GV’s top corporate investor outlines his team’s strategy for 2022

GV has ramped up its enterprise business over the past few years after scoring a string of wins, including releases in Slack, Segment, and Duo Security. Since 2018, GV has invested $1.1 billion in the industry, compared to $1.8 billion invested in the business since GV launched in 2009.

“We are investing at a rapid pace,” says Munichiello.

Now, with this calmer time in venture capital — what many are calling the “downturn” — founders are less focused on high stock prices, and more on working with investors who will hold up for the long haul. and want some consistency. . For GV, 2022 is proving to be an opportunity to work with founders it turned down last year as some of them return to the fund and offer equity in a flat deck round.

Even so, partners are generally maintaining the same cadence they had in 2021, says Munichiello, tending to spend time with around 30 companies a week, and trying to cut that down to one or two to bring back to the rest of the team. . This will usually yield one or two investments every two weeks from the fund. In total, GV has supported 40 new portfolio companies so far in 2022, including 11 in the corporate sector.

While the pace of meetings and activity has indeed slowed across the industry, Munichiello says the team is still making the same number of new investments on average. (GV made 48 new corporate and follow-on investments in 2021, compared to 28 so far this year.) Some of that he attributes to GV’s definitive effort to “stay as consistent as possible” and “don’t get caught up in the frenzy of the market” last year. After all, crossover hedge funds had poured capital into the space, throwing what Munichiello calls “unsophisticated dollars” into venture capital at an early stage, and the Founders were asking for — and were able to score — higher valuations than GV “could eventually get to,” he says.

So now was the time for GV to shine and be on the caps table for some of the companies he had fallen in love with. So far this year, GV has joined or led rounds at companies such as Omni, Modular.ai, and Pecan AI.

But, as valuations begin to fall, GV must be feeling some pressure from the board of directors of the only LP he launches every two years – Alphabet? Munichiello says “not at all” and hopes founders will like it while other funds might reassure their own investors.

“If you think about the LP we’re talking about, you don’t have to be convinced that AI and machine learning are going to have a huge impact,” he says.

An extra day…to let me know what you think will happen for the rest of 2022. As you may recall, I posted a collection of comments from Term Sheet readers on how you felt about the recession. Three months later, I’m curious if anything has changed. Has there been a permanent change in private markets? Are we better? How bad could things get? What’s the benefit? Whether you’re a startup founder, venture capitalist, private equity investor, banker, sponsor, or just someone who enjoys reading this newsletter, I’d love to hear from you. Send your thoughts to my email below, and thank you for sharing the wisdom.

Until Monday,

Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
E-mail: [email protected]
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Jackson Fordyce curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.

CORPORATE OFFERS

– Almaa New York-based mental health care network, raised $130 million in Series D funding. Thomas Bravo led the round and was joined by investors including Cigna Ventures, Insight Partners, Optum Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Main venture capital partnersand Sound companies.

– Aktis Oncologya Boston and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina-based biotech company that treats a wide range of solid tumors, raised $84 million in Series A expansion funding. Cowen Health Care Investments, MRLs Venture capital funds, ArrowMark Partners, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Capital Timefolio, Capital of Papas, MPM Capital, Vida Ventures, Capital EcoR1, Octagon marquee, TCG crossover, Bristol Myers Squibband Novartis invested in the round.

– 3T Biosciencesa South San Francisco-based immunotherapy company, raised $40 million in Series A funding. Westlake Village BioPartners led the round and was joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

– Psych Huba Nashville-based mental health education and navigation platform, raised $16 million in funding. HC9 and Frist Cressey Ventures led the round and were joined by investors, including Health stream, Emerson Collectiveand Bailey & Co. strategic fund.

– Clearancea San Francisco-based meeting platform, raised $9 million in funding. Equal Opportunity Companies led the round and was joined by investors including Gradient Ventures, LDV Capital, AME Cloud Venturesand Morado Ventures.

– Accountant360, a Woodbury, NY-based accounting and bookkeeping firm, raised $3.5 million in seed funding. CEO of National Business Capital Joe Camberato and others invested in the round.

– Ceresisan Austin-based employee learning platform, raised $3 million in funding. TTCER Partners, EduLab Capital partnersand LiveOak Venture Partners led the round and were joined by investors, including Gaingels, Capital of Goodwater, TXV Partnersand Notley.

– Improvement Labs, a Palo Alto-based movement health startup, raised $2.5 million in seed funding. NBA player Seth Curry, former volleyball player Curry by Callie Riversformer NFL player David DeCastro, Atma Capital, Start-up funds, The syndicateand Ethos Fund invested in the round.

– Subbasea Cairo-based subscription and recurring revenue management platform, raised $2.4m in seed funding. Global companies led the round and was joined by investors including HALA companies, P1 companies, More venture capital, Plug in and use, Ingressive capital, camel enterprises, Falak Startsand Arzan Venture Capital.

– BalkanIDan Austin-based developer of cloud access governance solutions, raised an additional $2.36 million in seed expansion funding. K2G Technology Fund, GIT1K Club, First-hand companies, VMG, NKM Capitaland others invested in the round.

– Aviuma Singapore-based Web3 media startup, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. Capital Season led the round and was joined by investors including Businesses East, Mirana Venturesand Ricky Ow.

PRIVATE CAPITAL

– GoEngineera portfolio company of Court Square Capital Partnersacquired computer aided technology, a Chicago-based provider of 3D software and print hardware development solutions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– Prestigious medical imaginga portfolio company of Atlantic Street Capitalacquired MedServ Morea medical imaging company based in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and XRV health care, a Springfield, Virginia-based medical imaging company. Financial terms were not disclosed.

OTHER

– Ernest and Young acquired Cambria Solutions, an IT and management company based in Sacramento, California. Financial terms were not disclosed.

– QuestionPro acquired Excavation site, an exploratory research platform based in Madison, Wisconsin. Financial terms were not disclosed.

IPOS

– Zeekr Smartan electric vehicle brand based in Ningbo, China, is considering an initial public offering in Hong Kong or the United States, according to Bloomberg. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group supports the business.

after-sales service

– Bitcoin depositan Atlanta-based bitcoin ATM operator, agreed to go public through a merger with GSR II Meteora Acquisition Corp., a SPAC. A deal would value the company at $885 million.

FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS

– Cyber ​​starta Jerusalem-based venture capital firm, has raised $60 million for a fund focused on early-stage cybersecurity companies.