{"id":2795,"date":"2025-06-21T16:21:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T16:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2795\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T16:21:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T16:21:21","slug":"term-sheet-next-how-facebooks-former-chief-revenue-officer-is-coaching-the-next-generation-of-startup-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/2795\/","title":{"rendered":"Term Sheet Next: How Facebook\u2019s former chief revenue officer is coaching the next generation of startup founders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every venture investor tells their portfolio companies that they\u2019re more than just a check. They help with introductions<\/a>, they help with recruiting<\/a>, and they help with going public<\/a>. Some have even been operators themselves<\/a> and encountered the same problems as their startup founders. But how many full-time VCs can boast that they helped build the biggest tech companies in the world?\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s Marc Andreessen, of course, and Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla. David Fischer, a partner at 01 Advisors, may not yet have the same name recognition, though he served as a vice president of sales at Google and then chief revenue officer at Facebook as both companies burst out of the stratosphere. And for founders hoping to scale their companies from zero to one in this era of hyper-speed, Fischer\u2019s background may make him as valuable as the giants of Sand Hill Road.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I met with Fischer this spring in 01A\u2019s New York office, which is in the same Lower Manhattan building that houses Union Square Ventures and Inspired Capital. Even before Fischer joined the VC ranks during the pandemic, he took a circuitous route into tech. He worked briefly as a journalist before a stint at the Treasury Department for Larry Summers, which is where he met his future boss at Google and Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. (Fischer\u2019s father<\/a>, the famed economist and central banker Stanley Fischer, recently passed away<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

After attending Stanford Business School, Fischer entered Silicon Valley at a transformative time for the tech sector, joining Google in 2002 right after it launched AdWords and was beginning to bring in revenue. He spent eight years at the search giant before Facebook hired him to pull off the same feat. When Fischer started, Facebook had about 1,200 employees, $750 million in revenue, and had yet to wade into mobile. Its acquisition of Instagram and IPO were still two years away. \u201cAds were a little bit of an afterthought,\u201d Fischer tells me. When he left in 2021, Facebook\u2019s revenue had topped $100 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, where do you go next? Fischer may not have been in the first 10 or 100 employees at either tech behemoth, but he had experienced the addictive period when a company goes from product-market fit to market domination\u2014and in the case of Google and Facebook, world domination. \u201cI always like to take what I\u2019ve learned before and bring it to do something real and rewarding,\u201d Fischer says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He began to channel that into investing, first as an angel and then connecting with two friends who had started their own firm. Fischer isn\u2019t the only former operator at 01A\u2014the firm was founded by former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, as well as Fischer\u2019s one-time counterpart at Twitter in the CRO role, Adam Bain. Fischer joined full-time for 01A\u2019s third fund, a $395 million vehicle it launched<\/a> in October 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a time when many VC firms are either looking for early or late-stage investments, 01A takes a more down-the-middle approach, mostly writing Series B checks of about $15 million. It\u2019s not quite the stage that Fischer joined Google and Facebook, or Costolo and Bain joined Twitter, but it\u2019s still that same sweet spot where a company has a viable product but needs to figure out how to sell it. \u201cThat\u2019s the time you actually need some counsel from some folks who ideally have done this before,\u201d Fischer tells me. 01A helps with those key questions, from transitioning from founder-led sales to a real sales operation to building out the executive team to sizing up the competitive landscape. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s just talking it through,\u201d Fischer adds. \u201cBeing a founder is incredibly solitary.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

01A funds a variety of verticals, though only one startup in the advertising and marketing tech space, which may seem surprising given the background of its partners\u2014a San Francisco-based company called Haus, founded by a former Google employee, that helps companies quantify the effectiveness of their marketing. 01A led<\/a> a $20 million investment into the company last year after Insight Partners backed an earlier round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s partners may have helped lead three of the fastest-growing companies in Silicon Valley history, but Fischer acknowledged that the rise of AI is creating a new ballgame. He\u2019ll sit through a pitch now where the founder puts a chart on the screen showing that their annual recurring revenue is going from zero to $10 million faster than Apple, Google, and Meta. \u201cThat\u2019s amazing,\u201d Fischer says. \u201cThe only problem with it is, I\u2019ve had four other people this month put the same chart up, and two of them are your competitors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, he thinks that while revenue timeframes may be accelerated, that\u2019s the same for everyone. In other words, there will still only be a few winners per category\u2014the competition is just able to grow faster. Having a head start doesn\u2019t mean much anymore.\u00a0\u201cBefore we make an investment, we have to really have conviction that this is a company that can win,\u201d Fischer says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ICYMI\u2026<\/strong>I had the exclusive this morning on flexible labor platform WorkWhile\u2019s $23 million Series B. Read the full story here<\/a>. \u2014Allie Garfinkle<\/p>\n

Leo Schwartz
X:<\/strong> @leomschwartz<\/a>
Email:<\/strong> leo.schwartz@fortune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Venture Deals<\/p>\n

– Gecko Robotics<\/b><\/a>, a Pittsburgh-based AI and robotics company, raised $125 million in Series D funding at a $1.3 billion valuation. Cox Enterprises<\/b> led teh round and was joined by existing investors USIT<\/b>, XN<\/b>, Founders Fund<\/b>, and YCombinator<\/b>.<\/p>\n

– Yupp<\/b><\/a>, a Mountain View, Calif.-based AI model comparison platform, raised $33 million in seed funding. a16z crypto<\/b> led the round and was joined by others.<\/p>\n

– Elkedonia<\/b><\/a>, a Strasbourg, France-based antidepressant therapies developer, raised \u20ac11.3 million ($13 million) in seed funding. Kurma Partners<\/b>, WE Life Sciences<\/b>, and the French Tech Seed fund<\/b> led the round and were joined by Argobio<\/b>, Angelini Ventures<\/b>, CARMA Fund<\/b>, and others.<\/p>\n

– Lumion<\/b><\/a>, a Salt Lake City-based trade and technical schools operating platform, raised $10.7 million in seed funding. TTV Capital <\/b>led the round and was joined by Tusk Venture Partners<\/b>, CreativeCo Capital<\/b>, Nine Four Ventures<\/b>, and others.<\/p>\n

– Warp<\/b><\/a>, a Los Angeles-based AI-powered freight logistics platform, raised $10 million in Series A funding from Up.Partners<\/b> and Blue Bear Capital<\/b>.<\/p>\n

– Sunrise Robotics<\/b><\/a>, a Ljubljana, Slovenia-based AI-powered industrial robotics developer, raised $8.5 million in seed funding. Plural<\/b> led the round and was joined by Tapestry<\/b>, Seedcamp<\/b>, Tiny.vc<\/b>, and Prototype Capital<\/b>.<\/p>\n

– Ryght AI<\/b><\/a>, a Laguna Beach, Calif.-based clinical research GenAI solutions provider, raised $3 million in seed funding. Foothill Ventures<\/b> led the round and was joined by LDV Partners<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Private Equity<\/p>\n

– Datavant<\/b>, backed by New Mountain Capital<\/b>, agreed to acquire Ontellus<\/b><\/a>, a Houston-based health records retrieval and claims intelligence company, from Aquiline <\/b>and Capstreet<\/b>. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

– LevelBlue<\/b>, backed by WillJam Ventures<\/b> and AT&T<\/b>, agreed to acquire the cybersecurity and intellectual property litigation consulting groups of Aon<\/b><\/a>, a London-based professional services firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

Other<\/p>\n

– Pearson<\/b> agreed to acquire eDynamic Learning<\/b><\/a>, a Southlake, Texas-based career and technical education digital courses provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n

IPOs<\/p>\n

– Jefferson Capital<\/b><\/a>, a Minneapolis-based consumer debt purchaser, plans to raise $170 million in an offering of 10 million shares (94% secondary) priced between $15 and $17 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $488 million in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. J.C. Flowers<\/b> backs the company.<\/p>\n

People<\/p>\n

– Headline Growth<\/b><\/a>, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, added Anna Faulkner<\/b> as a vice president. Previously, she was at Highland Europe<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every venture investor tells their portfolio companies that they\u2019re more than just a check. They help with introductions,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[64,607,340,3743,1595,3744,67,132,68,1594],"class_list":{"0":"post-2795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-meta","11":"tag-private-equity","12":"tag-startups","13":"tag-term-sheet","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-venture-capital"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114722274250135110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}