Legacy Portfolio Spotlight: TripleLift

Yesterday, we had the great fortune to announce TripleLift’s $1.4B majority acquisition by Vista Equity Partners. As I read through the excited messages on my subway ride home, I couldn’t help but think about the pride and joy that the TripleLift team must be feeling.

In many ways, TripleLift symbolizes the best of venture capital’s potential. We were blessed to invest in Eric Berry, Ari Lewine,  and Shaun Zacharia as they were coming out of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA). From the very first pitch, their vision was clear: “The web is going visual.” Pinterest was beginning to gain traction, and they could see where the puck was going three moves out. 

Though they encountered some hurdles along the way, they never lost focus on their belief in the visualization of the Web. Laconia’s thesis today grew out of our legacy investment in Triplelift, but more so in Eric, Ari, and Shaun.

With each of our investments, we focus on three key pillars: operational execution, sales acceleration, and capital strategy. TripleLift nailed all three.

When it comes to operational execution, they ensured nothing was overlooked. Each investor update not only included the traditional boxes that needed to be checked, but also emphasized corporate culture and employee wellness, which we found forward-thinking. We were also impressed with how they continued to upgrade their team as the business evolved, balancing loyalty to the person and responsibility to the company. 

On the sales acceleration front, there was a period in the company's lifecycle when they saw the future of ad distribution becoming more programmatic. Those early partnerships accelerated their growth at a time when programmatic ad buying was also in its infancy. 

But what truly separates TripleLift from the rest of the pack is their capital strategy. They checked their ego at the door and based their success on their growth instead of valuation, building a market leader on less than $20 million of total capital raised. On numerous occasions over the past 9 years, I am sure they’ve had numerous options to exit, and the strong foundation of their business enabled them to stay on course toward their long-term vision. 

To our co-investors (True Ventures, Edison Partners, NextView Ventures, Inovia Capital, ERA and all the others): thank you for your partnership over these past nine years. And, most importantly, to Eric, Ari, Shaun, and the other team members we’ve had the pleasure of getting to know: thank you for your trust, and congratulations on your remarkable achievement. 

We are proud to remain investors in TripleLift and look forward to having Vista Equity as part of the team. The journey does not end, and one could say it is only the beginning.

Portfolio Spotlight: Marpipe

We’re thrilled to publicly announce Marpipe, the world’s first platform for end-to-end multivariate creative testing -- and the newest addition to the Laconia portfolio.

In May of 2019, we had the pleasure of meeting Marpipe’s founder and CEO, Dan Pantelo, through our amazing former intern, Paola Delgado. When she introduced the company as an adtech firm, we were a bit hesitant to get excited right off the bat. Although we have seen great success in the past with our fund investment in PromoteIQ (acq. Microsoft) and legacy investments FreeWheel (acq. Comcast) and TripleLift, we tend to approach this sector with caution given its highly saturated nature and somewhat limited liquidity options. 

When we first met Dan, he was building a fast-growing digital marketing agency that was delivering exceptional results and insights thanks to the proprietary technology that his team had built. In working with both brands and agencies, the Marpipe team had discovered that they could use automated multivariate testing and machine learning to discover, create, and analyze the best-performing creative content for brands, products, and services. By generating thousands of creative files that isolate and measure visual variables, marketers can pinpoint with data-driven certainty exactly what visual stimuli audiences react best to, allowing them to rapidly narrow in on audience/creative fit that can scale. For the first time, marketers can understand not only which creative outperforms but why.

Though we were impressed with the underlying technology, unique value proposition, and early traction, we went back and forth on whether this functionality was a “nice to have” feature or an essential piece of the overall creative workflow. We also had hesitations about the managed service business model. Dan’s collaborative attitude throughout these conversations became readily apparent. He never became defensive toward our questions, opinions or suggestions, and he continually impressed us with his rigor and thoughtfulness.

As is the case more often than not, we ultimately passed on the investment. Side note to any founders reading this: a “No” from a VC isn’t necessarily set in stone. In some cases, an entrepreneur’s ability to receive and incorporate constructive feedback, along with demonstrated progress, can convert that “No” into a “Yes”. In fact, this has been the case with our last three investments, which we ended up proudly coming back to lead or co-lead alongside strong syndication partners.

After we initially passed, Dan continued to reach out for our feedback and kept us updated on the firm's progress. In the following months, he made meaningful progress in evolving the company’s business model, refining the product roadmap, and establishing strategic partnerships that enable scalable growth. His continued execution combined with his communication style and collaborative nature only increased our confidence in his vision and ability. After a particularly exciting catch-up meeting in November, we issued our term sheet in partnership with TIA Ventures, and in January 2020, we closed the deal. 

Fast forward to today -- and the real highlight of this post -- Marpipe has now publicly launched the first self-serve platform enabling multivariate testing for ad creative. With market-leading companies like Segment, Mars, and Tubi already using Marpipe, users across the entire platform (including 700+ lucky firms with beta access) discover new ads that perform over 200% better than their average. 

With the launch of the public beta and freemium plan, now anyone growing a brand can sign up for Marpipe and get started in minutes. We couldn’t be more excited about Marpipe’s momentum. Their platform is a game-changer for the creative marketing industry. 

To learn about how Marpipe is increasing marketing efficiency with their data-driven approach and get started, check out their latest release and their launch on Product Hunt today!

Portfolio Spotlight: PromoteIQ

We are thrilled to announce today that our portfolio company, PromoteIQ, has been acquired by Microsoft!

PromoteIQ automates vendor marketing for e-commerce. Their platform enables brands to promote their products on e-commerce sites, increasing brand awareness, driving incremental product sales and generating unprecedented product performance insight. For retailers, vendor marketing is quickly becoming a strategic business line and critical source of incremental margin. Today, PromoteIQ's technology powers the core vendor marketing programs for the largest online retailers and brands, and we couldn’t imagine a better partner for the next stage of PromoteIQ’s growth than Microsoft.

In August of 2016, Alex Sherman and Peter Schwartz, the co-founders of PromoteIQ, walked into our office after being introduced to us by another founder in our Laconia family, Liz Zalman (Co-founder & CEO, @strongDM).

Investing in PromoteIQ wasn’t an immediately obvious decision. Though we had a number of exciting adtech investments in our legacy portfolio (TripleLift, C3 Metrics, FreeWheel, Localytics, to name a few), our fund focus had shifted away from the sector as it became increasingly tough to navigate for both entrepreneurs and investors alike. The space had become oversaturated with investment, and obtaining fresh capital and/or liquidity was proving to be difficult. 

Any reservations we had about the sector quickly disappeared as Alex and Peter presented a clear articulation of PromoteIQ as building an entirely new category at the forefront of the "Digital Shelf". At the time, vendor marketing had not yet gained serious momentum; even Amazon's now multi-billion-dollar advertising business was mostly under the radar. Alex and Peter cleanly outlined the tremendous growth opportunity in this new category at the intersection of marketing and commerce. PromoteIQ's platform enabled e-commerce sites to create another revenue stream and allowed brands to promote themselves to shoppers at the critical moment of conversion in their purchasing pathway.

Confident and grounded entrepreneurs, Alex and Peter possessed a clear vision of the market opportunity and the potential challenges ahead. They were also fully versed in the metrics and milestones needed to drive the business and reach the next stage of company growth. We felt a strong sense of 'fit' - these were entrepreneurs that we wanted to work with.

We introduced Alex and Peter to Nauta Capital and co-led their seed round. Over the last thirty months, we have had the honor of working closely with them on opening doors at key enterprise clients, fine-tuning strategy, helping them find some star hires (including our very own former intern Reena!), and everything in between. Their business has grown at breathtaking speed and in a short period of time, the company has become the dominant player within their category, easily outmaneuvering some of their larger competitors to build the defining solution for retailers.

We are so proud of Alex, Peter, and the entire team for building and establishing the company as a leading global vendor marketing platform -- no small feat by any means. From board meetings to late night phone calls and summer retreats, we have learned a great deal from them as investors, partners, and friends -- and who knew they would help us find love and tranquility in fishing? We can’t wait to see them expand their global presence through their continued growth with Microsoft’s powerhouse behind them.

You can read more on the acquisition here and here.

Laconia Turns Four!

We were once told that 1 year in the early stage startup world is like 20 years in human years -- if that is true, then we are celebrating our 80th birthday. At 80, we decided it was time for a face lift.

Let’s back up…

Four years ago, David and I started Laconia to better support the next generation of entrepreneurs by taking the best practices of angel investing and the best practices of institutional venture capital to build the fund we always wanted to have as founders. We wanted to leverage our operational experience and our network to build an ecosystem that provides entrepreneurs with value and guidance beyond cash investment.  

Transparency. Community. Collaboration.

These were the core values that we built our vision on, and they continue to be the backbone of Laconia today.

From our open-door policy for mentor meetings to our first full-day venture symposium for 20+ family offices and our intensive, year-round paid internship program, education has been fundamental to increasing transparency across our sliver of the venture ecosystem.

Laconia is a family. Everyone, whether an entrepreneur, a Limited Partner, or a VC co-investor, plays an integral role in the success of our portfolio companies. As we build infrastructure around sales acceleration, operational execution, and capital strategy, we continue to proactively engage our whole community. Our north star, as always, is to support founders as they embark on the most difficult of journeys - entrepreneurship.

As our vision evolves, we realized it made sense to give our company a makeover that fully reflects our core DNA, starting with our logo:

We set out to not only change the top coat of paint but better communicate the foundational elements that embody Laconia - community, collaboration, connectedness, support and guidance.

Perhaps most significantly, we’ve revamped our website to further increase our accessibility through a pitch submission form, an open rolling intern application, and better organized resources.

Beyond the logo, website, and brand identity, we are launching a number of new initiatives, including a forum for founders to meet and discuss business challenges alongside fellow VCs, content series that further demystify venture and entrepreneurship, and curated community events.

When we started Laconia, it was just David and me in a room. As a full team of six, we can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds.

Thank you to Daniel Stankus for patiently understanding and capturing who we are, Adam Price & the Homer Logistics team for sharing your in-house genius with us, Bani Singh and Jake Quan for the heavy lifting on the website, Dessy Levinson for the thoughtful early support, Alex Sherman for calling our baby ugly and pushing us to prioritize this project and the team at ListenFirst for being the best officemates we could ask for since day one.

Saying Hello & Goodbye: Laconia's Internship Program

Saying goodbye to a family member or friend as they move forward in their life is always a bittersweet moment. It is that time of year at Laconia when we must say goodbye and thank you to our latest team of interns.

We run a paid part-time intern year-round, either for an academic semester, a full academic year, or a summer season. Our internship program has been widely successful, attracting talented students from NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Brown, UMich, and Rutgers, among others. In addition to intellectual curiosity, exceptional work ethic, and adaptable skills, they have all brought to the table a genuine passion for technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital investing. Numerous former interns have gone on to pursue full-time opportunities at other venture capital firms and Laconia portfolio companies, with one former intern even re-joining Laconia full-time. Our interns are among the firm’s strongest ambassadors, often referring future candidates and budding entrepreneurs.

Our program fully immerses the interns in the inner workings of a venture capital firm, providing extensive first-hand exposure to all aspects of the work required. In preparation for the program, they read Ventures Deals by Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson, review Laconia’s Private Placement Memorandum, and become familiar with our portfolio companies. While with us, they are involved in deal flow & sourcing, due diligence, portfolio support, industry research projects, marketing, and operational support. We treat our interns as associates, and, in return, we get hardworking, smart thinking, and creative minds who allow our small team to accomplish so much.

We are strong believers in compensating them for their work along with providing them with a platform to learn, grow, and explore. Internship programs are great vehicles to allow young adults to dip a toe in the real world so they better understand the direction they want to take and the skill they need to develop. Payment extends access rather than limiting the field to only those who can afford to work for free.

I end this by saying goodbye to Jodie Miller and Ravi Shah and wish them all the best as they graduate and head off to PwC Strategy& and IA Capital respectively. They were stars and will be sorely missed. The good news is that as one door closes, another opens, and, with that, we welcome Naomi Grossman and Addison Huneycutt to the Laconia family - we can’t wait to see what you will create here!