As we head into the 2023 budgeting season for tech startups, it’s becoming clear that nothing is clear in deciding between growth and cash preservation. Since the tech market crash earlier this year, much of the advice from VCs to startups has been around cash preservation — mostly that having a long runway was in …

Real-time went prime-time during Covid. Going into the pandemic, we would argue, the average Jane and Joe happily lived their ‘real’ lives, from which they would take time out to dip into their digital lives — paying bills, shopping online, replying asynchronously to emails — before returning to normal life. Fast forward to today, and …

Forget cash burn, in a world of easy money, Equity Burn should govern your decisions. If Oscar Wilde were alive today, he no doubt would have decided to become a tech entrepreneur. And his famous quip would instead have emerged as the tweet, “venture capitalists know the price of everything and the value of nothing”. …

Innovation thrives on instability. System-wide shocks drive change that startups can exploit ruthlessly, and to which incumbents cannot adjust. Historically, these shocks were either financial, technological or societal. In 2020, we’ve had all three at once: technology shock as the cloud came into its own, financial shock which will force society to do more with …

When we work with our portfolio, mapping out the likely next few years, we keep hearing the common refrain “nobody knows what’s going to happen” and, therefore, a “V” shaped recovery is as likely as a “U” or “L” shaped one. We disagree. We concede that getting to a final GDP forecast is challenging but …

An adapted story from the lessons of the dot com bubble. Please note, none of the caricatured CEOs below represent actual Dawn portfolio CEOs, who, particularly our late-stage CEOs, are excelling in their leadership during these difficult times. A unicorn founder found himself at the bottom of his garden at dusk having a moment to …

I would urge business leaders, in these times of uncertainty and real opportunity, to forcefully define where they fit into the future of business and to decisively lead their current and new customers into that future. I will make two predictions about the consequences of the Corona crisis than I’d be willing to go ‘all …