My father Jean Teten was native Parisian, so I remain a Francophile. My Partner Jason Freedman just spent a week in Paris, hosted by Fundora. He talked to 100+ French founders and 100+ French investors. In his words, here’s what he learned: “#1 French entrepreneurs are dialed in. Especially in AI. I offered for any French founder to...
[Continue Reading]🇯🇵Japanese private equity fund tech stack: Growth Partners Co
We’re happy to share the latest in AltsTech’s series profiling how investment managers are using AI, tech, and analytics to generate alpha. We’re fortunate to interview Noriatsu Furukawa, Founder & CEO of Growth Partners Co., Ltd. We met via Coolwater Capital, where I was formerly a Partner. David Teten: Please share an overview of your...
[Continue Reading]How to Use SPIN Selling to Raise Capital
“One of the biggest issues I see with salesmanship in VC is that most pitches start with an awkward… ‘so should I start with a little about me and the fund I’m raising’. For most VCs, the default is to just start giving their canned stump speech and steamroll through the meeting.” So says Dave...
[Continue Reading]I recommend International College Counselors
For my daughter Peri‘s college research process, we needed some guidance. So we reached out to my old friend, Mandee Heller Adler, CEO of International College Counselors, and coauthor with me of To University and Beyond: Launch Your Career in High Gear. Peri wrote, For my college applications, I had a daunting task of telling...
[Continue Reading]Mastra – prototype and productionize AI features
Mastra was our first investment out of Orange Collective Fund I, back in early 2025. And we’re very fortunate, because they are doing exceptionally well. Our first investment is a top candidate for a fund returner. Mastra is the TypeScript Agent Framework. It’s built by the team that brought you Gatsby, and allows you to prototype...
[Continue Reading]Tracking Portfolio Company Finances, Metrics, and Updates
How can you best track the progress of your portfolio companies, both to report to limited partners and also for your own allocation of time & resources? I summarize here the vectors I generically recommend you use for tracking portfolio company activity. Of course, every VC fund needs to customize their model based on their...
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