Level Ventures

The capital partner to outlier managers and entrepreneurs.

[Level Ventures @LevelVC]

A bit more on our strategy here.

https://t.co/5GRRG54oLB

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

Grateful to partner again with @IanRountree, @grant__gregory, and @ameekapadia. Over and over, founders describe the same rare combination: high integrity, clear-eyed judgment, and a team that moves with the urgency of the companies they back.

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

https://t.co/Kj6mNLpe53

[Level Ventures @LevelVC]

https://t.co/m4Cb2Vi5GG

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

(Level Post) Mega Funds at Seed: Existential Risk or Smart Beta Opportunity?

"A friend and peer of ours, @Beezer232 from Sapphire Partners, published an interesting post discussing the dynamics of the early-stage Seed and Series A ecosystem.

This was following some discussion in the industry as to whether 'VC is broken'—pessimists arguing that the bifurcation in fund sizes and the concentration of capital into very few mega funds was boxing out the longer tail of firms and driving more consensus across investments. A related concern specific to seed investors is the dominance of mega funds in seed stages.

To validate this study, we analyzed our own data to confirm the figures (we ingest and normalize terabytes of data across many private market sources)."

https://t.co/BYD8ilFfeO

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

Congratulations to Jordan Wan on the launch of
@CoFoundPartners II. Time and again, founders describe Jordan the same way: “transformational.” His combination of GTM mastery, recruiting intuition, and strategic clarity is rare. Grateful to be a partner and co-anchor -- and to call him a friend.

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

(Level Post) This is Not Your Mother's Alpha

"Alpha erodes over time. Since markets are complex and far from equilibrium, new sources of alpha constantly emerge and are arbitraged away.

Of course, alpha is a measure of the excess return of an investor relative to a benchmark index or risk-adjusted expected return. As such, it gauges a manager’s ability to outperform the market. From a meta-perspective, there are several categorical sources of alpha depending on the asset class and sub-segment."

https://t.co/9jr6ETmcrh

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

Very excited to be backing @tnachen yet again! Amazing to see how @EssenceVenture has continued to evolve since we met way back during the launch of your $1m fund 1. The brand has grown, but your trademark positive energy has remained constant. Congrats "sir" ;)

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

(New Level Post) Capitalism and Semiotics

"In a world where capital markets can be abstracted away from material reality for long periods of time, it is better to be pre-narrative than non-consensus (or rather, to be a narrative maker than taker)."

https://t.co/pVODiPtzGB

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

"The highest form of alpha is being first to the new consensus. And benefit from the follow-on flows, as capital flows drive almost all returns. We call this Criticality Investing."

Interesting take from Albert @LevelVC on the latest @ThePeelPod

[Sasha Kaletsky @SashaKaletsky]

Albert and @jbkupperman from @LevelVC were our first new Fund II anchor. They are extremely smart, data-driven, high conviction LPs with top tier backers of their own. They’ve been amazing partners alongside our other awesome LPs.

This @TurnerNovak interview is a great listen!

[Viswa Colluru @viswacolluru]

1/
We started as underdogs.
Today, we’re scaling a unicorn.

Thrilled to share that @EnvedaBio has raised a $150M Series D, bringing our total funding to over $500M.

Led by the incredible team at @PremjiInvest and joined by both new and returning believers.

🧵

[The Peel @ThePeelPod]

Episode #108: How to Generate Alpha in Venture

Albert Azout started and runs Level Ventures, a data-driven Fund of Funds backing emerging managers.

Venture investing is hard, and this conversation covers all their research unpacking exactly how to generate alpha. We also talk about how Level picks and backs emerging venture managers to invest in, and Albert demoes the custom software they’ve built internally to do so.

Thank you to @tryramp and @hanoverpark for supporting this episode. And to @jbkupperman, @sashakaletsky, @nathanbenaich, @robby_mtf, and @davefontenot for helping brainstorm topics!

Full episode here on X, or grab a link in the replies.

Timestamps:
5:01 Top 3 forms of alpha in VC
10:11 Other ways to generate alpha
12:47 Avoiding false positives
17:11 Optimal fund size and portfolio construction
22:25 The role of Luck
23:55 Spin-out vs outsider funds
25:43 Level’s backchannel reference process
29:29 Finding alpha in Criticality Investing
34:45 Why capital flows drive all returns
43:53 Early, consensus investing has the most alpha
48:46 Networks are more persistent than performance
52:03 The strongest and weakest networks
58:41 Demo of Level’s internal software
1:04:48 Building a Fund of Funds around their data
1:10:01 Ideal LP GP relationship
1:12:39 Benchmarks are relative
1:15:39 VC funds using AI
1:17:43 How venture will change in the next 10 years

[Turner Novak 🍌🧢 @TurnerNovak]

New @ThePeelPod just dropped with Albert at @LevelVC

We unpack alpha in venture, why capital flows drive returns, why the optimal form of alpha is being first to the new consensus, dissecting networks and how they change, and how Level picks new emerging VCs to back

[Dave Font @davefontenot]

Every billion dollar founder I know dropped off the face of the earth for years.

We built the perfect home for these people.

It’s called HF0.

In our last batch, teams raising after demo day hit an avg valuation of $82M.

Applications for F25 open today.

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

Thankful to be an anchor in Robby's fund I - the first of many to come. As one reference put it: “Her relationship building is remarkable… honestly, I envy her. She's one of the most likeable people on Earth. I’ve seen her hustle and win. No one can outwork her." Congrats on the launch of @mtf_vc!

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

Grateful to be the anchor investor in @Creator_Venture II. In a world full of recycled narratives and tired platitudes, @SashaKaletsky and @Caspar_Lee stand out as humble, original, and deeply thoughtful investors. Any founder would be lucky to have them on the cap table. Huge congrats on the launch!

[Level Ventures @LevelVC]

Our Managing Partner Albert Azout joined @SuperclustersLP and @cupazhou for a conversation discussing networks and more

https://t.co/2RQNffm1st

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

(New Level Post) Criticality Investing

What makes investing both exciting and challenging is that the seeds of change, and thus the potential of outsized returns, already exist, but often remain latent and imperceivable to all but a few.

https://t.co/rx6zoEsuuB

[Level Ventures @LevelVC]

RT @jbkupperman: We @LevelVC are very grateful to be supporters of @immad and @y4sh as they back the next wave of incredible founders

[Jake Kupperman @jbkupperman]

We at @LevelVC are thrilled to be supporting @joshuabrowder as an anchor LP in his new fund. We were first introduced to Josh by our good friend @asedelson of Slipstream Investors, followed shortly by multiple GPs and founders in market whom we deeply respect. The feedback was consistent -- exemplified by one unicorn founder who said that Josh "is going to be one of the best investors of our generation."