What in the world is "founder mode"?
Necessary Nuggets
Happy Wednesday! If you’re new here, welcome to Necessary Nuggets, your one-stop pre-seed shop. We deliver updates from Necessary Ventures and helpful tidbits on our little corner of the world. Every edition is also on our blog.
Jobortunities 🚨
✨NEW FEATURED ROLE✨
Magrathea: A climate tech startup making waves by making carbon neutral magnesium metal from seawater and brine.
Nevoya: First fully-electric trucking fleet in the United States, helping truckers trade gas-guzzling for environment-protecting. Get involved and tackle unsolved problems in the trucking industry.
Reach out with any questions! All 137 open job postings are listed here.
Market Stirrings 🚩
Here's what the week looked like in pre-seed:
$13.0M
Total Amount Raised
11
Total Funding Rounds
$1.2M
Average Dollars per Round
$5.9M-$11.8M
Estimated Valuation Range
Data aggregated from proprietary research and Crunchbase; valuation estimate based on 10-20% ownership stake.
BIGGER IS BETTER
The below graph based on Crunchbase data demonstrates a key trend: comparing the first halves of 2023 and 2024, the total number of pre-seed deals is down, and there’s a larger discrepancy in the total number of deals for rounds smaller than $50k and between $100k and $200k. However, the number of deals made with larger deal sizes is roughly the same between 2023 and 2024.
VENTURE FEATURE 💸
With the never ending game of VC musical chairs, founders venture to guess which investors are the right ones for them. One VC firm helping founders guess no more is Forum Ventures. In July, they unveiled their Founder-First Award, recognizing NYC-based investors that put their founders first, beyond allocating capital.
The award provides a vetted list of investor names distinguished for supporting entrepreneurs’ startup journeys, and it could easily be a go-to list for founders searching for future investors.
A couple lists out now:
Good Reads 📖
For the rushed reader …
Early-stage startup Reflect Orbital is building a future where the sun shines whenever you want it, and instead of staring into the sun, you might be staring into mirrors of the sun.
According to Crunchbase, longevity startups had a few standout funding rounds in 2024 worth keeping an eye on, the most notable being BioAge’s $170 million Series D ahead of its pending IPO.
There’s a new buzz in Silicon Valley about “founder mode,” a term coined by Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham to describe a founder’s hands-on approach to building their startup.
For the less rushed reader …
SUNNY SIDE UP: What if sunlight was less like a 24-hour cycle and more like a light switch? Early-stage startup Reflect Orbital is building a future where the sun shines whenever you want it, and instead of staring into the sun, you might be staring into mirrors of the sun. The startup plans to deploy satellites with large mirrors designed to reflect sunlight onto specific points on earth. Reflect also believes the tech would increase solar power for the electricity grid. While many believe Reflect Orbital may be flying too close to the sun, we applaud them for their audacious vision.
GOOD TIME AND A LONG TIME?: Age might be just a number, but it’s a scary one. According to Crunchbase, longevity startups had a few standout funding rounds in 2024, the most notable being BioAge’s $170 million Series D ahead of its pending IPO. Other longevity startups raised between $3 million and $100 million from March through August. Crunchbase defines longevity startups as those aiming to slow, sustain, or shave years off biological age, determined by biomarkers that show the body’s actual condition. The fate of longevity startups may come down to how many people actually want to live forever; I’d start by adding Alphaville to the list.
MANAGED AND FOUND: Micromanaging is back in style and has a much cooler name. There’s a new buzz in Silicon Valley about “founder mode,” a term coined by Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham to describe a founder’s hands-on approach to building their startup, as inspired by Brian Chesky. The story goes something like this: Brian Chesky was told by investors to build up professional management to direct Airbnb’s growth; he didn’t believe in that but decided to try it; he eventually went back to his instincts and established a hands-on approach at all levels, i.e., “founder mode”; Chesky gave an inspirational speech about this; Paul Graham wrote an essay about it. The essay struck a nerve for many people, some of which believe manager mode is the better way to build a company. The counterpoint to founder mode? It’s hard for a founder to scale a company when they are hyper-involved with minutiae. The topic has already spurred much commentary, but if we look at AirBnB’s performance, the proof seems to be in the pudding.
Fire Up the Pre-Seeds🔥
Check out details on the pre-seed raises from the past week:
CLIMATE tech
Karman Industries - Too hot to handle.
Karman Industries raised $4 million led by Riot Ventures, with partner Space VC. Heat tech is 150 years old – not even Grandpas stick around that long. Karman Industries is creating technology to bring industrial heating methods into the modern age with a mass-manufactured, self-contained electric heat pump.
Consumer tech
DIRT Research Technologies - It’s more a science than an art.
DIRT raised $2 million from Mark Cuban, Dean Dakolias, and other investors. DIRT is using neuroscientific technology to measure human emotion and provide insights on audience engagement.
edtech
ClassBank - Banking is for big kids.
ClassBank raised $1 million in grant funding and pre-seed funding from Brass Ring Ventures, Ruthless for Good Fund, and The Yass Prize. ClassBank is building a program that creates a “classroom economy” for K-12 schools to integrate financial literacy within existing curricula.
Connect - A new role for role models.
Connect raised funding from the Holekamp Seed Fund. Connect is developing a platform to link high school post-grads with mentorship and networking opportunities to scare away the teenage angst.
Nurture - Bridging the "life preparedness gap."
Nurture raised $2.8 million led by Reach Capital, Golden Gate Ventures, and Seedcamp. Nurture is creating a program to teach foundational life skills to children ages 4-7 through immersive play.
artificial intelligence
Kurve - Engineering with AI twist.
Kurve raised funding led by SRI Ventures. Kurve is building an AI-powered developer tool to help businesses automate data discovery and create tailored ML solutions faster.
Mbue - Putting their m(AI)rk on the blueprint.
Mbue raised $1.8 million from Techstars, Geek Ventures, Everywhere Ventures, and others. Mbue is creating AI-powered software that instantly reviews and identifies issues in architectural drawings.
Outro🚪
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Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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San Francisco, California