- Last Money In - Newsletter on Venture Capital Syndicates
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- Last Money In
Hey, we’re Alex Pattis & Zachary Ginsburg,
Over the past 4 years, we’ve collectively deployed over $200m into 500+ startups via SPV’s. If you don’t know what a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is or how it works, well then… you’re in the right place.
We’ve got a lot of stories and experience putting SPV’s together, and venture capital investment learnings we are finally looking to share & discuss!
Today, we’re launching Last Money In, a newsletter about VC syndicates!
Why?
VC Syndicates are an emerging alternative approach to investing in startups for anyone who is an accredited investor. It is a great way for those interested in venture capital without experience and/or deal flow to get exposure and familiarity to investing in startups (this is literally how we started, s/o Jason Calacanis). It’s also a poorly understood space by founders/CEO’s and venture capitalists.
More on Last Money In:
Last Money In is a newsletter by Alex Pattis & Zachary Ginsburg who have collectively deployed $200m+ into 500+ startups. While we don't have brand names like a16z, Sequoia etc., we are the global leaders in VC Syndicates, an emerging alternative approach to investing in startups. We discuss venture capital, angel investing, startups, and their unique learnings of putting together 500+ syndicates. Once a week, we'll deliver insider VC knowledge to your inbox.
The aim with this newsletter is to:
Share how you can get started in VC irrespective of your experience
Highlight the differences between syndicates and venture capital funds from a GP, LP & Founder POV
Share how we source high quality deals & alongside top institutional venture capital funds
Explain how to secure allocations & the A to Z process of putting together SPV’s with LP’s
Discuss how we evaluate deals and how our frameworks change across stages
What value-add as a syndicate lead means and how it can vary
Trends we’re seeing in the space related to deal structures, valuations, industries etc.
Funny/interesting stories from the journey
Discuss everything we’ve learned and still utilize today!
Who is this newsletter for?
People in finance/trading, big tech, startups, consulting, RE etc. who are interested in the venture capital asset class.
Venture capital investors who are considering starting their own fund or syndicate.
Founders who know other founders and want to deploy capital into startups but have limited capital to invest.
Anyone interested in vc/startups/early-stage investing.
As a supplement, you can even back our syndicates to start seeing more deal flow. This is exactly where we started our syndicate journey.
Our Syndicates:
Thanks for being here, we appreciate you!
P.S. a little more about us:
Alex Pattis is currently General Partner @ Riverside Ventures + Founding Team @ Hampton, a private and highly vetted community for founders and CEOs.
Operating Background: Alex spent nearly a decade scaling early-stage startups focusing on growth & commercial strategy. In his previous role, he joined MAT as the 1st employee, pre-launch, heading up business development. MAT raised capital from Silversmith Capital Partners, before being acquired (9 figure exit) by Genesis Research/GHO Capital Partners.
Venture Capital Background: Alex is a General Partner @ Riverside Ventures, a firm focused on early-stage saas, fintech, marketplaces, and consumer internet. Over the past few years, Alex has invested in 200+ companies & deployed over $60m to date. Alex is enthusiastic about playing a support role to entrepreneurs in the early innings of the business.
Zachary Ginsburg is currently General Partner and Founder @ Calm Ventures
Investing Background: Zach has 10+ years in financial services, starting his career in investment banking at Viant Capital. He then pursued an MBA at Columbia, leaving early to take a full time investor role at growth equity firm OCV Partners. Zach left in 2020 to start Calm Ventures, which has run over 350 SPVs and deployed ~$140m into startups across stages and industries.
Operating Background: Zach has a long history of running small business, building a ticket resale business EDM Stubs to seven figures in revenues in college, co-founding an early social app post-college and operating a number of side hustles throughout grade school.