profile Cameron Graham Cameron Graham Storii 10K followers San Francisco Bay Area View Profile Ken Horenstein Ken Horenstein Pack Ventures 11K followers Seattle, WA View Profile Show more profiles Show fewer profiles Explore more posts Daniel Dart Rock Yard Ventures • 10K followers 🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg 19 1 Comment Morgan Thelander J. Thelander Consulting • 4K followers Revenue... revenue... on the wall... In this week's PC data drop, we're looking at how median total cash and founder/non-founder equity compensation for CEOs of private tech companies shifts based on revenue. Generally speaking, the more revenue a company generates, the higher the CEOs median total cash compensation. As far as total founder equity goes, the typical dilution still occurs. The breakdown: 💰Private tech companies with 𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 pay their CEOs a median of $297,400 in total cash 💰That jumps to $430,000 once the companies hit $50 million+ in revenue 💰Meanwhile, the non-founder equity remains steady around 5.00%, peaking at 6.61% for companies generating $50 million or more in revenue Find out how your company's current compensation stacks up to market by participating in the no-cost Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey today. You'll receive free access to real-time compensation data for 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘯𝘱𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘳. T𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘦𝘵 - survey.jthelander.com Interested to see how CEO compensation by revenue compares to total financing? Stay tuned for what's coming next. #CEOCompensation #ExecutiveCompensation #PrivateCompany #TechLeadership #Founders #TechCEOs #revenuegenerating 6 Shantanu Mehta Spring • 6K followers I spent last evening digging into 26 food & bev companies’ round valuations. At the early stage in classic VC (eg. SaaS), the golden rule still applies: don’t give up more than 15–20% of your company in your first raise → if raising $1M, ~$6M post-money valuation is the sweet spot. Certain variables push that number higher/lower: moat, early traction, founding team, comp benchmarks – but it’s a solid anchor. But in CPG and food & beverage, valuations are typically set using revenue multiples. In Canada, most early CPG rounds I’ve seen raise at 4–6× annual revenue. In the US sample I analyzed (26 companies), the median was 8× and average 14× — skewed by a few outliers, but directionally higher across the board. The gap likely comes down to deeper consumer capital markets, more active acquirers, and higher risk tolerance among US investors. So, if you’re raising your first CPG round, use both lenses: → Protect your ownership (don’t give up >20%) → Know your multiple (4–6× in Canada) Valuation is both math and narrative. The best founders raise on the story behind their numbers and explain why their brand deserves the upper end of the range. Hope this helps you raise on the right terms :) — Drop me a note for all decks! 👉 I share my thoughts 2-3 times/week on VC, startups, and what I’m personally investing in (public + private). Follow along :) 32 1 Comment 20%) → Know your multiple (4–6× in Canada) Valuation is both math and narrative. The best founders raise on the story behind their numbers and explain why their brand deserves the upper end of the range. Hope this helps you raise on the right terms :) — Drop me a note for all decks! 👉 I share my thoughts 2-3 times/week on VC, startups, and what I’m personally investing in (public + private). Follow along :)" aria-hidden="true" data-delayed-url="https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/D5622AQEZPVqkkeYAgw/feedshare-shrink_800/B56ZnCtnWCJ4Ag-/0/1759908363257?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=PivCB6UUYlfQD9lutNxFREseFrikt6pqniGcHBQfnOg"> Patrick O'Shaughnessy Positive Sum • 13K followers David George leads Andreessen Horowitz Growth, which has backed some of the most successful technology companies including Stripe, SpaceX, Waymo, Databricks, Figma, OpenAI, and Cursor. This conversation is a detailed look at how David built and runs the growth business. He shares how they win the most competitive deals, the principles behind its culture, and the framework he uses to evaluate companies. We discuss how a16z is investing across the AI stack -- from model providers to applications -- and why this platform shift creates a real window for startups to displace incumbents. Throughout the episode, David shares the models that guide his investing: why markets misprice consistent growth, what makes "pull" businesses so powerful, and why he likes to back a certain kind of founder he calls the "technical terminator." It’s fun to talk with students of the game, and David is certainly one of them. He's spent his career studying great companies, markets, and founders, and you can feel that depth in how clearly he connects patterns across cycles. Enjoy! 209 3 Comments Vlad Ciurca Techsylvania • 5K followers Last week in New York, I co-hosted a special evening with Laurie Segall (Mostly Human) and Natalia Brzezinski (Senior Advisor to Super Technologies & Hellen's Rock Capital), bringing together founders, investors, and tech leaders to talk about building stronger tech bridges between the U.S. and Europe. 🌍 Together with Oana Petrus, we were glad to host this as part of Techsylvania. Great insights from Sacha Dragic (Super Technologies) and an exciting preview of the upcoming Mostly Human podcast with iHeartMedia. Looking forward to continuing these connections. 🚀 54 julien blin Upside Global Org • 11K followers In a span of just a few weeks, three major M&A deals have reshaped the sports tech landscape: - Hudl acquires Titan Sports (GPS & player tracking) - Catapult acquires Perch (velocity-based training via computer vision) - Teamworks acquires Telemetry Sports (NFL-level analytics & modeling) Each of these companies was already a leader in its niche. But together, these moves signal something bigger: a race to control the full stack of athlete data—from physical movement and strength output to video analysis, scheduling, and tactical decision-making. We're witnessing the platformization of performance, where previously siloed technologies are being merged into unified ecosystems. The goal? To own more of the athlete lifecycle—and to deliver value across coaching, operations, medical, and analytics departments from a single interface. Let’s explore what these deals mean—and why they matter—for teams, the tracking and performance sectors, and the innovation economy of sports. ⚙️ 1. Hudl x Titan Sports: Merging Vision with Velocity Hudl, historically dominant in video analysis—especially in high school and college sports—has now made a deliberate push into real-time performance data. By acquiring Titan GPS, Hudl is expanding from "what the eyes see" to "what the body does." Strategic unlocks for Hudl: - Contextual performance review: Imagine a coach watching a sprint and immediately seeing peak velocity, acceleration, and deceleration markers layered onto video. - Integrated workload management: Hudl can now serve as a lightweight performance platform for smaller programs without full-time performance staff. - Youth and long-tail market expansion: Hudl may bring affordable GPS solutions to a massive under-served demographic: youth and sub-elite teams. In short, this acquisition shifts Hudl from a video-first company to a 360° performance solution—an especially valuable position as more coaches seek to understand not just what happened on the field, but why. You can read the full analysis here: https://lnkd.in/ewWTTyMs #Upside #M&A 4 1 Comment Matt Ocko DCVC • 13K followers Yesterday, two DCVC-backed companies raised about a half billion dollars. In today's funding environment, that's not that exceptional... Together, the two companies just happen to enable gigawatt-scale AI compute, except in the unprecedentedly small space of only about 40 shipping containers, no exotic cooling required. You have to wonder what the US military might do with a gigawatt-equivalent of compute they could fit in a few C5 flights... or a 100MW-compute platform that fits in a single rocket launch... Even that, in DCVC's world, isn't that exceptional. We like to say we help make the impossible and essential, profitable and available. But what is exceptional, and this is a theme with us folks, is that they are each only two of many of our companies delivering robustly on outcomes considered impossible on VC dollars or in reasonable time, at the point when we backed each company from very early on: - a safe, cost-effective, meltdown-proof, truck-portable 1 megawatt nuclear reactor (Radiant, see https://lnkd.in/gF3JAHwS) for American energy dominance - American-made AI semiconductor chips that match or outperform everything else at 100x the energy efficiency, on off-the-shelf models (Mythic, see https://lnkd.in/gWFdvZFT) We were able to make the calls on these, and how they could work together, along with similar calls on all of their brother and sister impossible companies, because of a very deep bench of unified scientific, engineering, operational, and business building experience considered passé by a lot of other folks. It's how we make the exceptional routine. 103 6 Comments Nicole DeTommaso Harlem Capital • 87K followers You can expect a ~$45,000 comp increase at each promotion as a pre-partner VC. You're probably leaving money on the table. You need 2 things before you ask for a comp increase: → Understand how VCs make money to pay employees → Market benchmarks by position and region #1 VCs make management fees of 2% of their fund size or AUM. A $100M fund makes $2M a year to keep the lights on & pay employees. Consider the number of employees and the ops costs of the firm. Knowing this, make sure you don't ask for something that is out of scope. #2 Various comp reports get released yearly. Below is one. My rec is to look at ALL of them and average the comp for your position across reports. Use that number as your north star (market rate) in your negotiations. More detail in my VC Compensation 101 guide here: https://lnkd.in/gsWkapXP --- Thanks to John Gannon and Venture5 Media for aggregating this 2024 data. Head to his page to see the full report! ♻️ Repost to help someone in your network. #venturecapital 288 3 Comments Emmanuel Ruiz-Gimenez Jobim Alere Ventures • 10K followers 🚀 Ramp just became one of the fastest-scaling fintechs in recent history, hitting a $32B valuation in 2025. What’s remarkable isn’t just the size of the number—it’s the velocity. In less than a year, Ramp jumped from $13B to $32B, raising over $1.15B across four rounds in just nine months, including its most recent $300M investment led by Lightspeed, coupled with an employee tender offer. 📈 Additional milestones reinforcing the momentum: Surpassed $1B in annualized revenue, signalling enterprise-grade scaling. Now serving over 50,000 corporate clients. Offers corporate cards, expense management, procurement tools, and travel, with AI enhancing automation but not defining the core business. Total equity financing now stands at $2.3B. 💡 What makes this unique? In a funding environment where investors are hyper-selective—especially outside AI—enterprise expense and spend management has emerged as one of the most resilient and investable segments. Ramp’s numbers signal strong fundamentals, robust market demand, and operational discipline, not hype-driven valuation. 📌 The takeaway: Despite capital markets shifting heavily toward AI, fintechs solving real operational challenges at scale continue to attract significant investor conviction. Ramp is demonstrating that profitable efficiency + product-led growth still wins. #Fintech #VentureCapital #Funding #Unicorns #ExpenseManagement #CorporateFinance #Growth #BusinessOperations #DigitalTransformation #StartupScaling Ramp hits $32B valuation, just 3 months after hitting $22.5B | TechCrunch https://lnkd.in/dgbxneeE 3 1 Comment Jonathan Lakin 3K followers Is Michael Burry, the Big Short investor right? What are we missing here? Michael just placed $1B+ in put options through Scion Asset Management, betting against Nvidia and Palantir! ▫️ Nvidia just crossed a $5T valuation ▫️ Palantir is up 174% this year He might be right about the bubble. 👉 But it’s not just financial. It’s behavioural. We started building in AI long before it was a buzzword. And even after 15+ years, one thing is clear: Hype moves fast, behaviour doesn’t. At Intent HQ, we process 325M+ customer profiles, 25 TB of data, and 250B+ behavioural events every single day. That scale teaches you what most overlook 👇 1. The bubble is REAL! New models drop every week, and every company calls it “revolutionary.” Yet 95% of enterprise AI projects still fail to show meaningful ROI. 2. The real problem isn’t tech; it’s behaviour. Most are chasing compute, models, and valuations, But ignoring how AI should change how humans decide, act, and buy. If it doesn’t move the revenue and conversion needle, it’s not transformation; it’s fancy theatre. 3. When the bubble bursts… It won’t just deflate market caps. It will reveal how few companies have turned data into action. The winners will connect data → insight → behaviour → growth, not valuation → hype → next-model launch. ——— Humans are creatures of habit. Habits define intent. And intent, when identified and acted upon, drives growth. The next phase of AI isn’t about hype or hardware. It’s about behavioural systems that drive real, sustainable transformation aka systems where data, intelligence, and human understanding work together. Hardware & models are just components; The real differentiator will be how deeply we understand the people behind the data. What do you think about this bubble? 81 11 Comments Asif Rahman Brex • 8K followers Two weeks ago, Brex and Capital One announced an agreement for Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15 billion. This is the largest bank-fintech deal in recent history. I've spent the last two weeks thinking about what this means for the PE firms and portfolio companies I work with. The short answer is that everything just changed in terms of what's possible. Brex and Ramp combined had about 3% of the corporate card market. The real fight was never between us and other fintechs. It was always against American Express, JP Morgan and the big banks who control 90%+ of the market. We've been building great products, but we've been doing it with a fraction of their resources and balance sheet capacity. That constraint just disappeared. On day one, we become the #3 corporate card issuer in the US. We gain access to $700 billion in assets, a $6 billion R&D budget, and the ability to offer credit limits that are 10-20x higher than what we could do before. Our AI roadmap just accelerated by 2-3 years because we now have the infrastructure and capital to move faster than anyone else in the market. What makes this work is that Capital One understands how to acquire without destroying what made the company valuable in the first place – or as Pedro has repeated over the last two weeks, “don’t crush the butterfly.” They did this after acquiring ING Direct and they're doing it with us. Pedro stays as CEO, the team stays intact, the culture stays unchanged. Rich Fairbank built Capital One in the 90s by using data and technology to disrupt credit cards. He sees the same DNA in Brex. This isn't about cost cuts. It's about giving us the resources to win the market outright. For the PE firms I work with, this changes the equation significantly. You now get institutional-grade underwriting capacity with the product innovation and service model you've come to expect from us, all backed by a top-10 bank. Same team, same partnership approach, just with Fortune 50 resources behind every relationship. The future of corporate finance isn't American Express or JP Morgan with a better app. It's AI-powered corporate cards from the people who invented it, spend management, real-time compliance, and embedded banking built on infrastructure that can actually support it at scale. That's what we're building now, and we just got a 50x multiplier on our ability to execute. If you're a PE firm interested in how this impacts your portfolio companies, let's talk. 105 2 Comments Adam Siskin The Platform CPG • 20K followers NYC & East Coast founders — if you’re launching a brand, New York is your FASTEST path to market. In NYC, you can hit the streets tomorrow. Here’s how you do it: Lock in a few key retailers — Fairway, Gourmet Garage, Westside Market, Morton Williams. Prove velocity fast — these stores give you daily reads on how your product is moving. Demo heavy — NYC shoppers will buy on the spot. DSD hustle — keep shelves full, tand guarantee you don’t lose sales to out-of-stocks. Founder presence — walk in, talk to the managers, merchandise your own product, push cases through. NYC is messy, competitive, and loud — but it’s also the perfect proving ground. If you can make your brand stick here, you’ll have the data, the story, and the retail buy-in to scale everywhere else. What’s the first store you’d want to see your brand in when you hit NYC? Do people agree with this approach if you enter in narrow and deep? 38 42 Comments Nick Edwards 5K followers If you are developing a portfolio of sports holdings, it has nothing to do with a bunch of shiney objections. Of course deal structure, return profile, NAV/Exit criteria all are in play… but long term development for compounding impact (good ol’ 1+1=3 analogy) is done by how these assets interconnect. A resilient and high growth portofilio is deliberately designed to scale like a hockey stick shape graph, capitalizing on the economics of sports distribution. That’s exactly what we have going on at The Champion Fund. It offers diversified exposure to the entire sports value chain beyond traditional team ownership. Think a private index where investors get exposure across sports assets. The index provides a standardized benchmark and solves critical investor challenges in this asset class… especially for the non acredited investor, the fans, those who don’t “think” they can afford to play in the sports market. -Thematic funds -Sports Venture -Sports Assets -Mid cap sports PE -Sports RE and Hospitality Just wait to hear the initial portfolio company announcements. It’s finally happening folks! 39 6 Comments Shawn Trabanino Berkeley SkyDeck • 4K followers Mar Hershenson founder of Pear VC deatroyed a myth that founders overlook: founders need vcs that share one trait that has nothing to do with prior startup experience: Network. Here’s why. And the stats prove it. Multiple studies from CB Insights, NBER, HBS, Stanford, and Berkeley show no statistically significant correlation between being an ex-operator and outperforming as a VC. Founders are often told that ex-operators make better partners. Even I thought that was true. The evidence says otherwise. What does matter, backed by NBER research, is one factor: Network strength. The top-performing VCs consistently have the deepest, most effective networks. If I were a founder, I wouldn’t optimize for “operator vs non-operator.” I’d optimize for the VC who can actually open doors when it counts. Many thanks to SomosVC Avanza Summit for Emerging Pre Partner VCs for the invite, Nicole DeTommaso for hosting the talk, and J.P. Morgan for the event. #startups #vc 25 3 Comments Chris Gonzales Pro Partner Capital • 11K followers If you are an emerging league founder or funder (reach out to me) Trophy assets — NFL, NBA, Premier League franchises — now trade at valuations that compress forward returns. The Boston Celtics sold for $6.1B in 2025. Minority stakes are the only entry point for most institutional capital, and even those are available at premiums. Emerging leagues are running a different playbook. Here's why allocators are paying attention: 1. Control, not minority scraps. In the Big 4, you're buying 5–15% with no governance. In emerging leagues — pickleball, women's volleyball (LOVB), Unrivaled, PWHL, Snow League, USL soccer — you can own controlling stakes. Synergy Sports Capital launched a $150M fund in March 2026 built entirely on this thesis. 2. Entry multiples that still make sense. Women's sports revenue is projected to hit $2.35B in 2025 — up ~240% in three years. The Toronto Tempo sold for $115M. Compare that to $6B+ for a mature NBA franchise. Same league, fraction of the basis. 3. Margin structures that compound. UFC-style league economics — where IP, media rights, and revenue concentrate at the league level — produce 50–60% EBITDA margins. That's the model emerging leagues are engineering from day one, not retrofitting. 4. The fan-acquisition curve has flipped. Drive to Survive proved Gen Z will adopt new sports if the storytelling is right. Kings League, Freestyle Chess, and pickleball aren't fighting for share in saturated markets — they're creating categories. 5. Multiple expansion is still ahead. Trophy assets have already re-rated. Emerging leagues are pre-re-rating, with media fragmentation, athlete-equity models (Paige Bueckers in Unrivaled, Durant in pickleball), and the 2026 FIFA World Cup tailwind pulling forward attention. The trophy is the exit. The league build is the alpha. What emerging league are you watching? #SportsInvesting #PrivateEquity #EmergingLeagues #SportsBusiness #AlternativeAssets #FamilyOffice #MultiFamilyOffice 9 5 Comments Evan Huck UserEvidence • 15K followers CAC (cost of acquisition) gets a lot more attention as you raise later stage rounds. But it’s not a perfect benchmark. For example, our CAC at UserEvidence over the last 6 quarters has been about $80k, and new business ACV about $43k. At first glance, that seems pretty inefficient, spending $80k to get a $43k client. To be fair, we use a pretty conservative CAC measure (thanks to CJ Gustafson from Mostly Metrics) that takes all of S&M (Sales+Marketing - which includes CSMs as well) divided by the number of new biz deals. And yes, I'm not super proud of that metric or anything - we aim to be a lot more efficient this year, and these numbers could be improved significantly. But - in our strategy, which over the last couple years has been focusing on the mid-market and larger enterprise segment - it can still makes sense. Here’s how: We have a strong renewal rate and upsell/x-sell motion which leads to strong NRR (averaging over 115% the last 2 years). For example, 12 months ago we landed a $25k pilot with one of the top 4 cloud vendors. <9 months after we started the pilot, we had expanded to 6 additional business units and ARR went from $25k to $285k/yr. Strong NRR leads to strong LTV (life-time value of a customer). So if you look at CAC vs LTV - the ratio starts to look a lot better. In other words, I’m OK losing some money on the first year of a deal if I have strong confidence that customer is going to stick around and expand. Now, not all businesses are the same, and we’ve raised a significant chunk of VC money. If we were self-funded we’d have to have different goals and a different playbook to get there. But as a founder, while you need to know all your VC metrics, those metrics are still just guidelines and yardsticks that should be contextualized against the backdrop of your broader market, strategy, and cash/runway position. In our case, we have strong conviction that customer marketing/advocacy is a growing market, strong conviction we can eventually own that market (and potentially adjacent markets) if we execute well, and we have the cash to pursue the long-term strategy needed to execute. Understanding and communicating the whole picture is key to inspiring confidence with your board, investors, and team. 68 13 Comments Jesse Landry Vention • 15K followers In 2017, two longtime friends, David Stark and Cory Moelis, turned late-night debates into Ground Up Ventures, a pre-seed and seed firm backing founders before the market knows their name. They didn’t come in as financiers chasing deal flow but as operators who lived the grind and knew how to move a company from zero to something. The ethos still drives them: act like an extension of a founder’s headcount, not another name on the cap table. Stark brought a decade of NYC community-building. Moelis added corporate development muscle from scaling tech firms. Together they bet on being different, not chasing hype cycles but backing conviction early. That spirit drew in Jordan Odinsky as Partner, Allie Feuerstein as Head of Value Creation, Navot Volk as Venture Partner, and Shira Stein to keep the machine sharp. This isn’t a hierarchy built for distance, it’s proximity, sitting in the trenches with founders week after week. Ground Up writes $500K–$1.5M checks, often the first institutional money in. They bridge the U.S. and Israel, two ecosystems that don’t just complement, they supercharge one another. The mandate: #Fintech, #AI, #HealthTech, #DevTools, #Marketplaces, #SaaS, sectors where product moves from prototype to scale fast. What they look for isn’t pitch-deck poetry but operator grit, domain expertise, and hustle. The model has produced 47 portfolio companies. EliseAI’s Minna Song talks empowerment. Accrue’s Michael Hershfield credits customer unlocks. Daily’s Nina Kuruvilla points to hiring support. OurRitual’s David Pruwer says they show up “in the trenches.” BrightHire’s Benjamin Sesser calls the partnership “mensch energy.” These aren’t canned testimonials, they’re proof Ground Up doesn’t vanish after the wire transfer. The playbook: spot trends early, move decisively, connect dots others miss. They caught #embeddedfinance via Accrue before savings apps became table stakes. They leaned into #developerinfrastructure with Daily before remote collaboration went mainstream. They backed vertical marketplaces like Portless and BuildOps while others overlooked them. The advantage comes from dual-market insight and relentless cross-pollination between NY, Tel Aviv, and beyond. They don’t measure success by IRR alone. Annual Founder Summits let CEOs trade notes. Diversity initiatives go beyond lip service. “Partner Picks” drop tools and frameworks founders actually use. Every touchpoint follows one principle: if founders win, the fund wins. If they stumble, Ground Up pulls weight. Ground Up is building from the ground up. Portfolio companies are hiring now across #engineering, #product, and #gotomarket. Follow this firm. Study their founders. Track their plays. #VentureCapital #VCSpotlight #VCFirm #Startups #Founders #FounderJourney #StartupJourney #StartupFunding #InvestmentCapital #Technology #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen. 19 2 Comments Michael Girolametto, CPA Factors® • 2K followers What Strava Taught Us About Building in Sport Tech: Earlier this year, Strava hit a $2.2B valuation. With 150M+ users and ~$500M ARR, they’ve proven one thing: build the right platform, and sport tech is massively valuable. So how did they get here? Strava went after the running and endurance cycling markets. Their secret sauce wasn’t just data - it was community. They turned every weekend run and ride into a chance to share, compare, and compete. Think of it as a digital scoreboard for personal bests, GPS segments, and bragging rights; they brought competition into recreational sport. Now, they’re shifting into data analytics, building in-house tools and acquiring platforms like Runna (running) and Breakaway (cycling). For founders, this means two things: 1) Data analytics is a proven, valuable space. 2) You’re not just competing with startups, you’re competing with giants (Strava, Apple, Garmin, even OpenAI). So how do you compete with giants? By solving the problems they can’t see, or won’t solve, because they’re too niche for their strategy. That’s the path we’re taking at Factors®. We started with competitive track cycling. Once considered “too small” a market, but now our research shows it’s far bigger than expected: -Track cycling has 300,000+ athletes globally (Japan, Korea, Europe leading the way). -BMX Racing, another underserved cycling discipline, adds 500,000+ athletes. We’re not chasing the biggest markets first. We’re owning the underserved ones where athletes desperately need tools that work. From there, the strategy is clear: -Capture market share. -Build brand recognition. -Generate cashflow. -Expand into adjacent sports with strength. And when Strava (or another giant) eventually looks down from the mountain they’ve built, they’ll see us already standing strong in markets they couldn’t reach. We’re not trying to beat the giants at their own game. We’re building the game where they’re not playing... yet. #track #cycling #sporttech #athletetech 15 4 Comments Greg Khodarin Headway Inc • 5K followers Pulled a quick list of consumer tech unicorns in 2025. What stands out isn’t the valuations, but what they’re building around. Kalshi is at $2B building prediction markets as a regulated exchange. Underdog Fantasy hit $1.3B making sports games social and sticky. Kikoff hit $1B helping people build credit. Nourish hit $1B which helps people talk to dietitians online. Function Health is now worth $2.5B. It makes lab tests and health tracking as easy as a Netflix subscription. What I’m seeing across the board: - AI is becoming a life assistant, not just a work tool - Users expect personalization, and with AI, it’s now much easier to build it - The strongest products stick close to daily behavior: eating, spending, getting sick, staying informed - Interfaces are simple, but what runs underneath is complex Consumer tech is maturing. It's no longer about being novel — it’s about being needed. Let me know if you're seeing the same shift. #startup #vc #unicorn #b2c #consumertech #trmnl4 13 2 Comments Jesse Landry Vention • 15K followers San Francisco has a new power player in the pricing game, and it's not here to hand out ballpark estimates or shrug when finance asks why margins are bleeding. Dealops just secured a combined pre-seed and seed round totaling $7 million from Pear VC and General Catalyst, with firepower from Depth Capital Ventures, Elsa Ventures, Weekend Fund, FLEX Capital, Allison Pickens, 20SALES, and strategic angels from OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Salesforce. The goal is simple but brutal: make enterprise pricing as fast, accurate, and finance-proof as it should have been years ago. Co-founders Spyri Karasavva and Fay Wu built Dealops for the reps who've been stuck in Salesforce purgatory, waiting days for approvals that should take minutes. Karasavva, who cut her teeth running Product Finance & Strategy at Stripe and driving growth at Stytch, knows the pain of deals dying in the spreadsheet swamp. Wu, fresh from engineering senior roles at Stripe's Terminal, Radar, and LATAM expansion and a stint scaling Notion, brings the architecture chops to make AI do more than spit out numbers, it delivers context, recommendations, and real-time deal #guardrails that even the #CFO will trust. The platform is already moving weight: over $1 billion in #customerdeal volume processed, quoting workflows cut to a tenth of the time, and contract sizes climbing 30 percent in pilot programs. Early deployments at Plaid and Airwallex are proving the math works in the wild, not just on a pitch deck. And in a $25 billion-plus revenue-ops software market where usage- and outcome-based #pricingmodels are turning static rate cards into museum pieces, the opportunity isn't just big, it's compounding. What makes this interesting isn't just the AI gloss. Dealops runs zero-engineering-ticket pricing configuration, slams approvals directly into Slack or CPQ systems, and integrates seamlessly with Salesforce. Finance gets real-time #analytics on pricing performance, sales gets instant guidance that actually aligns with revenue goals, and leadership gets to test pricing scenarios with zero marginal cost. That's not a workflow tweak, it's the infrastructure for a faster, more accountable sales engine. The $7 million is fuel for scale: more #engineers, more predictive analytics, deeper integrations, and a roadmap that turns pricing into a measurable growth lever, not a last-minute fire drill. In a space full of static quotes and sluggish approvals, Dealops is betting that speed, precision, and alignment will decide who wins the enterprise deal cycle. If the early numbers hold, the odds are stacked heavily in their favor. #Startups #StartupFunding #EarlyStage #VentureCapital #PreSeed #SeedRound #Pricing #PricingTech #FinTech #Enterprise #EnterpriseTech #EnterpriseAI #SaaS #Technology #Infrastructure #Innovation #TechEcosystem #StartupEcosystem #Hiring #TechHiring If software engineering peace of mind is what you crave, Vention is your zen. 3 Show more posts Show fewer posts Explore top content on LinkedIn Find curated posts and insights for relevant topics all in one place. 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