NFX

Scientists are coming together to fight a common enemy at the root of all disease: Human aging.

Premiering tomorrow: NFX Bio's behind-the-scenes look at the future & business of longevity, together with leading scientists and startups.

Trailer here:

The Future of Longevity | Official Trailer | NFX Original Go behind the scenes with NFX as we explore the inner workings of the top longevity startups, digging into the minds of their Founders. Uncover their mission...

Tech Founders, don’t be afraid of building in bio.

We need the great minds from tech to stop optimizing ads and start curing diseases or addressing climate change.

That’s why we’re sending out the bat signal: Tech leaders, come to bio. We have the Ph.D.s and the science, but we also need you.

Yogev Debbi, who was Omri Amirav-Drory's co-founder at Genome Compiler, came from pure tech (he worked at Intel). Omri came from bio. Together they built a successful company that was acquired by Twist Biosciences in 2016.

The TechBio industry needs more pairings like this.

We'll show you how to bridge the gap between these two fields. You start with the right network, a fresh mindset, and the humility to check your own blindspots.

Tech entrepreneurs who learn the language of TechBio are poised to address massive, impactful markets.

Today’s essay is your first step.

NFX Bio's Omri Amirav-Drory has the guide:

Tech Founders, Don’t Be Afraid of Bio Tech Founders can capture huge value in TechBio, if they can learn to speak the language of biology. Today, we're releasing our guide.

Your opportunity to participate in the continual learning around network effects with James Currier is here.

NFX is hosting a live virtual event on Oct 26th from 5-6p PT starting with a lesson on the importance of building a network effect business followed by a Q&A session.

Sign up to save your spot:

Network Effects 101: For Founders & VCs Growing $B Startups, Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 5:00 PM | Meetup Join James Currier, General Partner at NFX, the fastest-growing seed-stage venture firm, as he shares his learnings about network effects from more than 20 years of foundin

Today, we want to point you toward some of the fastest moving water we’ve seen in decades: Generative Tech.

Steve Jobs said in 1980 that the Apple personal computer was a bicycle for the human mind.

You might say that Generative Tech is a rocketship for the human mind.

Historically, software has worked for us. It has taken our ideas and allowed us to write them, code them, draw them, create them. With Generative Tech, software will work with us.

Some have called it “Generative AI,” but AI is only half of the equation. AI models are the enabling base layers of the stack. The top layers will be 1000's of applications. Generative Tech is about what will actually touch us – what you can do with AI as a partner. This is a new level of human-machine partnership.

And we believe it’s going to happen (even) faster than most people think. Typically, major tech shifts roll out slowly. Many people were still skeptical of the Internet until 2003, so those of us who believed had less competition. SaaS was gaining consensus from 1997 to 2005. Apple didn’t open their iOS platform to outside developers for 18 months after launch. Web3 has been rolling out for 10 years.

But everyone is on board already with Generative Tech. The VCs get it. The Founders get it. The incumbents get it. The game is now on.

Where we are today is just an on ramp. It’s now possible that most of our software and human-computer interfaces will be significantly augmented in the next 5 years, after 14 years of near stasis.

That opens up exciting seams of opportunity for Founders.

Here’s what you need to know.

Generative Tech Begins:

Generative Tech Begins Calling it Generative AI is only half the equation. Generative Tech is a major shift - a whole new era of human-machine collaboration.

You've read the essays, you've heard the podcasts, and you've watched him on the Network Effects Masterclass.

Now is your chance to learn directly from James Currier, the foremost expert in network effects, in a live virtual event + Q&A for Founders. Hosted by NFX. Oct 26th from 5-6pm PT.

Sign up to save your spot.

Network Effects 101: For Founders & VCs Growing $B Startups, Wed, Oct 26, 2022, 5:00 PM | Meetup Join James Currier, General Partner at NFX, the fastest-growing seed-stage venture firm, as he shares his learnings about network effects from more than 20 years of foundin

Today, the full 11-episode season of The Network Effects Masterclass is open for founders everywhere, for free.

Thanks to 6k+ people from the startup community who helped preview this project prior to launch.

Start watching:

https://www.nfx.com/masterclass/network-effects

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We've spent over 20 years studying the power of network effects. As founders, we’ve built them into companies worth $10B+. As investors, we teach our founders these playbooks.

Now we’re putting everything we know into an 11-episode Network Effects Masterclass, made for early-stage startup founders and their teams.

Few understand the hidden complexities of network effects - learn everything there is to know about building iconic companies from day one.

NFX Masterclass Season 1 - Network Effects 11 free episodes. NFX Masterclass S1 is for Founders, CEOs, and startup teams on how network effects drive impactful businesses and how to use them to win.

Founders, building a startup that stands the test of time requires layering in multiple network effects and defensibilities.

Come see how you should think about layering network effects in your startup.

Get early access:

NFX Masterclass Season 1 - Network Effects 11 free episodes. NFX Masterclass S1 is for Founders, CEOs, and startup teams on how network effects drive impactful businesses and how to use them to win.

Founders, network effects go far deeper than understanding the definition.

To build enduring network effects within your startup requires exploration of its laws as well.

Get early access:

NFX Masterclass Season 1 - Network Effects 11 free episodes. NFX Masterclass S1 is for Founders, CEOs, and startup teams on how network effects drive impactful businesses and how to use them to win.

We’ve been studying network effects for 20 years - and how you can use them to grow massive, enduring companies.

Created for startup founders and your teams: Here’s everything we’ve learned, streamlined into 11 episodes, for free.

Get early access:

NFX Masterclass Season 1 - Network Effects 11 free episodes. NFX Masterclass S1 is for Founders, CEOs, and startup teams on how network effects drive impactful businesses and how to use them to win.

As a Founder just starting out, one of the biggest things to focus on within your business is your defensibility.

Ask yourself..."How am I going to defend the business area I'm serving from an onslaught of competitors?"

Season 1: The Network Effects Masterclass is coming soon.

How will your business survive competitors? As a Founder just starting out, one of the biggest things to focus on within your business is your defensibility. Ask yourself..."How am I going to defend th...

Web3 has done more than introduce us to game changing technologies.

It has also shown us more of the math, people, software and nodes involved in network effects. Now we can put language to it.

Season 1: The Network Effects Masterclass is coming soon.

www.youtube.com

Your company is a network and the hardest part of your startup is no longer the software.

It's how you get talent, customers and investors to bond to your startup's network.

All 11 episodes of Season 1: The Network Effects Masterclass are coming soon.

www.youtube.com

Founders, if your understanding of network effects is only "every new user adds value to every other user of your product"....there is so much more to see and understand. Once you see them you'll never look at your startup the same way again.

Season 1: The Network Effects Masterclass is coming soon.

There is so much more to network effects than new users adding value to every other user If your understanding of network effects is only "every new user adds value to every other user of your product"......there is so much more to see.

When something changes in the world’s largest asset class, it’s worth a closer look.

Today, NFX General Partner Pete Flint is releasing his thoughts on the next generation of PropTech.

Real Estate 3.0 is here. Let’s dive in:

Real Estate 3.0 – The Ownership Revolution In Real Estate 3.0, the very concept of ownership is what’s at play. Ownership structures and mental models are both changing.

The U.S. housing market is valued at $43+ trillion and has proven to be one of the best investments, but is difficult to invest in.

Landa changes that, allowing anyone to invest in income-generating houses for just $5.

Gigi Levy Weiss shares why we've backed them since 2019:

Why NFX Invested in Landa: The Startup Democratizing Access to the $43 Trillion Residential Real Estate Market NFX co-led Landa’s Seed round in 2019 and doubled down on their Series A. Today they’re emerging from stealth with $33M in venture funding, along with $62M in debt financing. Investing in residential real estate has time and again proven to be one of the best investments someone can make. At $43...

"Find the fast moving water."

It's a mental model from James Currier that we hear repeated in our network, day in and day out. It sticks. And it pushes you toward greatness.

Technology and markets are like a river. Your job is to find the technology, market segment, language, distribution channels, and teammates that constitute the fastest moving parts of that river -- and then navigate your company there.

Sometimes it's hard to see that you’re actually in slow moving water. Especially if you've never experienced fast moving water. But when you get there you’ll feel it. Everything lights up at once. Everyone wants you. Wants to work with you, give you money, write about you.

It's time to learn how to read the river.

Find The Fast Moving Water We work with our NFX Guild on this mental model for greatness from day 1. Now, we are sharing it with the rest of the startup community.

As one of the world's most common protein sources, the $230B global egg industry has yet to be disrupted by plant-based alternatives, until now.

NFX-backed Yo Egg spoke with Bloomberg Quicktake on how they're providing consumers with tasty, healthy, and sustainable options:

Making Vegan Eggs Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, there isn't even a chicken to begin with. These alternative eggs are all animal-free. So, how do you make an egg without the chicken? Bloomberg's Rosalie e'Silva and Deena Shanker report. (Source: Bloomberg)

Speed is one of the biggest advantages startups have.

Within 6 months of founding, Fair.xyz has already helped the Ukrainian Government, pulled off PR stunts wowing millions, and added 15,000+ people to its waitlist.

Gigi Levy Weiss and Morgan Beller on why we're backing their mission to create fairer NFT launches:

Why NFX Invested in Fair.xyz: The Platform Enabling Creators to Launch NFT Collections in Minutes NFT launches are broken. If you’ve kept up with some recent high-profile NFT mints, you know how disruptive they can be to the blockchain and people trying to use them. For example, the most recent Bored Ape launch caused gas fees to soar by nearly 20,000% from their normal levels. This wasn’t j...

There should be far more Scientist-Founders than we see today. But for years, inertia has led them away from the Founder's path.

Today, Omri Drory, the head of NFXBio, is calling for scientists to see themselves as Founders. Here's how to recognize (and act) on your potential:

Academia or Startup? A Decision Matrix for Future Scientist-Founders Learn the pros and cons of scientists staying in academia, versus founding techbio startups — and how to spin out of university.

e-commerce tools are still in their infancy, Shop Circle is going to change that.

TechCrunch breaks down their plans to build and scale mission-critical e-commerce software to become the one-stop-shop for online merchants.

See why we led their Seed round:

Shop Circle aims to help e-commerce shops find useful apps – TechCrunch The London-based company is creating a one-stop shop for what it considers to be the “best-of-the-best” e-commerce apps to get merchants up-and-running quickly.

“Your relationship with a VC is like a marriage.”

Many Founders have heard it before. It’s an overused comparison in this ecosystem.

We understand the heuristic, but the truth is: the internal dynamics of a Founder-VC relationship are nothing like a marriage at all.

It’s different in countless, obvious ways (hopefully you don’t ask your husband or wife to send you updates on their KPIs).

One main and overlooked difference is an underlying principle which is a major source of tension: persistent information asymmetry.

How you manage that principle can chart the course of your relationship with your investors.

Academics have studied the Founder-VC relationship, and found that it’s always in a state of imbalance. At each point during your relationship, one person knows more than the other person. Sometimes it’s the VC, and sometimes it’s the Founder.

Initially, it’s the investor who holds the information advantage.

VCs see thousands of deals over the course of their investing careers. In addition, some of the best VCs have also been Founders themselves, so they’ve had a glimpse into your future.

At this point, the VC holds a lot of the cards – and hence possesses a lot more information. Founders often don’t know where they are standing in the process; how serious the investor is, and what they can expect as the next step.

But, after the VC decides to invest, that information asymmetry will shift.

You will start to gain information advantages. You can see what’s happening in your business on a second-to-second level.

You have all your attention focused on knowing everything there is to know about your company – the product, the market, the employees and the competition.

While the VC, who is invested in quite a few companies, just can’t have the same level of domain expertise even if he or she did have access to all your data.

The distribution of those blind spots will shift over the course of your relationship with your investors, but they will never disappear. Which is why effective communication is key.

This is especially critical during downturns – when there is often more bad news than good news, and when financial strain may be highlighting weaknesses in your company that weren’t previously on display. In these periods, you can’t afford surprising your investors with information they should have known earlier.

There’s a playbook for managing this relationship that’s based on both human psychology and communication processes.

If you follow it, you can unlock one of the most enduring kinds of relationships one can experience: The kind where you get to build something with someone who is just as excited about it as you are, over time, in good times and in bad.

See the full playbook here: https://www.nfx.com/post/founder-vc-relationship/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=founder-vc-relationship&utm_medium=social&utm_content=nfx

There's a stereotype in the TechBio investor world: that of "East Coast" vs. "West Coast" mindsets.

How do great Founders decide which investor to pick?

They don't. They see beyond this dichotomy.

Today, NFX Bio's Gita Reinitz reveals her strategy:

The Golden Ratio: Navigating East Coast v. West Coast in TechBio Investing How to use two dominant TechBio ideologies to your advantage. A new strategy for navigating both camps.

Companies face an heightened risk of cyberattack or system failure as they deploy increasingly complex networks.

Today Faddom emerges with $6M led by NFX to offer hybrid (cloud & physical) network mapping in under an hour.

See why we're backing from Gigi Levy Weiss:

Why NFX Invested in Faddom: The Startup Helping Companies Understand Their IT Networks in Under an Hour As businesses deploy increasingly complex IT systems with numerous cloud and physical networks, they face an increased risk of cyberattacks or system failures. Nearly without exception, cyberattacks have increased each year since the internet was created. McAffee found that companies faced an 81% hi...

Twitter, TikTok & Meta make headlines — but a new generation of Techbio startups is leading the way for the real 100x advancements for humanity.

Today NFX Bio's explains the shift from Biotech to Techbio — and what future it unlocks.

From Biotech to TechBio The shift from biotech to TechBio enables us to do the most important things on earth: heal, feed, and provide for ourselves & our planet.

As the first-ever NFT game that integrates real-world gaming with Metaverse capabilities, Kryptomon NFT is truly driving forward web3 gaming.

See why NFX is leading their $10M funding round along with PLAYSTUDIOS, Griffin Gaming Partners, and others in Geektime גיקטיים:

Kryptomon raises $10 million, just 8 months after founding Imagine if Pokemon, Tamagotchi, and CryptoKitties had a lovechild–that would leave you with a Kryptomon