Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)
To kick off this month’s newsletter, we are excited to highlight Stitch Crew as this month’s Builder Highlight. Next, we have a few portfolio company updates to share as well as an introduction to our interns for the summer. This month we wanted to share insights on VC fund valuation and a recent blog post by Nathaniel Harding on how venture capital is the new oil and gas in Oklahoma. To close the newsletter, we have information on the upcoming Tulsa Venture Capital + Tech Entrepreneur Mixer event and open positions with Respond Flow.
What Lies Ahead:
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Builders Highlight: Stitch Crew
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Quarterly Company Update
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Announcing Cortado Interns
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VC 101: Fund Validation
- Blog: Venture Capital Is The New Oil And Gas In Oklahoma
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Tulsa Venture Capital + Tech Entrepreneur Mixer
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Respond Flow Is Hiring!
Builders Highlight: Stitch Crew
In our regular Builder Highlight, we share about people and organizations building an innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem. This month Cortado highlights Stitch Crew. Stitch Crew partners with organizations that are working to build a more inclusive community by designing programs that encourage entrepreneurs. Stitch Crew is primarily technology-focused and industry agnostic. They are searching for resourceful and resilient founders aiming to solve meaningful problems in society. In partnership with the Oklahoma City Thunder, twice a year they select up to ten startups and help them get in the best possible shape to launch and grow their companies. Startups go through an intensive 12-week accelerator program called the Thunder Launchpad, culminating with Demo Day, when founders present their company to a curated audience made up of investors, community stakeholders and business leaders.
Quarterly Company Highlights
The last few months have generated some great updates from Cortado portfolio companies. A few highlights:
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Two of Cortado’s pre-seed companies generated their first commercial revenue in Q1
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Respond Flow, an SMS marketing platform for SMEs, is positioned to successfully navigate recent regulation changes in the telecom industry to sign on new customers at a rapid pace.
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Ox made a great hire for head of sales and is now actively building their sales pipeline
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Drov was named “Most Promising New Venture” by the Oklahoma Venture Forum at their 2021 awards ceremony on May 12. Respond Flow was named runner up for the same award. Other award winners included Watkins-Conti Products, Skydweller Aero, and Happily. Congrats to all!
Announcing Cortado Interns
We are excited to have selected our summer interns, Logan Rust and Travis Adams. Logan comes from OU and graduates this May with a degree in Entrepreneurship and Venture Management. Travis has a background in oil and gas investing and is currently in law school at Oklahoma City University. Also interning with Entrepreneur in Residence Blake Bixler is Jack Griffin, who is studying public policy analysis and economics at Duke University.
VC 101: Fund Valuation
As more people invest in venture capital, a natural question is “how are funds valued?” In some ways it is straightforward: the value of the fund only changes when the valuation of a portfolio company (portco) changes, and that only happens when a portco raises a subsequent round. Until any company raises another round, the fund value is static. The only exception is if the form of investment is a convertible note which is debt with an interest rate — in that case the value of the company just changes by the interest rate. If a portco valuation goes up in a subsequent round (good), that’s an “up round”; if the valuation goes down (bad), that’s a “down round”. Over time, a fund like Cortado Ventures will revise portco values, and the sum is the fund valuation.
For more information on this topic, see this helpful summary.
Blog: Venture Capital Is The New Oil And Gas In Oklahoma
This month, Nathaniel Harding wrote a blog post on how venture capital compares to oil and gas in Oklahoma. He writes about how venture funds, capital calls, and other aspects of venture capital relate to drilling programs, pre-paying AFEs, and other elements of O&G.
“Oklahoma is an oil and gas powerhouse, home to some of the most prolific fields in the nation, and home to a wildly disproportionate share of industry innovators — Aubrey, T. Boone, Larry, Harold, and many other luminaries on a first-name basis in our folklore. I am a third-generation oil and gas entrepreneur. My grandfather, great uncle, uncle, dad, and two brothers have all run their own businesses in Oklahoma and Texas.”
Read the full blog post here.
Tulsa Venture Capital + Tech Entrepreneur Mixer
Are you a current or aspiring Tulsa entrepreneur? Interested in tech companies, venture capital, or entrepreneurship generally? Just want to hear about what some awesome innovators in the Tulsa ecosystem are up to? RSVP to Atento Capital’s portfolio event on June 3rd! The event will feature speakers their our team, partners, and founders they have invested.
This event is open to the general public. RSVP here.
Respond Flow Is Hiring
Our portfolio company Respond Flow is looking for multiple individuals to add to their sales, engineering, and support teams in Tulsa. Interested? You can find more details and apply here.
You can find more open roles at portfolio companies on our jobs page here.