Brian Rudolph

Charles Hudson from Precursor Ventures spent 10 minutes on their podcast debating whether LatAm's $300K ARR bar is helping or hurting founders. His concern: forcing founders to bootstrap to $300K creates "second-tier markets" that produce uninvestable companies optimized for survival instead of hypergrowth. My take in the original post: $300K ARR is the new reality for 90% of LatAm founders who want institutional pre-seed capital. Here's what we're both missing: we're describing symptoms of the same problem. The real issue isn't whether founders should bootstrap or raise early. It's that LatAm has a capital distribution problem disguised as a founder readiness problem. The difference? Geography matters more than most people realize. In the US, abundant pre-seed capital means founders can raise on team + early progress, then use that capital to hit seed metrics. The ecosystem supports pre-traction fundraising. In LatAm, the number of institutional pre-seed funds dropped dramatically post-2022. The ones that remain can set any bar they want because founders have no alternatives. Capital scarcity creates higher bars, not founder inability. So founders face a false choice: → Wait for capital that won't come (burn 12-18 months pitching) → Build proof that unlocks capital (hit $300K ARR bootstrapped) Charles is right that bootstrapping to arbitrary milestones can kill ambition. But he's solving for a market with abundant capital. I'm describing a market where capital scarcity forces founders to prove execution before anyone writes a check. That's not a founder problem. That's a geography problem. The vicious cycle isn't founders becoming uninvestable by bootstrapping. It's founders burning their networks and momentum fundraising pre-traction in a market that won't fund them. More early-stage capital deployed in LatAm. Not funds that bring US thesis and expect US-style traction. Funds that understand regional dynamics while maintaining venture-scale ambition. Until that changes, my advice to the 90% stands: stop fundraising pre-traction. Build to $300K ARR. Prove you can execute. Then investors will compete for you. Because the fastest way to raise capital in a capital-scarce market is to not need it. Shoutout to Charles Hudson and Mia Farnham at Precursor Ventures for the thoughtful analysis. The US-LatAm VC conversation needs more of this. If you're a LatAm founder navigating this reality, I'd love to hear your experience. Drop a comment. And if you're a US investor curious about LatAm dynamics, let's talk. The opportunity is massive, but the playbook is different.

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This is an excellent report on the #VC activity in Florida for the first half of 2025, put together by our partner,s eMerge Americas. 💡 5 Takeaways from the eMerge Americas 1H 2025 Florida VC Insights Report: 1. Startups across Florida raised $2.85B across 270 deals, putting 2025 on pace for the strongest year since 2022. 2. AI dominates, 33% of all funded startups are AI-focused, with $830M raised in South Florida alone. 3. Cybersecurity and defense tech are booming, with Tampa emerging as “Cyber Bay” and major new AI-cyber programs launching. 4. Fintech, climatetech & Web3 continue to shine, with record funding and renewed investor confidence in Miami. 5. “If you’re not investing in AI, you’re asleep at the wheel,” says Me! https://lnkd.in/eVb-eYA9

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The food supply chain remains one of the largest, most complex, and least digitized systems in the global economy. Companies like anchr are embedding AI directly into distributor workflows unlocking massive efficiency gains across an industry that quite literally feeds the world. Excited to see Smayan Mehra, Tzar Taraporvala, and the team hiring their next founding teammates. If you want to help rebuild the backbone of food distribution, this is a rare opportunity.

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This week Tulip Interfaces became Acequia Capital's 23rd unicorn company. When we made the first investment into Tulip in 2015, it was clear to Hank and I that we were early. It was going to take some time, but that massive legacy industries had no idea the amount of innovation and value was out there, waiting to be won by companies that could master software and machine intelligence. These observations and others led us to develop two investment theses we’ve been executing on since; what we termed “New Industrials.” Fast forward 10 years and the idea that a broader industrial reinvention is underway is now almost a given across the capital markets and leading companies. A movement has sprung up around us. It’s much more in vogue to back physical technology startups now, but most investors misunderstand what great ones look like, and how numerous the barriers to adoption are. We’re fortunate to benefit from a decade of lessons and insights from watching up close as incredible founding teams have built immensely valuable organizations, these include Stoke Space, Radiant, Formlabs, Atomic Industries, Applied Atomics, Harbinger, Dirac, Inc., Rainmaker Technology Corporation, AnySignal, EthonAI, Flow Engineering, Milvus Advanced, Rivelin Robotics, Adaptyv, KMB Telematics Inc., Tactian, Nimble Precision, sensmore, Hyperdrives, Ethos Space Resources, Antaris, TransAstra, Rightbot Technologies, Provectus Algae, Arctoris, Flexe, Coronal Technologies, Exapto, Visolis, Vorticity Inc., XENOPS AI, and many others. My takeaway from 10 years of investing in industrial reinvention is that we are still at the beginning. We have a long way to go and the next 10 years will move a lot faster than the last. Thanks to our founders for the continued trust and partnership.

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