20VC: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets in 2024, The Three Biggest Mistakes Made in Growth Investing, The Three Requirements Companies Need to Go Public in 2024 with Ed Sim and Jamin Ball

Jamin Ball is a Partner @ Altimeter Capital where he sits on the board of Airbyte, Clickhouse, dbt Labs, Prisma, Tabular. Jamin has also led investments in Deel, MotherDuck, Personio and Starburst. Prior to Altimeter, Jamin spent 5 years at Redpoint where he led investments in Workato, Monte Carlo, Cityblock Health, Root Insurance.

Ed Sim is one of the best seed round investors in venture as the Founder and Managing Partner @ Boldstart, Ed focuses specifically on developer, infra and SaaS at pre-seed and seed round. Over the last decade, Ed has backed some of the best including Snyk, BigID, Kustomer, Front and Superhuman.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

1. How to Invest Successfully in 2024:

• What are the three biggest mistakes growth investors can make in 2024?
• Why should founders not start a platform company?
• What were Jamin and Ed's biggest mistakes from the ZIRP era?
• How does Jamin justify paying an $8BN price for Hopin? What were his lessons?

2. The M&A Markets in 2024:

• Did Figma kill the M&A markets for 2024? What should we expect in M&A?
• Why will private companies buying private companies be a massive segment in 2024?
• What are Ed and Jamin's biggest tips to founders considering selling their company in 2024?

3. When Will IPOs Come Back:

• What will be the catalyst to the opening of the IPO markets?
• Will Stripe and Databricks go public in 2024? What others should we expect?
• What are the three requirements for a company to go public in 2024?

4. Firesales: Investors Need Cashback:

• Why does Ed believe now is the time in the cycle where late-stage investors want cash back to distribute back to their LPs or to recycle?
• What should we expect to see in terms of acqui-hires and firesales?
• What are the different incentives when comparing founders vs early stage VCs vs late stage VCs when it comes to acquisitions?