At the beginning of this year, a16z announced that they co-led a $175 million investment in the real estate company Loft. Based in São Paulo, Loft is doing in Brazil what Opendoor is doing in the US. They are bringing more liquidity to the residential… Read More
This recent Streetsblog article about the possibility of turning the M Ocean View line in San Francisco into a kind of subway is a good reminder about the always important connection between transit investment and density. The question I always pose to myself is, “If… Read More
Earlier this week, Union Square Ventures announced that it was leading a Series A investment in an online education marketplace targeted at K-12 students. The platform is called Outschool, and you can think of it as a form of homeschooling. Today, there about 55 million… Read More
$UBER went public on Friday. Notwithstanding the initial stumble, Uber will go down in history as one of the most lucrative venture capital investments of all time. The stock is down from its IPO price of $45 per share, but at that price, the initial… Read More
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (US) created something known as Opportunity Zones. These are low-income and high-poverty census tracts that are designed to attract investment by offering a number of different tax benefits. I first wrote about it on the blog, here.… Read More
CBRE recently published this report looking at the impact of the “high-tech software/services industry” on the North American office market. Here are a few highlights: – Since 2010, tech has created ~1.1 million jobs in the US at an annual growth rate that is 3x the… Read More
Warren Buffet recently said in a Yahoo Finance interview that when you buy cryptocurrencies you’re not actually investing. Instead, you’re speculating – speculating that “somebody else will come along and pay more money tomorrow.” Investments need to generate a return. And nobody is at all clear on… Read More
“Investing is an activity in which consumption today is foregone in an attempt to allow greater consumption at a later date. “Risk” is the possibility that this objective won’t be attained.” -Warren Buffet Warren Buffet published his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders this past… Read More
Today I am thinking about product/market fit. Product/market fit is startup speak for being in a good market and having a product that satisfies the needs of that market. This may sound intuitive, but having the best product doesn’t matter if there’s no market for… Read More
Yesterday Andreessen Horowitz announced an investment in the startup Point. They led an $8.4 million Series A round. Point is an alternative to traditional home equity loans and HELOCs. The way it works is that you actually sell a portion of your property. Here’s an example:… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 