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[Paul Bonnet @PaulBonnet]

Salesforce acquires Listen Labs for ~$2b. But who gets the 💰? My usual breakdown below 👇

The company was founded in Sep-23 and had raised less than $100m. Investors will share ~$850m of profits on $96m invested, a ~10x blended.

From a huge pivot to a unicorn valuation term sheet they refused, this is truly a wild story ✍️. In the end an incredible outcome for all involved.

So let's dive in!

1) The boldest move: walking away from $1.5b 🎲

Listen Labs had a signed $125m Series C term sheet from Menlo at a $1.5b valuation... and walked away from it to sell to Salesforce at ~$2b.

This takes a huge amount of courage: few founders turn down a signed unicorn-plus round. @itsalfredw and @florian_jue did it 2.5 years after founding.

Huge congratulations are in order for the discipline and execution of the founders here.

2) Founders and team: a life-changing outcome in under 3 years 🥳

By my best estimates, founders and team still own over half the company.

At $2b, that's ~$1.1b for them to share. Specifically, assuming a 15% option pool, that is ~$300m for the team and ~$750m for the two co-founders.

And, as was the case with Hugging Face, this is all from a pivot. They originally built an AI customer-interview tool to understand why their viral app BeFake was growing, then realised the tool was the business!

3) Sequoia's Bryan Schreier did it again 👑

What few people know is that Bryan was an early backer of Qualtrics... the category Listen Labs is disrupting.

Now he led both the seed and the Series A here. By my estimates, those two rounds will return ~$670m combined, or ~25x on ~$27m invested, in under three years.

Pattern recognition and industry knowledge have their perks, it would seem!

4) Ribbit: 4x in 8 months ⚡

Ribbit led the $69m Series B in Jan-26 at ~$500m. At $2b, that's ~4x in 8 months. Unbelievable IRR and a great return on a meaningful cheque.

5) Neo does it again, congrats @apartovi 🎯

Listen Labs went through the Neo accelerator early on, which came with a $600k SAFE. On my estimates, that cheque is worth ~$25m+ today.

This comes just three months after Cursor's acquisition (a cool >1,000x for Neo). What a hit rate!

This one is very straightforward: it is a massive win for everyone. And so congratulations to all involved: Sequoia, Ribbit, Conviction, Pear, Neo and the team!

[Paul Bonnet @PaulBonnet]

Nubank rumoured to acquire Monzo for ~$13b. But who gets the 💰? My usual breakdown below 👇

Investors are likely to share a huge $9.3b of profits combined, on $1.9b invested. This represents a 5.8x blended, across 11 priced rounds. 🤑 The Founders & team will share about ~$2.0b.

This is a super win for a company that had to take a down round mid-2020. My takeaways below:

1) Passion Capital's absolute home run 👑

@eileentso and Passion led each of Monzo's first three rounds. They also kept following-on in almost every round after that. The Seed alone will return nearly 200x!

Across the three seed rounds they led, that's ~$1.6b of proceeds on ~$18m invested. Legendary.

2) Two huge absolute $ winners: Goodwater and Thrive 🏆

Goodwater led the Series C in Nov-17, at a $330m post. It will return over 20x the money. That round will generate the most absolute $ of all rounds at ~$2.0b. 📈

Thrive led the Jul-17 Series B round at $100m post money valuation, and is now looking at a cool~50x on its investment.

Two amazing good calls within a few months of each other.

3) The crowd did great 🙌

Monzo raised three crowdfunding rounds, including the famous "£1m on Crowdcube in 96 seconds" in 2016.

Those customers-turned-shareholders are sitting on ~35-80x of profits!

Probably the second best-performing retail investment in UK tech history, after Revolut's own crowdcube campaign (where investors are now sitting on 1,000x+ paper gains).

4) Buying the dip paid off 📈

The Jun-20 down round (Novator, Nikesh Arora) came in at a ~$1.7b post money valuation. Interestingly, this is below the 2019 price. Back then, everyone thought Monzo might not make it. That round will returns ~5.9x and about $1.6b.

5) The latest growth rounds: good, not great 😐

The Series H (ADQ, Tencent, Coatue) and Series I (CapitalG, GV, Hedosophia) make ~2.5x each.

For the Series H specifically, after almost five years: respectable, not spectacular.

6) Team & Founders 🧑‍🤝‍🧑🫂

Firstly: mega congrats to @tomblomfield, TS Anil and the whole team. This would be an incredibly outcome and it is definitely one to be celebrated.

The team here will do very well, despite Monzo raising eleven rounds and diluting meaningfully. I estimate that Founders & ESOP will get about 15% of the outcome, or ~$2.0bn.

[Paul Bonnet @PaulBonnet]

Updated OpenRouter four-week token growth tracker👇

1) Now +6.2% WoW L4W average: +2,181% annualised

2) Open weight related companies continue to grow faster than frontier (lower base, 20VC internal data)

3) Compute demand unprecedented. Some teams I talk to can't secure GPUs

[Paul Bonnet @PaulBonnet]

102 Neolabs. $70bn raised. $320bn combined valuation. Less than $1bn of revenue.

What the Great Neolab Trade actually implies: https://t.co/YivGy7X5In

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@FrankKhalidUK Nicholas Anelka

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@mo21_r7 *England

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@pinerojr1 Stop the cap

[Chelsea FC @ChelseaFC]

Back on home soil this Thursday. 👊

[ESPN FC @ESPNFC]

Who's the all-time 'streets won't forget' player? 👀

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@8kaziahh More life or views

[Chelsea FC @ChelseaFC]

💙💙💙

🔵 3-0 🟡

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@pinerojr1 👎

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@OmzBk Watched

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🐐

[Sebastian Barford @seb_barford]

Looking for a step 5/6 side to go on dual reg with
Currently signed at a step 4 club and played step 6 last season
17 years old , 6”3, commanding, good shot stopper
Please Re-tweet
@SCEFLeague @ComCoFL

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Fr

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🐐👀

[Daren @DarenC68]

Goal against @bcfcrovers for @Big_Kaz1 from this weekend

@EastBerkshireFL @BerksBucksFA @legea_teamwear @vow_nutrition @

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@KE_BoroFC @josh_chetwynd 🤩

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@judithhnans Hbd🎉