Cole Rotman

investor

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@ericmreiner I want to know who chose Strobe by Deadmaus for the soundtrack because they crushed it

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Any call out of mistakes or omissions would be appreciated! Some data removed for sensitivity.

Selection Methodology:

Founders of $1B+ companies who later founded a second company. The second company had to be founded later, but did not need to reach $1B after the first company did. Founder roles reflect the longest-held title. Founding investor is not included.

Excluded companies founded before 2000 (except for Mobileye), China-related companies, most token companies, drug-therapeutics and biotech drug-development companies, CPG companies, and nonprofits.

Valuation Methodology:

Each company was valued independently: public companies at current market cap as of 11/7/26, private companies at the latest completed priced round or company-confirmed tender (excluding "pending" or rumored rounds), and acquired companies at announced transaction value.

Public companies currently just below the threshold could qualify only if they previously exceeded it and remained reasonably close. Eligibility used the exact, unrounded valuation and displayed values were rounded to the nearest $1B.

>$1B success rate may be misleading as some unicorn founders have started second companies with this valuation at inception.

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Repeat Unicorn Analysis

Of all the founders who built a unicorn and then started another company, how many built a unicorn for a second time?

Conventional wisdom in venture capital is that backing a founder who has already built a unicorn is a "safe bet." The are well-known examples in Musk and Dorsey, but I'd never seen the success rate.

According to my research, the success rate is astronomically high... There is a 49% chance that the second company reaches a $1B valuation and 15% chance it reaches a $5B valuation!

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Comprehensive list of all founders since 2000 that have started two >$1B companies here:

https://t.co/kIMehsjOYX

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Very few understand that @ryanjdaniels was destined to build @crosbylegal. I am not referring to “founder-market fit” because he went to Stanford Law School.

Ryan’s immediate family has five lawyers, including two law professors. The origin of the family name is from the Old Testament. Daniel is Hebrew for “God is my judge”. In the Bible, the Tribe of Dan is associated with judges, including the most famous, Samson.

While I appreciated seeing my friend in @nytimes, I am a little disappointed they neglected to highlight that he is now the second most famous lawyer to come from the Tribe of Dan!

https://t.co/6QNTmyLE4E

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@Yogi_Brn @AnthropicAI @attestable 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@OranGoodman @trajectorylabs Mazel Tov @rronak_

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@RonMiasnik Would like more of this Ron content, thanks.

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@artlevy Just happy to be here.

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

PSA if you’re beloved Cotogna was in New York it would be a 6/10 Italian spot in Flatiron

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@zsaries It is considered the best in the city actually!

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

All data based on (1) publicly reported valuations or latest market caps and (2) founders publicly affiliated with the program.

The class analysis (1) excludes the 2005 class even though one Wiz founder is a graduate and (2) only mentions startups that have reached >$500m in valuation for presentation purposes.

The hit rate analysis starts from the class of 1983 because that was the first year the program produced a unicorn (Checkpoint).

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Yesterday, Intel announced a $2.3B acquisition of @ClassiqTech.

Quietly, this is a new milestone: Talpiot founders have now created $100B in aggregate enterprise value 🤯

This is the 5th largest Talpiot exit ever and pushes the total value of realized enterprise value to $72B!

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

Some napkin math on % hit rate that a Talpiot alumni will produce an exited unicorn:

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@spectorb Few understand the Horace Mann mafia of tech

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

My first experience within venture capital was interning at Vintage over 12 years ago, an emerging fund at the time. @alanf_feld and Abe were kind enough to let me sit in on meetings and learn from the team. I was crashing in a principal’s office who had just joined from Greylock IL. His name was @asafhoresh.

My first day on the job, I had an epiphany moment that has stayed with me to this day. We were evaluating an investment in a hot new app (which many years later IPO’d) and I had a simple, but profound realization that I could actually make a career out of doing what I happened to do everyday: surfing the internet for cool new products and finding the most gifted people on the planet before the world did.

I also learned from that experience that the best investors, like Vintage, have a genuine appreciation for the craft of venture capital. I had no idea that a decade later I’d still be talking to the team about that craft on a weekly basis.

It’s been fun watching Vintage evolve over the years. Generational transitions are rare in venture capital, and well executed ones even rarer. I think Vintage has managed this so well for two reasons: (1) extraordinary humility despite everything they’ve accomplished, and (2) a honed ability to identity and develop talent, including within their own firm, like in @ilanleif!

Congratulations, my friends. Now please open an office in the U.S. so I can crash there too!

https://t.co/6t8EqgsPYq

[Cole Rotman @ColeRotman]

@buckymoore @lightspeedvp Absolute legend, can’t wait!