Nilson Ivano

If more than half of seed-stage startups reliably raised a Series A, something is not right. For a few years between 2018-2020, we forgot that. This chart (credit to Peter Walker from Carta) is a useful reminder. And the green is a real signal. Yes, seed → Series A graduation rates are still low by boom-time standards. And what we’re seeing in 2024 isn’t a return to 2018–2020. It’s the system stabilizing after stress. My few observations from the data: • 2021–2022 cohorts raised into momentum then hit a sudden brake • 2023 built through uncertainty, but capital stayed (almost) frozen •  2024 is the first cohort building with the new rules fully understood That’s why this signal is quietly better than it looks. Graduation rates are improving despite: – Less capital per average deal – Mega AI rounds skewing totals – Less dry powder at many early-stage funds (and this is likely to persist) One more nuance: fewer seed deals are even making it into the “tracked / fundable-to-A” bucket - so the cohort is smaller and, in some ways, cleaner. So this doesn’t mean VC generosity is coming back. It means selectivity is becoming consistent and that’s healthier. A natural seed → Series A conversion rate probably shouldn’t be 50%+. High failure rates aren’t a flaw - they’re part of how venture preserves signal, ownership, and long-term outcomes. The real damage of the last cycle wasn’t just valuation compression (we’ll feel that for years). It was time lost, morale drained, and founders stuck in the hard middle without clear rules. That’s why this moment of good green signal matters. For founders who raised in 2024 and felt like they “missed the party”: You didn’t. You arrived during the rebuild. I’ve written more about navigating this gap here, especially for founders caught between seed and Series A: 👉 Beating the Series A Crunch: Real Tactics for Founders Building Through the Gap https://lnkd.in/g_JRmp9F The new tide isn’t rushing back. It may never look like 2018 again. But it is turning; slowly, selectively, and in ways that favor builders who learned to operate without applause. #startups #founders #seed #preseed #seriesagraudation #venturefunding #fundraising #ventureinvesting #innovation

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If you check just one thing on LinkedIn today, make it this 👇 David Vélez on Nubank’s journey and what’s next: In 2012, Vélez, then a 31-year-old partner at Sequoia Capital, was trying to open a bank account in São Paulo. After passing through a high-security entrance he would later compare to a prison, his mobile phone triggered the metal detector, and he was immediately surrounded by armed guards. Even after being cleared, the ordeal dragged on. Months of bureaucracy followed, with repeated visits to the bank, before he was finally allowed to open an account. That experience convinced Vélez that Brazil’s banking system was ripe for disruption. Fourteen years later, the man who was once effectively shut out of the system now runs one of the most powerful financial institutions in the region. His digital bank, Nu Holdings, serves more than 127 million customers — nearly 60% of Brazil’s adult population — and ranks among the country’s most valuable companies: Now 44, the Colombian-born founder has built an estimated net worth of $17.7 billion (Bloomberg) and is steering Nubank toward its next chapter: expansion into some of the world’s most competitive banking markets — including the US 🇺🇸, where Nubank has just received its first green light toward a national bank license: https://lnkd.in/d8TUwApq Source/more info: https://lnkd.in/dDz-hXnN One hell of a story. And by the way, I cover and curate stories like this daily in my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dzj26JSZ Find this helpful? [ 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 ] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [ 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 ] 

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if you want to see where vertical SaaS is heading, look at Brazil. SaaS in Brazil historically has been a second-class citizen for VCs, especially in light of more growing markets, backed the largest proven TAM and the fastest adoption curve. in Brazil that meant payments, neobanks, and marketplaces. b2b software was the slower, thinner-margin bet, so it got starved. the software was there all along. a decade ago Brazil grew a whole layer of businesses that run the plumbing of the economy: ERP, payroll, invoicing, CRM. TOTVS, Senior, Sankhya, Linx. profitable, sticky, and for a VC a polite "mm, no." now it sits on the frontier of the business model. imo, vertical SaaS as we modelled it for ten years is dissolving into a mix of product company, systems integrator and data broker. add growth through roll-ups and Brazil has stacked the most advanced topics in today's VC thesis into one country. also the expensive part of brazilian b2b was always the local work like the integration, the regulatory plumbing, the operational mess. AI opens the chance to do the hard local work better than it's ever been done, not just cheaper. and local teams rewriting the playbook: 1/ FDE-first organizations. forward deployed engineers as product managers with AI acumen (not tech sales, not the pure Palantir F/SDE model either) 2/ solving the problem without another software layer. a first-time buyer has no seats to defend. even TOTVS: "task as a service" is already 17% of revenue, and AI cut its standard implementation from 1,000 hours to about 500. 3/ the corporate sector is huge and mostly undigitized. 10.6 million active companies. a couple names to follow (even if you're outside Brazil) Enter (São Paulo, 2023, legal AI agents for mass litigation, Series B, $1.2B) Rivio (São Paulo, 2025, AI revenue cycle for hospitals, Series A) Comp (São Paulo, 2022, compensation data with forward-deployed AI builders, Series A) Tako (São Paulo, 2022, AI payroll and HR operations, Series A) Inspira (São Paulo, 2021, legal AI research, Series A) Nuvia (São Paulo, 2024, AI sales agents, seed) incumbents, born as SaaS adding AI or scaling through AI roll-ups: nstech (São Paulo, 2020, logistics group with roll-up model, Series A) Aliare (Goiânia, 2021, agro ERP roll-up, BTG-backed) Paytrack (Blumenau, 2016, expense and travel management, Series B) netLex (Belo Horizonte, 2014, contract lifecycle management, Series B) goFlux (São Paulo, 2018, freight platform, Series A) but imo none of this is ultra Brazil-specific. it applies to most non-US markets, and say, the topology of some EU markets is closer to Brazil than to the US here.

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$40M Series A for a Brazilian AI music startup and the distribution lesson 99% of AI founders are missing: turn your users into distribution infrastructure. Music AI - the company behind Moises, an AI platform that helps musicians separate stems, recognize chords, and transcribe lyrics. 70 million users (2025) 1.2 billion minutes of audio processed on the platform Sounds like "consumer app wins on product." But look closer - the real bet is how they turned a consumer app into a B2B platform, using their users to unlock an entirely new distribution layer Here's what Music AI is doing that most AI/SaaS teams should study: → They didn't build B2B first. They built a consumer app - then used 50M users as leverage for B2B. - Moises started as a practice tool for musicians - solving one specific pain point. - 50M users → proved AI models work at scale → launched Music.AI platform for enterprises. - B2B clients: record labels, publishers, agencies, SourceAudio (567K users, 140+ broadcasters). - DTC = 70% of revenue, B2B = 30% - but B2B is growing fastest. - Consumer app = proof of concept + distribution moat for B2B. → Embedded distribution: putting AI inside other people's workflows. - Ableton Live 12.3 uses Moises technology for stem separation. - Samsung Next invested for on-device AI - running directly on smartphones, smart TVs. - Papa Johns used Music AI to localize TV commercials. - 1,700 applications running on Music.AI platform. - This isn't partnership. This is embedded distribution - their AI runs inside other people's products. → Ethical AI = a distribution advantage most AI startups don't see. - Models trained only on licensed content - no scraping. - Result: artists trust → artists promote → Steve Aoki, 3LAU, Alexander23 didn't just invest, they became advocates. - Connect Ventures (CAA + NEA) led because of "talent-friendly approach." - While the industry fights lawsuits, Moises builds trust = permission to distribute Most AI startups try to sell technology. Music AI sells differently: sell trust first, then let trust unlock distribution. P.S. Building Affitor: pay-for-results distribution for AI & SaaS Want affiliates that drive real pipeline → Affitor

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝘅 $57𝗠 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗕 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗸 🔥 One of the most legendary fundraising decks in fintech. The exact slides that helped Brex raise $57M in 2019, and start its journey toward becoming a $12B fintech giant. At the time, Brex was still early. But the founders (Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi) were already building something investors believed could redefine financial infrastructure for startups. Instead of traditional corporate cards built for slow-moving enterprises, Brex launched a startup-native financial platform. Investors immediately understood the scale of the opportunity. The round attracted some of the most powerful names in Silicon Valley: • Peter Thiel • Max Levchin • Yuri Milner • Y Combinator Within a few years, the company reached a $12B valuation and became one of the fastest-growing fintech companies of the decade. And it all started with this deck. Just a clear, brutal explanation of a massive problem, a product that solved it, and a market big enough to build a generational company. Inside this breakdown we’re sharing: • The original 2019 Series B deck used to raise their $57M round • A reconstructed version of the Brex deck that has circulated online • The key slides that convinced investors to bet big If you want to understand how elite founders actually raise venture capital… This is one of the best decks you’ll ever study. Comment "BREX" and i'll send you the link 🔥

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