Finance

The importance of a Cofounder Agreement Back in April 2017, I started my first startup with a close friend from college. We had known each other for about 4 years and started off on a positive note, incorporating a company with an equal 50/50 split. Soon after, we got incubated at SINE, IIT Bombay’s startup incubator. As part of the process, SINE made it mandatory for us to sign a Cofounder Agreement. At that time, we were just a few months out of college and didn’t fully appreciate its value. We googled a format, customised it, and signed. One of the clauses was about a lock-in period: "The Founders hereby agree that the shares held by them in the Company shall be locked in for a period of [] years ("Lock-in Period") from the Execution Date..." We decided to put 2 years as the lock-in period, without giving it much thought. This agreement was signed on 29th July 2017. Fast forward to 6th August 2018, barely a year later, my cofounder quit. At that time, he owned ~50% of the company. The only reason I could save the company was because of that lock-in clause. Without it, half the company would have gone to someone who had already exited. That experience taught me a few lessons: 1. Legal agreements can be lifesavers when things go wrong. 2. Not everyone thinks long-term. 3. People can quit abruptly without notice. Since then, I’ve always been very particular about legal agreements, especially termination and lock-in clauses. They protect not just you, but also your team, customers, and investors. If you’re running a startup and haven’t signed a Cofounder Agreement yet, please do it now. It’s one of the best favours you can do for your future self. #startups #business #entrepreneurship

The inventor of the SAFE note Adeo Ressi just eliminated the $150,000 and 6-month tax on starting a VC fund. This is huge, so we need to talk about it. Traditionally: ⏱️ Time: Launching a fund can take 6-12 months from thesis to first investment. 💸 Money: The VC setup cost ranges from $50,000 to $150,000+, with annual operations adding another $50,000+. 😵💫 Complexity: Requires three separate entities (LP, GP, and ManCo), complex legal agreements, and multiple regulatory filings. 🏦 Fund Size: There is a minimum fund size averaging $10M to make the fund economically viable. Each LP typically needs to invest $100K+ minimum because smaller checks are unprofitable due to per-LP administrative costs. 📊 Track Record: In order to raise this type of fund, new managers need larger LPs, and these larger LPs often need to see an existing successful investment track record, which some new managers don't have. These barriers have created a venture ecosystem where only those with established networks, significant resources, and/or institutional backing can participate. In 2025: Adeo came up with the Start Fund, a vehicle addressing all of the above head-on: ⏱️ Time: Set up a fund in ONE DAY vs. 6-12 months. 💸 Money: ZERO setup fees vs. $50K-$150K+. 😵💫 Complexity: ONE Delaware series vehicle vs. three separate entities, with an LPA just 1/3 the size. 🏦 Fund Size: Viable with just $250K+ vs. $10M minimum, and can accept smaller LPs (as low as $25K) because administration is streamlined 📊 Track Record: Fully portable track record that counts as fund one when you move to fund two. The benefits for emerging managers are clear: the barriers to entry are lower, giving a much wider pool of candidates a chance to create impact and shape the future. But here's why this matters for... LPs - The Start Fund allows LPs to participate with smaller check sizes, making it easier to diversify their portfolio - More of their capital actually goes to startups rather than overhead fees Startups: - This means more availability of capital from a wider range of sources - Access to a more diverse pool of venture investors with specialized expertise The Start Fund could fundamentally could change WHO gets to allocate capital to the next generation of startups, and WHO will benefit financially from it. I want to know what you all think. ------------- ✍️ Myrto Lalacos Follow for more content on launching and investing in VC firms

Founders are turning down millions in venture capital. Their reason? "I don't need the money. We're already profitable." 10 years ago, unthinkable. Today, common. The Information wrote an insightful piece on "Seed-strapping"—raise once, focus on profitability: → $3.7M revenue per employee (10X industry standard) → 80% lower development costs → 90% less capital to reach profitability The uncomfortable truth for VCs: → Companies need just one funding round → SAFEs never convert → Founders keep 70-80% ownership → The traditional model breaks For investors, survival requires reinvention. New Fund Economics: → Smaller funds with more concentrated bets → Lower management fees, higher carry → Faster distribution timelines → Many smaller wins vs. few unicorn exits New Deal Structures: → Revenue-based financing with capped returns → Dividend rights if companies don't raise again → Profit-sharing without requiring additional rounds New Value Proposition: → Capital efficiency expertise over growth-at-all-costs → Customer connections & distribution support → Operational support over financial engineering → Alternative liquidity paths beyond traditional exits The era of "We'll figure out profitability later" is over. What comes next? Imagine a VC landscape dominated by smaller, specialized firms helping founders build profitable businesses from day one. In this new world, the winners won't have the biggest funds—they'll understand AI has fundamentally changed capital efficiency. For founders: Why dilute when you can profit after one round? For investors: How do you add value when capital isn't the constraint? The answer determines who thrives—and who vanishes in 24 months.

Use this simple approach to master the Bond Market. Nominal bond yields can be thought of as the interaction between: 1️⃣ Growth expectations 2️⃣ Inflation expectations 3️⃣ Term premium 1. Growth expectations When it comes to economic growth we must consider two angles: structural and cyclical growth. Structural economic growth can be generated through more people joining the labor force (good demographics) and/or through a more productive use of labor and capital (strong productivity trends). The ability of an economy to generate structural growth is an important driver behind long-dated bond yields (strong structural growth = structurally higher long-dated yields and vice versa). Short-term economic cycles also matter for bond yields and particularly at the short-end. Cyclical growth trends are driven by the credit cycle, the fiscal stance, earnings growth, labor market trends and more - the healthier they are, the higher short-end bond yields can be pushed also as a result of a likely tightening from Central Banks that might grow worried about economic over-heating and inflationary pressures in such an environment. 2. Inflation expectations The second component driving nominal bond yields is inflation: but NOT TODAY'S inflation - instead we are referring to long-term inflation expectations. Central Banks might temporarily react to concentrated bursts of inflationary pressures by raising short-term interest rates but when it comes to long-dated bond yields investors will always pay close attention to inflation expectations. That's because consumers and borrowers will tend to make important decisions based on these rather than on volatile short-term trends in inflation. 3. Term premium An investor looking to get fixed income exposure can do that via buying 3-month T-Bills and rolling them each time they mature for the next 10 years. Alternatively, it can decide to purchase 10-year Treasuries today. What's the difference? Interest rate risk! Buying a 10-year bond today rather than rolling T-Bills for the next 10 years exposes investors to risks – term premium compensates for this risk. The lower the uncertainty about growth and inflation down the road, the lower the term premium and vice versa. 💡 The Main Takeaway 💡 If you want to make sense of bond yields, a useful approach to use is to think of them as the result of growth expectations, inflation expectations and term premium. P.S. If you liked this post you'll love my macro research. I share my macro analysis every day with the biggest institutional investors and hedge funds in the world. Get your FREE trial here👇🏼 https://lnkd.in/dyFFJp-z

The Fed has taken a significant step by officially initiating its cutting cycle, which holds profound implications for the financial world. ⚠️The #FOMC has cut the FFR by 50 Basis Points to a 4.75%-5% Range. ⚠️The latest projection of the Neutral Rate, R*, came in at 2.8% versus the previous estimation of 2.9% A cutting cycle might affect other central banks' stance on monetary policy because the US Dollar could devalue considerably going into 2025, making exports from other countries like Japan more expensive. For the past two weeks, business media has made a huge story out of a 25—or 50-basis point cut, but in my opinion, today's decision on the magnitude of the cut is meaningless. Financial conditions have eased considerably since July, so it should not be a surprise that the US economy might have already started to re-accelerate. The Atlanta Fed GDPNow is flashing a Real Growth Rate of 3% for the US Economy. If that materializes, it would mean that the US #Economy is already running 1% above its potential. Why financial conditions have already started to ease? Here are some examples: ✍️Mortgage Rates decreased from 7% in July to 6.15% today ✍️The 2-Year Yield decreased from 4.75% in July to 3.63% today ✍️The 5-Year Yield decreased from 4.06% in July to 3.47% today ✍️Housing Starts have picked up momentum What market participants have priced out is a resurgence of inflation during 2025. That scenario is entirely possible if the Dollar Index drops below 100. A cheaper dollar will make commodities and import prices more expensive for the US consumer, and a reduction in real income could squeeze even more of the low to middle class into the USA. Considering the decrease in US Treasuries for the past two months, I find US Government Bonds expensive across the yield curve at these levels. I think R* is well above what the Fed estimates because of factors like de-globalization, the reshoring of strategic industries, and increased protectionism. The terminal rate post-pandemic is between 3.5% and 4%, in my opinion, and that is where I think this cutting cycle will end. If I am proven right, bond investors must reprice government bond yields higher. How do we play a potential increase in inflation in a no-landing scenario? I tilted my portfolio as I outline here below: 👉Tilt the portfolio to over-weight energy and miners. 👉Have a marginal exposure to Gold and Silver. 👉Favor TIPs over US Treasuries 👉Increase allocation to US Value Stocks and International Stocks. 👉Lock-In US Investment Grade Credit at the belly of the yield curve where we can still get 4.8% to 5% yields, especially on issues at the Single-A Rating Enjoy the ride! #Finance #InterestRates #Economy #Investing

People don’t pay for green. Full stop. We see many #climatetech startups marketing their products in this order: 1️⃣ Sustainability - the products are green and have low carbon intensity. 2️⃣ Resilient supply chain - the sourcing of the product is done in a more resilient and reliable way. 3️⃣ Performance - the product is (or nearly is) a drop-in solution. 4️⃣ Price - there is currently a “green premium,” but it will decrease as we scale. Yet, time and again, these companies, especially those selling commodities, experience pushback from an industry unwilling to buy these goods and narratives. The reason is that the industry has the exact opposite set of priorities: 1️⃣ Price - in a high-interest environment where margins are eroded and many businesses face fierce competition (e.g., from China), price parity is the top priority. Even a few cents per kW/h or gallon can make a difference. I recently learned of a battery startup whose raw materials alone cost more than the fully assembled battery of a Chinese competitor. No one will pay that premium. 2️⃣ Performance - many new solutions promise technical performance improvements, but most are not packaged to qualify for all customer requirements and have little evidence to prove long-term benefits. In mega projects, durability is almost always more important than unproven superior performance. Sunfire is flourishing because of their Alkaline cells, not their SoX full cells. 3️⃣ Resilience - following the pandemic and the scarcity of raw materials, this is indeed a growing concern for both industry and governments. 4️⃣ Sustainability - if a product can address all the above topics and also be green, the industry will be happy to adopt it. What does this mean? Startups need to take a market-centric rather than a tech-centric approach. They should develop their go-to-market strategy from day 1 to prioritise customers whose needs align most with their story, and design their entire product and value proposition around those customers requirements. For example, a raw material startup shouldn’t target the battery industry where price and quality are crucial. Instead, they might find success selling to the cement industry, where quality is less critical, and there’s a whole new value proposition around cirularity and sustainability. #venturecapital #fundraising #productmarketfit

Trade finance is the lifeblood of global #commerce and yet it is still largely based on decades-old, paper-based processes. Modernizing it is a colossal opportunity. Let’s take a look. #Tradefinance is essentially the financing of international trade flows and includes tools, techniques, and financial instruments to facilitate international trade by mitigating some of its inherent risks: 1) payment 2) delivery of goods and services. Some numbers: -   Studies converge that the global international #trade market is between $10 and $15 trillion (between 9.5% and 14.2% of global GDP) -   Around 80% of global trade uses trade finance (source: WTO) -   The global trade financing gap – which is the unmet demand from businesses that cannot facilitate imports and exports – exceeds $2 trillion    To understand the extent to which Trade Finance has not managed to modernize in decades (source: ICC): -   Trade parties, from importers and exporters to banks, customs and logistics institutions collectively create a huge amount of data -   Letters of Credit are the most complex: the end-to-end journey involves more than 20 players and more than 100 pages across 10 to 20 documents -   The interactions between these players and documents produce about 5,000 data field interactions The inefficiencies are unimaginable (source: ICC): -   Most of these interactions are duplicates of existing data and are not scrutinized or are sometimes ignored -   The share of this redundant data rises during the trade journey. In total only about 1% of data field interactions add value. Globally this is an estimated 200 billion data field interactions supporting trade finance All these translate into a huge potential to modernize, to digitize, to make use of #technology and to become more efficient. Some estimates: -   BCG estimates an integrated digital solution would save global trade banks between US$2.5 billion and US$6.0 billion on a cost base of US$12 billion to US$16 billion, with the potential to increase revenue by 20% -   A different ICC report commissioned for the G7 estimated that digitising the trade ecosystem could increase trade across the G7 by nearly $9 trillion or nearly 43% and create as much as $6 trillion in extra exports -   McKinsey estimates that adopting an electronic bill of lading could save $6.5 bn in direct costs and enable between $30 billion and $40 billion in new global trade volume These are some of the technologies to lead the disruption: -   Blockchain -   Artificial Intelligence -   Data Analytics -   Internet of Things -   Cloud infrastructure -   Smart contracts -   Modern banking and payments platforms The system is so complex and with so many stakeholders that change will be slow. However, simple wins based on interoperability, digitization and standardization could be the low-hanging fruits to start with. Opinions: my own, Graphic source & data insights: ICC 2018 global survey on trade finance

How to Do Financial Due Diligence Before Selecting Stocks? Stock picking isn’t just about looking at charts and following trends—it’s about understanding the financial health of a company. Before investing, a structured Financial Due Diligence (FDD) process can help you avoid bad bets and spot strong opportunities. Here’s a framework to follow: 1. Understand the Business Model & Industry - What does the company do? - Who are its competitors? - Is it in a growing or declining industry? 2. Analyze the Financial Statements - Income Statement (Profit & Loss) – Revenue growth, profitability (Gross, Operating, Net Margins), EPS trends - Balance Sheet – Debt levels, cash reserves, working capital position - Cash Flow Statement – Operating cash flow vs. net income, free cash flow trends 3. Check Key Financial Ratios - Profitability: ROE, ROA, Gross & Operating Margins - Liquidity: Current Ratio, Quick Ratio - Leverage: Debt-to-Equity, Interest Coverage - Valuation: P/E Ratio, P/B Ratio, EV/EBITDA 4. Assess Management & Governance - Background & track record of leadership - Insider buying/selling trends - Transparency in disclosures & corporate governance 5. Review Competitive Position & Moat - Does the company have a sustainable competitive advantage (brand, network effect, patents, cost advantage)? 6. Industry Trends & Macroeconomic Factors - Economic cycles, inflation, interest rates - Global supply chain, geopolitical risks - Market trends affecting revenue streams 7. Cross-Check with Analyst Reports & News - Read Equity Research Reports, Investor Presentations, Credit Reports - Stay updated on company news, regulatory changes 8. Look at Historical Performance & Future Guidance - Compare past financials vs. projections - Evaluate management’s growth expectations 9. Risk Assessment & Downside Protection - What’s the worst-case scenario? - How resilient is the business in a downturn? 10. Compare with Peers & Make an Informed Decision No company operates in isolation—compare financials and valuations with competitors before buying. Smart investing is about discipline, not hype. By doing thorough due diligence, you increase your chances of picking winners while avoiding pitfalls. What’s your go-to method for analyzing stocks? Let’s discuss.

Introducing the Music Tech Ownership Ouroboros, 2025 edition ✨ The music-tech sector has come of age. What started as a relatively niche investment thesis five years ago has matured into a powerhouse market segment, drawing tens of billions in capital since 2020. For five years, we at Water & Music have been mapping these shifting power dynamics through our “Music Tech Ownership Ouroboros” — a living document that traces the complex web of investments, ownership stakes, and strategic acquisitions shaping music and tech. Our latest update adds over 30 new relationships to the map, primarily from growth investments and M&A deals in 2024. The takeaway: Private equity firms and major labels are locked in a battle for control over independent music infrastructure. As indie market share keeps climbing, owning the tech backbone is becoming as valuable as owning the actual rights. Highlights from 2024 include: - Hellman & Friedman's majority stake in Global Music Rights — making GMR the third PRO owned by a private equity firm - Virgin Music Group's acquisitions of Downtown Music ($775M), [PIAS], and Outdustry - Flexpoint Ford's growth investments in Create Music Group ($165M) and Duetti ($34M) - KKR's acquisition of Superstruct Entertainment ($1.4B) and debt financing in HarbourView Equity Partners ($500M) - EQT Group and TCV's co-ownership of Believe (alongside CEO Denis Ladegaillerie), as part of taking Believe private - Vinyl Group's acquisitions of Serenade, Mediaweek Australia, Funkified Events, and Concrete Playground Link to the full interactive chart with sources is in the comments. Would love to hear what you think, and if any of these deals feel particularly standout or surprising to you! #musicbusiness #musicindustry #musictech #privateequity #musicinvestment #musicrights

Notional defaults (red) remain low, even as bankruptcy filings (yellow) have picked up. ➡️ This is not a classical credit cycle. Bond default rates dollar-weighted have stayed MUTED, far below prior stress episodes, reflecting ample liquidity, refinancing capacity, and strong issuer differentiation. ➡️ Bankruptcy filing numbers in contrast have RISEN, concentrated among smaller, weaker firms, reflecting the K-shaped dynamic seen across the economy, consumers, and equity margin trends, and pointing to idiosyncratic stress rather than systemic deterioration, in our view. ➡️ In our 2026 Global Outlook, we write about how an environment of greater DISPERSION makes manager selection, due diligence, workout capabilities and track records even more crucial. It gives established lenders with strong documentation and proven expertise an edge.