Thursdays at Abnormal Returns are all about startup and venture capital links. You can check out last week’s links including a look at why startups often ignore the 65+ aged crowd.
Quote of the day
“So the lesson for entrepreneurs is that you really need to have your house in order when you go out and raise capital. The more eyebrows you raise with investors, the worse it gets. And hair can get in the way of an otherwise financeable opportunity.” – Fred Wilson
Chart of the day

Your hit rate, defined by investments with a 10x returns, drives venture fund returns. (A VC)
VC returns
- "About half (51%) of all of the capital invested into venture-funded companies exiting over the last decade lost money, while less than 4% generated a 10X or greater multiple." (medium.com)
- How venture capital is a lot like men's pro tennis: "Its expertise is difficult to earn and hard to replicate." (blogs.cfainstitute.org)
- Inconsistent check size can mess with your returns. (pointsandfigures.com)
Companies
- Automattic just raised money at a $3 billion valuation. (axios.com)
- Andreessen Horowitz is backing a startup by Oculus' founder that is building a company, which makes technology to deploy and monitor a "virtual border wall." (businessinsider.com)
- Casper wants to be the 'Nike of Sleep.' (nytimes.com)
- A profile of upstart bank Monzo. (theguardian.com)
Platforms
- Why healthcare jobs need their own, specialized platforms. (a16z.com)
- Why big platforms, like LinkedIn, eventually get attacked by niche competitors. (a16z.com)
Real estate
- Patch Homes is aiming to help homeowners selling fractional equity in their houses. (avc.com)
- Biproxi hopes to be the “Zillow of commercial real estate.” (news.crunchbase.com)
- PadSplit wants to bring back rooming houses. (bloomberg.com)
Venture capital
- VC funds now need to be wary of investor backgrounds. (hunterwalk.com)
- Seed investors have not yet soured on fintech or cannabis startups. (news.crunchbase.com)
Startups
- Why discipline trumps vision. (firstround.com)
- Just because something is complex doesn't mean it can (or should) be simplified. (florentcrivello.com)
- On the benefits of startup hiring in a smaller town. (venturebeat.com)
- Tomasz Tunguz, "That Will Never Work" [by Marc Randolph ] is a great book to to the annals of Silicon Valley lore." (tomtunguz.com)