We dive deep into our sectors. Our research drives our insights and thesis-driven approach.

Our Prepared Mind philosophy at Equal has always been interdisciplinary — we believe strongly in seeking out perspectives across asset classes and stakeholders. And in an industry like climate, that’s been especially critical. We’ve written at length over the past few months about the need to learn from the past, from those who were in climate before it was cool, to do our best to avoid the missteps of CleanTech 1.0. We believe doing so requires collaboration and learning across industry, innovators and investors to bring these stakeholders together for a universal framework for digital transformation. While this means talking to other early stage investors, it also means talking to infrastructure funds, to field management teams at utilities, to finance teams at developers, and to equity research teams at some of the world’s biggest financial institutions. These conversations are the foundation of the Prepared Mind that we bring to the climate arena and the networks we bring to our companies.

As long as I’ve been an investor, VCs have leaned on revenue multiples to justify valuations. These multiples have gone up and down over the years, but have been the cornerstone of setting valuations in the tech world. Unfortunately, these multiples have proven themselves to be useless in properly determining the true long-term value of businesses, and I think it’s high time to do away with them.

As part of Equal’s AGM this year, the Equal Product Owners did mini deep dives into the current investment landscape of our various sectors (see Adam’s great post on insurance and Simran’s on climate). Today, it’s my turn to share our thoughts on a sector that came en vogue in a major way in the last few years — supply chain & logistics:

Insurtech generally remains out of favor for many venture investors today, and I’m often asked about whether I continue to be excited about the sector (spoiler: yes). Equal’s Product Owners recently conducted overviews of the current investment landscape in our respective focus areas. Today, we’re sharing our perspective on the insurance sector — linked here via Docsend. We encourage you to review the deck and let us know your thoughts! Below is a quick TL:DR of the key stats and takeaways you’ll find inside:

One of the things that continues to surprise me 10 years into the venture game is its collective groupthink. For an industry that preaches outliers and contrarian thinking, I find it (at the median) far more consensus-driven than any other form of asset management. During our recent annual meeting, we diagnosed some of these dynamics, identifying what we believe is a dislocation in the market. This isn’t the first time that we’ve called out a market dislocation (as we did in November of 2021 amidst the peak of the bubble) and feel strongly that awareness of market cycles and adherence to our long-term fundamental beliefs is what will drive the best product for our founders and the best returns for our investors.