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Midas Seed List 2023: The Earliest Venture Capital Backers In Today’s Tech Icons

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Now in its second year, the Midas Seed List spotlights the top 25 seed-stage venture capitalists in the world: the savvy investors making the earliest bets on leading companies that have gone on to disrupt and dominate existing industries or define ones of their own. These investors are commonly propelled to their top spots by writing the first check into companies that have transformed the way we live and work.

The financial industry took a hit in 2022 and venture did not escape the tough macro, fundraising and exit environment. That said, early-stage investing has remained strong. Average seed pre-money valuations rose year-over-year as venture capitalists looked for ways to deploy mounds of capital amid weaker short-term exit opportunities. According to Crunchbase data, not only were valuations up, but total investment dollars in angel and seed rounds for 2022 also topped records set in 2021.

The 2023 Midas Seed List includes 19 return investors, indicating the staying power of many venture capitalists focused on the earliest stages of company creation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their inclusion on this year’s list was driven by investments in B2B SaaS – a tried and true staple of the venture capital model. For example, Rippling, the cloud-based HR and IT solutions provider that raised a market-defying $250 million Series D at a $11.3 billion valuation last spring and a $500 million round amid the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, was a star in numerous portfolios including Larry Li of Amino Capital, Topher Conway of SV Angel, Garry Tan of Y Combinator, Ben Ling of Bling Capital and Aneel Ranadive of Soma Capital.

Outside of the enterprise tech space, fintech, sharing economy companies, and e-commerce platforms remain top drivers in many portfolios. Investors that took a chance on companies like Instacart, Coupang, DoorDash, Chime, Robinhood and others have been rewarded for their foresight with blockbuster IPOs over the past five years. We are also seeing a new generation of crypto, AI and cybersecurity companies emerge, propelling certain investors up through the ranks with investments in companies like Coinbase and Snyk.

Below, we highlight some of the trendsetters, whose early bets across high-growth industries helped secure their place on the Midas Seed List and defined the tech and venture capital landscape of the early 2020s.

Anna Fang, ZhenFund (#3)

Anna Fang stands out as the only investor on this year’s Seed List primarily focused on early-stage investments in China. As CEO of Beijing-based, early-stage focused ZhenFund, she oversees a portfolio that has backed well over 600 startups. Her most successful bet thus far has been Xiaohongshu, a strong competitor to Bytedance’s TikTok and Meta’s Instagram in the Chinese market. After meeting co-founder Charlwin Mao Wenchao at Stanford, she led an investment in the company’s 2013 seed round – it was last valued at a reported $20 billion

Fang is by no means a one-hit wonder: numerous companies in her portfolio continue to redefine consumer-facing industries in China. Yatsen Global, owner of DTC Cosmetics brand Perfect Diary, went public at a valuation of over $7.8 billion in late 2020. She also backed crypto exchange Huobi HT , which was flying high before the Chinese government declared cryptocurrency transactions illegal in 2021.

Relevant Investments*

· Horizon Robotics

· Huobi

· Nuro

· XiaoHongShu

· YatsenGlobal

Ben Ling, Bling Capital (#4)

Ben Ling is the king of B2B SaaS on this year’s Seed List, boasting at least 19 unicorns in his portfolio of early-stage investments. Two of his home runs in the HR, IT and payroll software space include Rippling and Gusto, both of which have topped $10 billion valuations. Another portfolio hit, GitLab, the software provider focused on tools for developer collaboration, went public at an $11 billion valuation in 2021.

Ling founded Bling Capital as a solo GP five years ago after a stint at Khosla Ventures, and he’s been focused on early-stage investing ever since. He has a knack for identifying companies that help other businesses leverage technology more effectively, given that he began his career with a string of operational, product and cross-functional roles at Google GOOG , Facebook and YouTube.

Relevant Investments*:

· Airtable

· Gusto

· GitLab

· Honeybook

· PagerDuty

· Rippling

· Webflow

Ben Sun, Primary (#7)

Ben Sun appears on the Midas Seed List after seeing huge returns on his investment in Coupang, the South Korean e-commerce giant that went public at an $84 billion valuation in 2021. He contributed much more to the company’s success than an early check. After meeting co-founder and CEO Bom Kim at a pickup basketball game in New York City, he encouraged him to drop out of business school and focus on his fledgling startup. In the following years, he traveled back and forth to South Korea to help Kim refine his vision and transform Coupang from a Groupon-like app to the massive online marketplace it is today.

Sun was a pioneer in the New York venture scene, founding Primary, one of the city’s first seed funds. Other notable investments include Noom, the subscription-based dieting app, and Latch, an access management platform for homes and businesses. Another key exit came when Lululemon acquired Mirror for $500 million in 2020.

Relevant Investments*:

· Chief

· Coupang

· Dandy

· K Health

· Latch

· Mirror

· Noom

Reshma Sohoni, Seedcamp (#8)

Reshma Sohoni was a regular fixture on the Midas List Europe until relocating part-time to the U.S. last year. Since its founding in London in 2007, the firm has invested in over 440 companies. Sohoni’s portfolio is a who’s who of European unicorns: Revolut, the British-Lithuanian consumer fintech company, reached annual profitability in 2022 and reportedly reached a monster $33 billion valuation. The company’s co-founder and CEO has indicated that a public listing could come in the next few years.

Sohoni’s top exits include UiPath, which listed in New York and reached a $35.8 billion valuation in 2021, and TransferWise, which listed in London. And British royalty has recognized her tech prowess as well - Queen Elizabeth granted her an MBE, one of the highest civilian honors in the United Kingdom, for her contributions to the British tech ecosystem.

Relevant Investments*:

· Curve

· Grover

· Pleo

· Revolut

· UiPath

· Wefox

· Wise

Ed Sim, Boldstart Ventures (#9)

Years ago, Ed Sim recognized that the digital world would need a robust ecosystem of security and infrastructure products to keep things running smoothly and protect consumers and businesses. Since founding Boldstart in 2010, he has invested early in startups meeting those challenges – and in many cases, been hands-on since day one.

One of his most successful early-stage bets was his participation in Snyk’s $3 million seed round in 2016 – the company is now valued at $7.4 billion. He also invested early in BlockDaemon, valued at $3.3 billion, and data intelligence company BigID, valued at $1.3 billion. He still serves on the board of all three.

Relevant Investments*:

· BigID

· BlockDaemon

· FrontApp

· Kustomer

· Security Scorecard

· Snyk

· Superhuman

Semil Shah, Haystack (#15)

Semil Shah retained his spot on this year’s Seed List partly through early investments in two of the companies that have defined technology, logistics and the restaurant/grocery industries in the U.S. for nearly a decade. Shortly after founding Haystack in 2013 as a solo GP, he invested in seed rounds for both DoorDash and Instacart. The two went on to raise more than a combined $5 billion in private markets.

While those companies did not take long to become clear winners, another one of Shah’s investments required more patience. After Figma co-founder Dylan Field dismissed his efforts to join the company’s seed round way back in 2013, Shah was persistent and joined a later (but still early) round. Last year, Adobe ADBE announced its intent to acquire the collaborative design platform for $20 billion.

More recently, Shah’s investments in cybersecurity firm HashiCorp and ownership platform Carta have also done extremely well. The former went public in 2021 at a $14 billion valuation, and the latter recently raised at an $8.5 billion valuation, up from its last valuation of $7.4 billion in August 2021 – no small feat considering tepid market conditions. In addition to Haystack, Semil has also served as a venture partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners for the past five years.

Relevant Investments*

· Applied Intuition

· Carta

· Figma

· Hashicorp

· Ironclad

· Mux

· Protocol Labs

*Does not include all investments.

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