1/ sharing insights from Q3 2025 at @CrucibleCap - quantifying and qualifying our work first up - our sourcing mix changed a bit. this quarter we augmented with research tools which drove outreach from 4% in Q2 to 31% in Q3. inbound still biggest but 0 conversion to invested.

2/ here's what we actually invested in by deal source investor intros are still the GOAT 🐐 the four deals we did in Q3 were all deals we hunted aggressively after getting a casual mention or intro from an investor or founder. hunting > farming, takes work but pays off

3/ Q3 saw less top of funnel and higher conversion into invested deal - bar has gotten higher, we don't add anything to pipeline unless its investable (no vanity metrics / pipeline stuffing its stupid) deal process was faster - we used SAFEs + side letter and "led" every deal

4/ we have to pick the best companies - how do we know we're doing that? i'm convinced capital velocity is the thing to measure in this market. we don't use SAFEs at higher caps as a "mark up" but we count it here as a capital velocity event velocity increasing 🚀

5/ double clicking on this: - 8 of 20 companies have not raised any new capital since we invested. - 2 had token generation events - 2 raised priced rounds (one of them did that twice and will do it again in Q4) - the three Q1 deals we did have had no velocity – this will be an interesting data point to go back and interrogate over time. - quarter over quarter, we are backing higher velocity founders right before key inflection points, often we are the first >$1M check and then things take off. - we closed one deal in on a SAFE at a $25M cap and two weeks later the co raised 2x the money on a SAFE at a $45M cap. - we closed a deal on November 1st as the only institutional investor, another investor participated one week later at a much higher cap SAFE. - two companies in our Q4 2025 cohort who raised at a $25M and $12M post-money cap are getting inundated with high quality institutional capital two weeks after we invested. anecdotally, the average amount of time between capital events is compressing as we continue to invest. if anyone has seen good visualizations of a portfolio’s capital velocity from other investors, please share!

@DarshanG_ @CrucibleCap i've also been scouring npm-stats, reddit forums and asking neoclouds, dco's, and other operators what they're using or testing in their stack. generally ML ops people, sys admins, or networking engineers who deal w messy plumbing

6/ winning a spot on the cap table conviction and speed is everything. of the 24 investments made to date and currently in process for Q4, we have been the lead or co-lead in 75% of them. our highest velocity deals were first meeting to wire in less than one week.

7/ right valuation and right size on valuation at first check, steady quarter over quarter and invested at an average of $19M post money agility benefits us - slower / larger firms have to invest at higher caps than us. 3 week wait for IC? bye bye! another on vacay? see ya.

8/ on size - target ownership is 5% or more our Q4 2024 ownership was 3.4% - i was learning to size and fund was not fully raised. our Q3 2025 ownership >7% and blended average is ~5%. pushing hard here - 10% goal next! brutal competition out there + mega funds 2x round sizes

9/ construct a balanced risk / reward portfolio too early to quantify $, co-investor correlation interesting. across the 24 deals - there is no clear pattern of co-invest. one VC we had 4 deals in common, another non VC insto investor 3 deals.

10/ return capital we will have liquidity in Q4 of 2026. we plan to recycle 100% of fees which was my goal. we will recycle capital in a narrow window so we can stick to tight vintages since the categories we invest have their own 3-4 year cycles. need to duration match!

11/ raise capital Fund II is >50% committed, will add 2-3 new LPs. i do double digit % GP commit (on top of 100% LP). philosophy - i am first check *in size* into anything we do (venture, SPV, liquid, PE). i don't make $ until we distribute $. team gets top decile comp.

12/ i know everyone loves to shit on venture investors but it is not an easy game and you do have to love it. i have nothing but respect for firms who are on Fund 3 + and consistently returning $ to LPs. it's equal parts art and science. hopefully this thread elucidates the science part a bit. at the end of the day, consistently returning $ is the only measure and i'm excited to have more data about that in a few years. we use @attio for pipeline tracking and data, loyal user since 2018. fellow GPs, would love to trade notes on how you quantify and qualify what you do day to day. @CrucibleCap is myself, @itsanhonour_, @kellyjgreer with a fractional CFO. we will hire 1-2 more in 2026!