We at XSeed have been thinking a lot about the near future – not about the deep and disruptive social and economic impacts of ongoing innovations in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems, deep learning, bots and robots, VR and AR (all areas where we have been deploying capital for some time). Rather, we’ve been thinking about where the current economic cycle is headed and XSeed’s role in the constantly evolving early-stage financing ecosystem in Silicon Valley.
At least since the public market’s rejection of overly frothy valuations in the last year, we have been progressing through the back-half of a very traditional Silicon Valley boom-bust cycle.
This all seems very familiar to us: XSeed was founded at just such a time during the back end of the last cycle almost ten years ago. We recognize many of the same signs – a slowdown in valuation-mania, smaller capital raises, a renewed emphasis on startup business models that can get to cash flow positive, and a hesitance on the part of recently aggressive investors to deploy new capital.
This is exactly why we believe that now is a great time to be investing: the big winners of the next boom are going to be created now and in the next few years. Now is the time to double-down as an early stage investor.
Now is the time to expand.
As XSeed heads into our tenth birthday, we are excited to announce that Damon Cronkey has joined us as a Partner. We’ve had the opportunity to get to know Damon for almost two years in a variety of capacities, and have been hugely impressed with the wealth of entrepreneurial know-how he brings from senior operating roles at SurveyMonkey and Yahoo! (check out his bio for details). Damon’s network extends XSeed’s reach globally into large-scale enterprises in ways that perfectly complement the broader XSeed team. Just as critical, his vast experience in high-growth business units, running corporate strategy, development and acquisitions, managing platform expansion, and market and geographic risk is ideally suited to help portfolio companies create value as the next cycle emerges.
That next cycle will feature bold innovation in technology. But the coming industrial perturbations will also reward those entrepreneurs who can find a sure-footed way through the obscuring fog of rapid, uncertain changes – both technological and in the market. Damon brings broad knowledge to our portfolio and to our proven focus on backing portfolio companies through multiple financing rounds. His involvement leaves our companies better positioned than ever for what is to come.
Please join us in welcoming Damon Cronkey to the XSeed fold!