The firm's thesis focuses on a rare founder type: a technical expert who also deeply understands how new technologies shift human behavior. This avoids the common pitfall of building technology in search of a problem, leading to products with innate market pull.
Consumer innovation arrives in predictable waves after major technological shifts. The browser created Amazon and eBay; mobile created Uber and Instagram. The current AI platform shift is creating the same conditions for a new, massive wave of consumer technology companies.
To create a durable sourcing engine and avoid brand dilution, Premise VC builds event series as separate sub-brands. These 'products' have compounding value, like giving past attendees priority access, creating a self-perpetuating funnel of high-quality founders.
To win the best pre-seed deals, investors should engage high-potential talent during their 'founder curious' phase, long before a formal fundraise. The real competition is guiding them toward conviction on their own timeline, not battling other VCs for a term sheet later.
Similar to how mobile gave rise to the App Store, AI platforms like OpenAI and Perplexity will create their own ecosystems for discovering and using services. The next wave of winning startups will be those built to distribute through these new agent-based channels, while incumbents may be slow to adapt.
'Gifted TVPI' comes from consensus deals with pedigreed founders who easily raise follow-on capital. 'Earned TVPI' comes from non-consensus founders whose strong metrics eventually prove out the investment. A healthy early-stage portfolio requires a deliberate balance of both.
A VC's network is a depreciating asset, not a permanent one. Connections from previous roles become stale within 3-5 years as new talent nodes emerge. This necessitates building a continuous, proactive engine for refreshing and expanding your network, rather than relying on past relationships.