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

When I first started working in the insurance industry in 2015, I (regrettably) used the word “disruption” a lot. I was making a career shift from capital markets into a buzzy, fairly new space called “fintech,” and I became excited about the massive TAM and archaic UX in insurance.

2022 saw perhaps the most emphatic rejection of the DTC-only narrative. As we beleaguered in our Death to DTC and Point of No Returns blogs, sky-high CACs and return rates, combined with a shift away from ecommerce back to brick & mortar, have undeniably exposed the weakness of the DTC-only strategy.

Back in November of 2021, we shared a memo with our founders and LPs entitled “The Fortune of Failure”, citing how experience with prior market downfalls had led us to the believe that we were experiencing a bubble and detailing the “5 Principles of Resiliency’’ we were using to help our fund and our companies weather the impending storm.

Don Valentine once said “I like opportunities that are addressing markets so big that even the management team can’t get in its way.” Don founded Sequoia Capital and led investments in companies like Cisco, Oracle, and Apple.

The construction industry has had an interesting few years. Like with other major industries, COVID had a devastating impact on the sector and brought forth a myriad of problems, including project delays, labor shortages, higher material costs, tighter insurance markets, and more. While 70% of construction companies indicate that they were negatively affected by COVID, the sector remained on the frontline during the pandemic.