Cloud Capital: 2022 Rewind
2022 marks the third year of investments for Cloud Capital. I started Cloud Capital in 2020 when the markets were enjoying an all-time investment frenzy, with startups of all sizes raising capital at decadent valuations. 2022 was preempted to kick in a slowdown and owing very much to the caution-filled Q1 earlier this year, markets globally did transcend into the furry carnivoran, coming out of its hibernation and knocking on our doorsteps with the scary chimes of a ‘fundraise winter’.
This year has been quite the experience and like my earlier annual letters (2020/2021), this one will unwind Cloud Capital’s 2022 activity.
Early milestone for Cloud Capital:
Unwrapping our 2022 activity:
- Deployed ~$2.8M (~1.2x of 2021 deployment)
- Backed 24 companies across 26 rounds
- Round Participation: 2 Pre-seed, 9 Seed, 7 Pre-Series A, 4 Series A, 1 Series A+, and 3 Series B
- 9 portfolio companies announced follow-on rounds: Lysto (Square Peg, Tiger Global, Hashed) | Tortoise (Vertex Ventures) | Orange Health (General Catalyst, Bertelsmann India) | Airmeet (Prosus Ventures, Sistema Asia Fund) | Rupifi (Tiger Global, Bessemer Venture Partners) | OneCode (General Catalyst) | threedots (Kalaari Capital) | 2 other undisclosed rounds
- Participated in 2 follow-on rounds: 1 Pre-Series A (stealth) + 1 Series A
(OneCode w/ General Catalyst, Sequoia Surge, Nexus Venture Partners) - Acquisition channels: 15% portfolio founder referrals | 8% direct inbound | 23% inbound intro requests | 54% outbound
New investments in 2022:
- 100ms (Alpha Wave, Accel India, Matrix India)
- AssureKit (Mayfield, Kae Capital)
- Bytebeam (Accel India, Together Fund, Strive VC)
- Cents (Bessemer Venture Partners)
- Dreamverse
- dRisk (Saama Capital, Good Capital)
- Fleek (RTP Global, Titan Capital)
- Goldsetu (Village Global, 2am VC, Broom Ventures)
- Jar (Tiger Global, Rocketship.vc, Arkam Ventures)
- Kaagaz (YC W22, Pravega Ventures)
- Laminar (Leo Capital, Garuda Ventures)
- LogiPe
- Mojocare (B Capital, Sequoia Surge)
- Onco (Accel India + angels)
- One World Nation (Inventus Capital, Polygon Studio, Better Capital)
- OneCare (Better Capital, Multiply Ventures)
- Persona (Cadenza, Hashed Emergent)
- Phyllo (Nexus Venture Partners, RTP Global)
- Range (General Catalyst, Bloomberg Beta)
- Rhym
- SaaSPay
- Sorted
- UrbanPiper (Tiger Global, Sequoia India, Swiggy, Zomato)
- ZeFi (YC W20, Incubate Fund, Frontier Ventures)
Cloud Capital in a snapshot:
- Deployed >$7M across 52 companies with a total market cap of ~$1.8Bn
- Average cheque size of $120,000
- 70% of investments in rounds with an institutional investor
- Top sectors of investment: SaaS, Fintech, HealthTech, Web3/Crypto
- 44% of the founders are repeat entrepreneurs
- Portfolio split of 54% B2B vs 46% B2C
- Max # of investments in a portfolio company so far (doubling down on our conviction): 4
- Portfolio shutdowns: 1
Learnings and experiences:
By now every founder and investor has read countless blogs and twitter threads on cutting costs, extending runways, and doubling down on sustainable growth — so I’ll spare all of those recycled learnings. Few points that stuck out to me in particular:
- Investor’s funding goalposts change relative to the market sentiments, as a founder you need to be true to your company and north-star metrics.
- Credible investors (micro-funds/angels/VCs) are more comfortable participating in a round that gives you ~24 months of runway, especially in the current environment. Highly unlikely that a quick round giving you 4–5 months of runway will help you change things around.
- Winter may be here but nothing is on standstill. There are still many investors who are actively cutting cheques. Fundraising right now may be challenging but it’s not impossible 💪
Many of us have never experienced a bear market and therefore the resulting apprehensions are very real. Investors are taking time to get back to companies, there is dry powder in the market but laced with great caution, and founders are taking painful measures to cut costs and extend runways. Having said that, it is in these trying times where as an ecosystem we course-correct and emerge stronger.
I am grateful to all of our LPs who backed our judgment, as well as all the founders who allowed us to come aboard on their respective journeys 🙏
Wishing everyone a very happy New Year and looking forward to seeing what 2023 has in store for us!
Kashish 🥂
Cloud Capital invests in early-stage startups, writing cheques from $50–300k across industries — both web 2 and 3. If you’re an angel investor who wants to access our deal flow and invest alongside, then feel free to give us a shoutout.
