Auren Hoffman 📚

What’s old is new. Funny to watch VCs flood back to out-of-favor business models—hardware-enabled software, marketplaces, consumer tech—which are now viewed as more defensible because AI can't easily replicate physical infrastructure, network effects, or brand.

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Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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Fund Architecture Isn’t Just Ops. It’s Strategy. ☀️ Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend, I drove up to San Francisco to speak at the VC/LP Summit at The Midway—right before the Chainsmokers block party kicked off. Great venue. Great people. A surprisingly thoughtful crowd for a holiday weekend. (Some folks even flew in from Boston—on a long weekend!) I thought a lot about what would actually make this useful. Here are a few takeaways from my keynote on what it really takes to build a scalable VC platform: 🔧 Infrastructure isn’t overhead—it’s leverage. If you want to scale your mind, you have to scale your systems. Ops frees the GP to do what only the GP can do. I called it the plumbing—it matters, and it’s what makes the system work and scale. 🧤 Thesis should fit like a glove. The best theses aren’t trendy—they’re earned. Rooted in lived experience. That’s what compounds trust and returns. And don’t chase timing. If you believe this is the time, then this is the time. Now it’s about finding LPs who believe in the opportunity with you. 📈 Institutional LPs are pattern matchers. They’re not just looking for returns—they’re looking for repeatable returns. Show them how you get from Edge → Thesis → Portfolio → Results. 🗣️ IR ≠ PR. Investor Relations is about LP fluency. It’s not just storytelling—it’s stewardship. Thank you to everyone who showed up, stayed curious, and made it a meaningful Sunday morning. Let’s keep building—platforms that endure. 📩 Feel free to reach out to Amanda Cheng, Mariane Bekker or Janet Gehrmann for the slides. Met some cool people (Sebastian Barriga Ann Lai Midway) and caught up with friends (Suraj Mehta Vijay R.). #venturecapital #fundarchitecture #emergingmanagers #LPsummit #GPstrategy #fundofFunds #platforms #repeatablereturns Asilica Redshift Capital

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I’ve spoken to over 2 dozen MDs at PE firms I can confidently say that the arb of figuring out how to implement Vertical AI at portfolio companies is very real right now It will fundamentally change underwriting for those who can do it predictably and unlock generational returns. Most are aware they need to act. Very few have.

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30+ VCs Backing Marketplace Startups Below is a cross-stage, cross-sector mix of firms that back marketplace and platform companies early and support them as they grow. Consumer and platform investors Upfront Ventures 1752vc (Formerly Pegasus) BAM Ventures Forerunner Brand Foundry Ventures Maveron BoxGroup Greycroft Alumni Ventures Marketplace natives and network effects specialists FJ Labs NFX Great Oaks Venture Capital RiverPark Ventures Left Lane Capital First Round Capital Lerer Hippeau Precursor Ventures Seed partners building two-sided platforms early Founder Collective NextView Ventures Uncork Capital Slow Ventures Bling Capital Gaingels Initialized Capital Felicis Multi-stage firms backing marketplace winners at scale Accel Bessemer Venture Partners Lightspeed General Catalyst New Enterprise Associates (NEA) Kleiner Perkins Bain Capital Ventures (BCV) Founders Fund

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Definitely recommend reading the recently released "Climate Capital Reset Project" report, by friends Will Coleman Daniel Firger Bill Tarr and Builders Vision. I wrote about it, and some key lessons in light of recent dramatic events, in my latest Forbes column. I've been investing for more than two decades and I've never seen such a significant market shift so quickly. This is not a time for more-of-the-same from climate investors and capital allocators. Dramatic events call for dramatic shifts, and those who adapt too slowly will fall by the wayside. https://lnkd.in/ekbY69Hp #climateinvesting #privateequity #venturecapital #capitalallocators #wealthmanagement

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Diving into Atlanta-based VC deal activity in 2025: Last week, I shared a post on ATL 2025 Early-Stage VC deal flow (link in comments), focusing on investments into Atlanta-based startups. This week, I’m shifting the lens to Atlanta-headquartered VC firms (ATL VC)—specifically, the number of early-stage deals they participated in. I’m focusing on deal count because it’s difficult to isolate how much capital in each round came from individual investors. In 2025, ATL VCs: • Participated in 230 early-stage VC deals • Led 41 of those deals Deal participation by sector: • 🤖 AI-enabled: 67 deals | 40% • 💻 SaaS: 36 deals | 26% • 🌱 Climate / Cleantech: 26 deals | 15% • 💳 FinTech: 21 deals | 12% • 🏭 Manufacturing: 12 deals | 7% • 🚀 Space Tech: 2 deals | <1% A few observations: • While Space Tech accounted for only two deals, both involved Atlanta-based startups and together represented 21% ($167M) of all Atlanta-based startup funding last year. This category is likely to grow meaningfully, and Atlanta is well-positioned to be a major player. • Climate and Cleantech often aren’t associated with ATL VC activity, yet the sector ranked third by deal count, ahead of FinTech. That said, only 7 of the 26 deals involved Atlanta-based startups. We can—and should—do better in 2026. • Despite the strong pipeline of Georgia Tech–educated AI engineers, there’s a notable gap between the share of AI-enabled deals ATL VCs participate in (62%) and the share of AI-enabled deals from Atlanta-based startups (34%). This is a trend worth watching closely in 2026. Would love to hear your thoughts if you are either an Atlanta-based VC or startup that raised/ tried to raise capital last year: Bill Nussey, Sean O'Brien, Michael Cohn, Andy Marshall, Aly Merritt, Jennifer Singh, Hannah Turner, Donnie Beamer Jr., CFA, Raghupathy Sivakumar, Anthony Oni, Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Chadd Evans, CFA, CAIA, Anthony Clark, Sean Banks, Christopher Klaus, Hernando B., Mike Dowdle, Blake Patton, Frank Tighe, parichit kumar, De'Havia Stewart, Henk Both, Erin Keller, Barry Givens

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