November 2022 Newsletter

The latest from Garuda, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits!

Welcome to our November newsletter, where we share the latest from us, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits.

• New Investments: Iconic Air, emissions intelligence for the oil & gas industry, came out of stealth and announced their $5M seed round. We are excited to begin the journey with co-founders Kyle Gillis and James Carnes and the entire Iconic Air team, alongside our friends at XYZ Ventures, GTM Fund, and Country Roads Angel Network. And we look forward to partnering with more founders to address the climate challenge head-on. You can read more about our investment here

  

  James Carnes and Kyle Gillis of Iconic Air on a recent trip to the Bay Area

• Startup Ecosystems in APAC: In August, we traveled to Singapore, Jakarta, and Sydney after a COVID-induced hiatus to reconnect with founders, operators, co-investors, and friends of the firm. We expect to continue to spend time in the region, strengthening the APAC + Silicon Valley corridor. You can find our thoughts on the various startup ecosystems here

  

  Friends of Garuda

• Founder and Friends Dinners: In September we co-hosted a dinner in SF with our friends at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where we invited a cross-section of founders across categories and stages to break bread, trade stories, and connect

  

As always, thank you for your continued support. If you know compelling founders building or exploring opportunities in SaaS, Fintech / Commerce, Infrastructure / Security, or Climate, please send them our way!

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Portfolio News

Airbase, the business spend management platform, was recognized as one of the most promising fintech companies of 2022 by CB Insights

Curacubby, the all-in-one payments and CRM tool for schools, was recognized as the E-commerce Firm of the Year by the US Department of Commerce

First Resonance, the factory operating system for next-generation manufacturing, was featured in Robotics & Automation News explaining the importance for manufacturers to reevaluate their production processes

Leap, the platform for monetizing distributed energy resources, virtually aggregated over 77 MW in flexible load across 24 partners and over 21,000 unique devices during the recent heat wave in California, and provided meaningful relief to the strained grid and kept the lights on for millions of California residents

To see a complete list of founders and companies we’ve partnered with, visit garuda.vc/companies

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Garuda’s Bookshelf

In a world of bite-sized, easily consumable content, we love asking and getting the question, “Have you read any good books lately?” In this month’s bookshelf:

Non-Fiction: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy by Hamilton Helmer

By long-time corporate strategy expert Hamilton Helmer, 7 Powers is an insightful corporate strategy framework. Using the example of Netflix’s dramatic “bet-the-company” pivot to streaming from DVDs as the foundational case study, Helmer steps through what he refers to as the “7 Powers,” including Scale Economies, Network Economies, Counter-Positioning, and Switching Costs. In Helmer’s words: “if your business does not have at least one of these seven Power types, then you lack a viable strategy, and are vulnerable.” 

Fiction: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle, by 2x Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead, is a heist novel in the best sense. A light read, it follows Ray Carney on his “good guy gone wrong” journey in Harlem in the 50s and 60s (it reminded us of Walter White in Breaking Bad).

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Garuda Ventures is a B2B-focused, pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm. Subscribe below to get the latest from us, and visit garuda.vc to learn more.