VC10X - 12 Years at a Seed Fund - Andrea Hippeau, Head of Portfolio Management, Lerer Hippeau

Our series of investors demanding even deeper structural profitability and net retention metrics before stepping in.

You might not even need any revenue. These labs staying in stealth while raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

Are your expectations of what the company does with that money have also evolved with AI coming into the picture?

Because yes, you can do more with the money than ever, which you would think means you need to raise less. But in a lot of categories, because of how competitive it is, it actually means that you need to raise more.

are startups winning or are incumbents successfully defensive?

Maybe you worry more about Claude and less about the incumbent.

Hey everyone, this is Prashant and I'll be your host for the VC10X podcast and today we have Andrea Hippo with us. Andrea is the head of portfolio management at Lera Hippo, an early stage firm in New York investing at Preseed and Seed with checks of $1 to $4 million. Andrea has been at the firm for 12 years and recently stepped into this new role from being a partner. This is her second appearance on VC10X. We covered what Series A investors are really looking for now, why efficiency and fundraising are pulling in opposite directions, and the one-founder trade Andrea now rates above everything else. So without wasting any time, let's dive straight in. This episode is brought to you by Podcast10X, my podcasting agency for VCs. We help VCs start and run branded podcasts that can serve as their entire content engine. Turn the conversations you're already having into a machine. One recording becomes your presence on LinkedIn, Spotify, YouTube, and email. Don't just build another VC firm, build a firm that can stand out to LPs and one that founders can brag about having you on their cap table. Check out our services at podcast10x.com. I'll put the link in the description below. Now, enjoy the episode. Hey, Andrea, so good to have you on the VC 10X podcast. How are you doing?

Good. Thanks, Prashant. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. And to start things off, you know, in our last conversation, you mentioned that the gold standard for a Series A had shifted away from the classic 1 million ARR mark toward a much heavier 3 million to 5 million ARR. Has that bar stabilized or are Series A investors demanding even deeper structural profitability and net retention metrics before stepping in?

Yeah. I mean, I feel like the world keeps changing so fast. I feel like things, even since I was looking at the recap of our last combo, and I feel like so many things I said are completely obsolete, even in just that short amount of time. But when it comes to the Series A metrics, it's actually interesting. We just did an exercise where we talked to a lot of our Series A kind of peers and colleagues, you know, just kind of for our own education and to help our portfolio companies and what resound the number one kind of resounding thing across all of them. And these were different funds, multistage funds, more specialist funds. But across all of them, it was that team is the utmost thing that they're all looking for. And so it seems like Series A investors