Blog
Customer Stories
Lessons, best practices, and tips from the Visible Community.
All
Fundraising Metrics and data Product Updates Operations Hiring & Talent Reporting Customer Stories

founders
Customer Stories
How Laurel Hess Sends A Monthly Investor Update in 1 Hour (or Less)
About Laurel & Hampr
Laurel Hess is the CEO and Founder of hampr. hampr is a peer-to-peer, on-demand laundry app that provides magical wash-and-fold service at the push of a button!
As the hampr website states, “The idea for hampr came after a chaotic weekend with kid sports games and 3 birthday parties. On top of that, there was still grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and oh, spending meaningful time with the family. Laurel was over it. So she thought “Hold on, why can’t laundry be as easy as ordering groceries with a tap of your phone?” And just like that, bam! hampr was born in 2020.”
Quick facts:
Founded Year: 2020
Headquarters: Lafayette, Louisiana
Total Funding Amount: $9.7M
Notable Investors: Techstars,VILLAGEx
Learn more about hampr and give it a try yourself here
The Power of Investor Updates for Laurel
Investor updates can be a powerful tool for startup founders. Most VCS only hear from 10-50% of their portfolio companies on a regular basis. This is a major arbitrage opportunity for founders. Investor updates can help you stay top of mind with investors and secure help with fundraising, hiring, closing customers, strategy, etc — all in just an hour or less.
As Laurel Hess wrote in her LinkedIn Post, “It boggles my mind how many founders don't do regular company updates to stakeholders (and potential investors!). So many people I know treat this as a chore - when it can be the highlight of your month (like it is mine!).
Taking the time to review your business with your stakeholders is actually a really great opportunity for growth - if you view it that way, there is a ton of potential to unlock.
I have gained the following from my regular updates:
Intros to potential investors
Additional capital for a round I'm working on
Intros to new verticals for expansion
Advice on strategy for a problem we are working on
Intros to new mentors/advisors to unlock the next phase of growth
Allllll this for just 1 hour of my time each month? That is the definition of no-brainer."
Laurel’s Investor Update Template
Sticking to a template and format can help build regular investor updates into your monthly rhythms. Laurel shared her monthly template that she uses in Visible via a LinkedIn Post, you can check it out below as well:
“I have used Visible to manage my updates almost since the beginning. I love this company - they make it SO EFFORTLESS to send really factual, data-driven updates.
SO, using Visible, this is how my monthly updates are typically structured:
1. Overview - this is a high-level, personal letter from me about the high notes and low notes of the update. Basically a TL/DR section.
2. Asks - I don't always have these but when I do, I have them right after my summary so it's high on the scroll.
3. Performance - I add charts on GMV growth month-over-month followed by membership KPIs in a chart (growth, churn and renewal). Then I add a summary with my insights/thoughts on each chart. Check out an example of a Visible chart below:
4. What we are excited about: A section on 1 or 2 things that the team is working on that we are really excited about - usually with a photo.
5. What we are Improving/Exploring: This is a realness section of challenges and concerns that we have and what we are doing to actively improve on them.
AND THAT'S IT! It gives a super high-level overview of where we are, what our focus is, and how we are unlocking new opportunities. It's skimmable, it's concise and it's easy for everyone. AND because I use Visible.vc, it automatically ports in the numbers I need for my charts each month so all I have to do is replicate the previous month's email and then go to town. I can get a very thoughtful email out in 1 hour or less - and it gives me so much more in return.”
Check out Laurel's template and add it to your Visible account below:
Send Your Next Investor Update with Visible
Join Laurel and the 3,300+ founders that use Visible to update their investors every month. Try Visible free for 14 days.
Not sure where to get started? Check out our Update Template Library.

investors
Customer Stories
Case Study: How Moxxie Ventures uses Visible to increase operational efficiency at their VC firm
About Moxxie
Moxxie was founded in 2019 by former Twitter executive Katie Stanton. Prior to starting Moxxie Katie worked at Google, in the Obama administration as a Special Advisor to the Office of Innovation, and co-founded the angel group #Angels. In 2021, Katie brought on Alex Roetter, whom she had worked with before at both Twitter and Google, as an equal partner in Moxxie’s second fund of $85M. Alex joined Moxxie with a wealth of operational and engineering experience from previously serving as the Senior VP of engineering at Twitter for 6 years as well as working as a software engineer at Google and various other early-stage startups.
Today, Moxxie has invested in over 60+ seed-stage companies in the consumer, enterprise, fintech, health tech, and climate sectors. The team at Moxxie is differentiated by their operational experience and focus on underrepresented founders. According to an article published in Forbes, out of the 27 investments from Moxxie’s first fund, 36% were founded by women, 40% by people of color, 8% by Black founders and 43% by immigrant founders. Learn more about Moxxie.
This Case Study was put together in collaboration with Alex Roetter, Managing Director and General Partner at Moxxie.
What Moxxie was doing prior to using Visible
In the early days at Moxxie, the team used a combination of check-in calls at varying frequencies, ad-hoc meetings, and texts to gather updates from their companies. Later on, they created a Google Group email alias where founders sent their updates so the communications were all stored in one inbox. The Moxxie team kept a summary of each company in a combined Google Document that was updated irregularly.
The portfolio monitoring challenges Moxxie was facing
The main issue with Moxxie’s ad-hoc method was that “...it was just all very manual. It was a mish-mash of documents and hard to maintain. We were inconsistent in how up-to-date we were on different companies,” shared Alex, Moxxie’s Managing Director. The manual effort required to stay on top of portfolio companies meant portfolio monitoring was “...falling to the wayside and we were not doing as good of a job [monitoring our companies] as we needed to be.”
“...it was just all very manual. It was a mish-mash of documents and hard to maintain. We were inconsistent in how up-to-date we were on different companies."
It’s common for investors to feel overwhelmed as they attempt to manually keep up to date on a growing number of portfolio companies despite recognizing the benefits of doing so.
Alex emphasized that the main reason Moxxie wanted to improve their portfolio monitoring was to ensure they were spending their time most effectively at their firm. It was hard to identify which companies needed their support and where Moxxie's time would be most valuably spent “...without having a regular heartbeat from [their] portfolio companies.”
The reasons Moxxie chose Visible
Moxxie’s founder Katie Stanton was told to check out Visible’s KPI tracking capabilities at the end of 2022 while she was attending the Equity Summit, an invitation-only gathering that brings together thought-leading LPs and GPs that drive industry change.
Alex from Moxxie reached out to Visible soon after the initial referral to schedule a demo. The demo confirmed that the Visible platform had exactly what Alex was looking for in a portfolio KPI tracking tool.
Moxxie's portfolio monitoring criteria included:
An automated way to send structured data requests to portfolio companies
A solution that wasn’t taxing on their founders
Allowed founders to share their data within seconds
Ability to see all their portfolio data in one clear place
Ability to easily build Tear Sheets for each company
Moxxie's onboarding experience with Visible
Moxxie’s onboarding took approximately 9 days to complete. When asked to share feedback on Visible’s onboarding process Alex shared “Everything was great. Whenever we had bulk data in a CSV that needed to be uploaded we shared it with Visible and it was uploaded within 24 hours.”
Check out additional Visible reviews on G2.
How Moxxie is leveraging Visible to streamline portfolio monitoring and reporting processes today
Today Moxxie doesn’t have to remember to check in with their companies or make guesses about their companies’ recent progress updates. Instead, Visible has enabled Moxxie to send automatic, recurring, structured data requests to their companies that can be completed without their founders ever having to log in or create an account. The Moxxie team is immediately notified when companies complete data Requests. From there, they are able to easily identify which companies need more support. This streamlined, founder-friendly process ensures the Moxxie team can continue to spend time on high-value fund operations, such as deal flow, while also efficiently monitoring and supporting current portfolio companies.
Taking a closer look at Moxxie’s use of the Visible platform, the team primarily uses four main features on Visible: Requests, Tear Sheets, Reports, and Updates.
Requests: Streamlining Moxxie’s portfolio KPI data collection process
Moxxie uses Visible’s Request feature to collect 5 metrics from companies on a regular basis. The firm collects data from early-stage companies on a monthly basis and on a quarterly basis for more mature companies in their portfolio.
The five metrics Moxxie collects include:
Revenue
Runway
Cash Spend
Cash Balance
Headcount
Moxxie also includes a qualitative text block in their Request that provides companies with an opportunity to add additional context to their metrics, share any additional updates, or ask Moxxie for support on specific items.
Alex shared that likes that the Visible platform sends him a notification each time a company submits a Request. He uses this as an opportunity to quickly identify any changes to the company’s performance. Alex shared “...anytime there’s something unexpected it’s a reminder to check in with the company.”
Reports: Building a custom investment data report before an annual meeting
Another key feature that Moxxie is utilizing is Visible’s report feature which allows Moxxie to pull together select metrics and investment data into a single table view. Moxxie has a fund summary for both Fund I and Fund II that includes: initial ownership %, total invested, total invested from a specific fund, and the initial valuation for each company.
Moxxie initially created this report to prepare for an annual meeting with LPs. They wanted to see the numbers across all their portfolio companies, be able to download the figures, and then compute averages.
Tear Sheets: Creating a clear overview of individual company performance
Moxxie utilizes Visible’s dashboard templates to create custom Tear Sheets for each of their companies. Moxxie’s Tear Sheets incorporate elements of their original investment memo coupled with dynamic metrics and qualitative updates that change over time.
Integrating company properties into Tear Sheets
The static information in Moxxie's Tear Sheets is pulled directly from companies' profiles in Visible.
The information that Moxxie includes in their Tear Sheets are:
Company website url
Latest valuation
Co-investors
Founders
Company summary
Why we invested
Status
Deal source
Initial ownership
Initial valuation
Investment date
Total invested
Sector
HQ location
Year founded
Integrated dynamic charts into Tear Sheets
Moxxie also incorporates data visualizations into their Tear Sheets which are automatically updated as companies submit new information to Visible. The dynamic information Moxxie includes in Tear sheets is:
Monthly KPI’s in a bar chart
Runway vs Headcount in a bar chart
Monthly spend vs cash balance in a bar chart
Revenue forecast vs actual in a bar chart
Update/progress since investment in a text widget
Key metrics in a text widget
Company-specific metrics in a text widget
View Tear Sheet examples from Visible.
Updates: Communicating portfolio performance with LPs on a quarterly basis
Moxxie also leverages Visible’s Updates feature to send outbound communication to their LPs and the wider Moxxie community on a quarterly basis. The firm uses Visible’s Update feature instead of its previous Google Group as a way to consolidate its tech stack. Alex shares that he finds the open rates and viewing analytics helpful so he can understand how LPs are engaging with their regular communications.
Conclusion
Moxxie chose to move forward with Visible’s founder-friendly portfolio monitoring solution after hearing about Visible’s KPI tracking capabilities through a credible referral. By adopting Visible, Moxxie’s ad-hoc, manual portfolio monitoring processes have been transformed into a streamlined cadence for collecting structured updates from their companies. The firm previously stored outdated company summaries in Google Documents and now the Moxxie team leverages neatly organized Tear Sheets that auto-update when companies share new information.
Over 400+ VC firms are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting process.

investors
Operations
Customer Stories
[Webinar Recording] Best Practices for Onboarding Portfolio Companies to Your VC Firm with M13 and Forum Ventures
We can all agree that first impressions matter. Onboarding a new investment into your VC firm’s community is a key step in setting up the investor <> company relationship for success.
Join us Tuesday, August 29th for a discussion with two leaders in VC Operations, Steph Jones from Forum Ventures and Amelia Zack from M13, on how to set up effective portfolio company onboarding processes at your VC firm.
This webinar is designed for people working in VC operations who want to improve the way they engage with their portfolio companies post-investment.
Discussion topics:
Defining the company onboarding process for your firm and why it matters
Welcoming companies into your community
Connecting companies to resources
Setting expectations about portfolio data collection
Q&A

investors
Customer Stories
Reporting
[Webinar Recording] Leveraging portfolio analysis to improve your fund’s IRR
A recent poll of VCs shows that some of the primary reasons investors collect financial data from portfolio companies is to improve their post-investment support (66%) and inform future investment decisions (44%). To do this well, investors need to be able to analyze their portfolio company data through an advanced financial lens so they can extract actionable insights that lead to improved fund performance.
We recently sat down for a conversation on Leveraging Portfolio Analysis to Improve your Fund’s IRR with Kristian Marquez, CFA. Kristian is the CEO of FinStrat Management and a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder since 2004.
The webinar was designed for people working in Venture Capital who want to level up the way they understand and analyze their portfolio companies’ financial performance data.
Topics Discussed:
The WHY behind surfacing portfolio insights
Where to find benchmark data and how to use it
Top 4 performance indicators, what they mean, and how to calculate them
Using dashboards in Visible to evaluate portfolio company performance
Tips for moving from analysis to action

investors
Customer Stories
Reporting
Case Study: How Render Capital Uses Visible to Streamline Fund Reporting
Render Capital is a $30M early-stage VC fund with offices in Kentucky and Indiana. Led by Patrick Henshaw, Render has invested in 50+ companies as a part of its mission to create a robust and thriving regional economy where entrepreneurs see the Midwest and South as a place they can find appropriate risk capital necessary for them to start and grow.
For this case study, Visible interviewed Render Capital’s Operating Partner Mike Shepard.
Customer Story: How Render Capital Uses Visible to Streamline Fund Reporting
Watch the video below to learn why Render chose Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting processes.
Prefer to read? Keep scrolling to read a paraphrased summary of Mike’s responses.
Q: How were you collecting data prior to using Visible?
Prior to Visible, Render was doing very little to collect data from companies because it was too time-consuming to do it via email and the process wasn’t very organized.
Q: What factors led you to choosing Visible?
We looked at other software to help with our fund management and the options seemed cumbersome, the relationships were tricky, and it seemed like it was actually going to be more work. I wanted to find a solution that let me pair our fund management alongside our own metrics so we could do our own reporting by creating dashboards and sharing those with LPs. We also liked that Visible helped collect reporting from our companies on a regular basis.
Q: What was the onboarding with Visible like?
I filled out a spreadsheet with our company and investment data. I prefer to be hands-on so the next step was just figuring out how to set up my own LP Update templates and reports. Visible was available to answer all my questions and the team was open to our feedback.
“It feels like we’re your only customer which is what you’re supposed to do.”
– Mike Shephard, Operating Partner at Render Capital
Q: What has been the result of using Visible
The results have been great. I created an LP Update template which we consider a marketing extension of our brand. To get this to look nice outside of Visible, in Excel, would have taken me a lot of time. I can use the template I created in Visible over and over again and it automatically updates. Our LPs are also really happy with the direction of our reporting and what we’re producing. We are getting our LPs the information that they want and need in a format that they can easily digest.
Over 350+ VC funds are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting.

investors
Metrics and data
Customer Stories
Case Study: How The Artemis Fund Uses Visible to Create Annual Impact Reports
About The Artemis Fund
The Artemis Fund is on a mission to diversify the face of wealth. Founded in 2019 in Houston Texas, the firm is led by General Partners Diana Murakhovskaya, Leslie Goldman, and Stephanie Campbell. Their team of five invests at the seed stage and leverages their conviction that the future of financial services and commerce will be written by diverse entrepreneurs. The Artemis Fund has invested in 20 disruptive fintech, e-commerce tech, and care-tech companies founded and led by women.
The Artemis Fund joined Visible in April 2021 with the primary objective of streamlining the way they collect both core financial metrics and impact metrics from their growing portfolio. For two years in a row now, The Artemis Fund has turned their metrics into a data-driven impact report using Visible’s portfolio monitoring tools.
Unexpected Benefits of Creating Impact Reports
Juliette Richert from The Artemis Fund shared the objective of their impact reports has broadened over time — reaping more benefits than they originally intended.
Impact is integral to The Artemis Fund’s investment thesis so there was always a desire to measure their impact; however, the primary objective of publishing their first impact report in 2021 was for fundraising from future LPs. Needing data to back up the narrative of your portfolio’s performance to LP’s is something we commonly hear from investors using Visible.
Over time, the team at Artemis realized the companies they were investing in were having an outsized impact on the communities they are serving. Juliette shared their “portfolio companies are very focused on their end users.” The Artemis team worked with their founders to identify which impact metrics are most integral to their businesses and then Artemis began tracking them using Visible’s portfolio monitoring tools. This larger ripple effect is a major driver behind Artemis’ work and so the team was excited to have actual metrics to back up their investment strategy.
The Artemis Fund’s 2022 impact report clearly communciates their thesis and the narrative behind their portfolio companies’ performance, both of which are made more compelling because they’re backed up by data.
This year they distributed their impact report to their wider network. The unexpected result was that it has become a valuable marketing tool for their fund for not just potential investors but it’s helped attract more founders to their deal pipeline as well. Artemis’ report clearly demonstrates that they’re not just paying lip service to investing and supporting female founders — they’re actually executing against their values and have the data to prove it.
“Using Visible streamlines the way we collect and digest metrics, helping us understand the health of our portfolio and address potential issues proactively.”
— Juliette Richert, The Artemis Fund
Choosing Which Impact Metrics to Track
The first step of creating Artemis’ Impact Report was choosing which metrics to track from their portfolio companies and setting up a data Request in Visible.
Check out an Example Portfolio Data Request in Visible.
The Artemis Fund created 35+ custom metrics in Visible, some of which were collected from all companies, and the rest were assigned to specific companies based on the business model or sector.
Headcount Metrics
Artemis collects these metrics from all companies on an annual basis.
FTE Headcount
PTE/Contractor Headcount
Diverse Headcount #
Female Headcount #
Custom Impact Metrics
Artemis assigns these metrics to specific companies in VIsible and collects them on an annual basis. The list below is not comprehensive.
CO2 Saved (Assigned to portfolio company DressX)
Families Served (Assigned to portfolio company Hello Divorce)
Musicians Served (Assigned to portfolio company Green Room)
Financial Metrics
Artemis collects these metrics on a monthly basis from all companies. The list below is not comprehensive.
Cash Burn
Cash Balance
Revenue
Expected Runway
Total Funding
The Artemis Fund Collected Annual Impact Metrics with a 94% Response Rate Using Visible
Aggregating Impact Data into a Report
Next, The Artemis Fund aggregated their portfolio data within Visible using the Portfolio Metric Dashboard which provides quick insights such as the total, minimum, maximum, median for any metric.
The portfolio-wide metrics Artemis included in their report are Revenue & Capital for SMBs, Number of Families Served, and Number of Jobs created.
This year, instead of providing an overview of each company they chose to highlight specific companies in the form of a case study in their impact report. The result is a more digestible yet compelling report that certainly helps LPs and founders understand the type of companies Artemis’ chooses to back.
The entire compiled report is 17 slides. The Artemis Fund’s deck is hosted on Visible’s deck feature which allows them to distribute the deck via a shareable link and gives them control over their branding, email gating, password protection and more.
View the full impact report here.
Visible helps 350+ funds streamline the way they collect and analyze portfolio data.

investors
Operations
Customer Stories
[Webinar Recording] Improving post-investment operations at your VC firm
Watch a recorded conversation with VC Ops experts about improving post-investment operations at your VC firm.
Collectively Kristen Ostro from Strut Consulting & Let’s Talk Ops and Lacey Behrens from 01 Advisors have been exposed to operations at dozens of top-tier VC’s. We’ve invited them to share their advice about implementing best-in-class operations at a venture firm.
This webinar is designed for anyone looking to improve operations at their Venture Capital firm.
Watch the Webinar
Topics Discussed:
Tips for working with your fund admin
How Lacey runs Portfolio Review Meetings at 01 Advisors
How to tailor onboarding for portfolio companies
Tools that help improve post-investment operations
How to measure whether operational changes are working or not
Advice for first-time platform or VC operations hires
Watch the Webinar

investors
Operations
Customer Stories
How to lead effective Portfolio Review Meetings — for VCs
What is a Portfolio Review Meeting in Venture Capital
A portfolio review meeting in the context of Venture Capital is a dedicated time for the investment and operational team members at an investment firm to align on recent updates across the portfolio. Other purposes of this meeting are to exchange cross-functional insights and coordinate the best ways to support portfolio companies.
Who typically leads Portfolio Review Meetings?
Portfolio review meetings can be led by anyone at the firm but since the meetings are largely focused on updates about portfolio companies, it is often led by the person responsible for collecting and synthesizing updates from portfolio companies on a regular basis. At a smaller firm, this person may be a Partner, and at a larger VC firm, this person often has the title of Platform Manager, Director of Portfolio Operations, or someone in finance. Ultimately, it should be led by someone with a wide-lens view of what is going on across the portfolio.
Related Resource –> Portfolio Data Collection Tips
Portfolio Review Meeting Frequency
According to a poll led by Visible, 50% of VC’s are hosting Portfolio Review Meetings on a quarterly basis, followed by 29% weekly, and 14% monthly.
The frequency of this meeting largely depends on the size of your portfolio company and how hands-on you are with your companies.
A quarterly frequency makes sense for most VC firms because 70% of investors are collecting structured data from their companies on a quarterly basis. (Source data is aggregated usage data on Visible’s portfolio monitoring platform used by 350+ VC funds).
Three Necessary Elements to Lead an Effective Portfolio Review Meeting
1) Up-to-date, accurate information from portfolio companies
Most investors are collecting 5-15 metrics from companies on a quarterly basis. These include core financial KPI’s and sector-specific metrics. Additionally, it’s common to ask for qualitative updates from companies as well to ensure you have a holistic view of how a company is performing.
Related Resource –> Which Metrics Should I be Collecting from My Portfolio Companies
2) Customizable visualizations to engage your team
Looking at just raw data points from companies can be, well…boring. To get more engagement during Portfolio Review Meetings it’s a great idea to create engaging visualizations that clearly demonstrate the growth journeys your companies are on. By displaying your data in a Flexible Portfolio Company Dashboard your team will be able to more clearly identify trends and insights.
To help your team digest the information about portfolio companies, it’s important to keep your data visualizations consistent for each company. Visible makes this easy by allowing you to save custom dashboards as templates and apply them to all companies in just a few clicks.
Learn more about creating flexible dashboards for portfolio review meetings in the video below.
3) A Place to Take Notes & Document Action Items
It’s a great idea to document meeting discussion notes and action items as soon as they arise during a meeting. Documenting action items on a company’s dashboard is a great way to keep team members accountable for execution because you can refer back to the notes during future meetings.
How Investors Are Leveraging Visible to Enhance Portfolio Review Meetings
VKAV’s Portfolio Company Dashboards
Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), a long-term Visible user, hosts a formal Portfolio Review Meeting on a quarterly basis. During this meeting, Portfolio Review Committee members join to review the performance of the portfolio companies during the quarter. Additionally, VKAV’s investment team holds an internal Portfolio Review Meeting every other week. Right now, the purpose of this meeting is mostly to check the status of action items (either for VKAV or the portfolio company). VKAV keeps track of open action items directly on a company’s dashboard in Visible so that it is linked to the broader context of how the company is performing.
View VKAV’s Portfolio Review Dashboard Example –> View Dashboard
01 Advisors Approach to Portfolio Review Meetings
01 Advisors a San Francisco-based venture firm utilizes Visible’s Request feature to streamline the way they collect data from companies on a quarterly basis. The team meets 1-2 times per quarter for an internal Portfolio Review meeting. Check out their meeting agenda outline below.
01 Advisors Portfolio Review Meeting Agenda
Investment Strategy
Portfolio Company Categorization
Reserve Allocation Strategy
Portfolio Company Support
Learn more about how 01 Advisors uses Visible for the internal portfolio review meetings in this video.

investors
Operations
Customer Stories
How to Plan a Top Tier CEO Summit for your VC Firm – A Conversation with Stephanie Rich
VC Head of Platform shares advice on how to plan a founder-focused CEO summit.
About Stephanie Rich
Stephanie Rich is Head of Platform at Bread and Butter Ventures where she builds scalable networks, resources, tools and knowledge that help their portfolio companies succeed. She spends time working in the Twin Cities startup ecosystem and mentoring founders building in food/ag tech, digital health and enterprise saas. Before working in VC, she gained experience in early-stage marketing and building brands and communities. And she love dogs.
You can find Stephanie on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Why does your VC firm host CEO Summits and how many have you done?
Stephanie: We did our first official Summit in the summer of 2023. We invest all over the country (actually the world!) so we wanted to host a Founders Summit to bring our portfolio together to build connections between founders as well as to meet our network in MN. Our goal for the event was to have everyone leave feeling inspired, motivated and armed with something new -whether a new contact, new resource or new skillset.
Is there anything you wish you’d known/realized before your first CEO Summit?
Stephanie: I wish I’d thought (and perhaps tested) the space we used a bit more. I’d recommend really thinking about how you’ll utilized Summit locations for big presentations, workshops but also for small moments for founders to connect in small groups. The space was still great, but I think it would have been even better if we’d approached it more thoughtfully.
If you had to go back in time and try and convince your investment team to allocate a budget for a CEO summit, what points would you use?
Stephanie: I’d focus on the benefits that our founders would get out of summit – connection, inspiration and motivation. Zoom is great but there’s something about getting people together in person that solidifies founder to founder and investor to founder relationships.
Check out Visible’s Guide to Portfolio Support Best Practices
Download the Guide
What costs of a CEO Summit are typically covered by the firm vs founders?
Stephanie: Depends primarily on two things – size of the firm and amount of sponsorship dollars raised. At the least, firms should plan to cover all activities and food throughout the event – if you have the budget for it we recommend covering (or at least subsidizing) accommodations and travel.
What’s something you’ve tried at a summit that you’d never do again?
Stephanie: We did basically all of the planning and prep in-house – it was fun but a ton of lift from our team. Next time I will probably work harder to figure out what different things we could partner on or hire someone to handle – especially when it comes to design and audio-visual skills.
What’s something you’ve tried that you’ll make sure to always do in the future?
Stephanie: We did a great session where we had one founder briefly interview another in front of the whole group – and we repeated this about 10 times. I was blown away by the amount of research founders did to prep for this – they asked each other insightful, thoughtful questions that really led to all attendees a great window into what each person is building, the journey they’ve taken, and the things they think about every day while running the company. It proved to be super inspirational and led to lots of connections afterward.
Any tips to maximize the budget/value add ratio for coordinating a CEO Summit?
Stephanie: Spend money on your high-value things – speakers, major dinners/experiences, location – and find ways to deliver on the details in a more budget conscious way. Also be creative when it comes to the city you host in. While there are certainly advantages to hosting in hot spots like San Francisco, New York or Miami, you can save a ton of budget by holding your summit in a city like Minneapolis where buying our restaurants, securing venues and paying for activities requires significantly less investment.
Is it worth attempting a virtual summit these days or do you think it needs to be in person?
Stephanie: Part of me completely understands the desire for a virtual summit – it’s so much more cost efficient but keep in mind you’re really missing out on the in-person connection and inspiration that make in-person summits so magical. I’d also say a virtual summit is only worth it with extremely stellar and useful content. Make sure you’re giving people a real reason to show up and be very cognizant of the length of event.
Visible is founder-friendly portfolio monitoring and reporting for investors.
Learn More

investors
Reporting
Customer Stories
[Webinar Recording] Building Scalable Portfolio Support
Portfolio support plays an important part in differentiating good investors from great investors. However, it can be hard to be a value-add investor when time and resources are constrained, which is why building scalable support is key.
We were joined by Jessica Lowenstein, Head of Platform at K50 Ventures, and Erica Amatori, Head of Platform at Left Lane Capital for a discussion on:
How each fund defines its approach to support
What systems/processes are needed to scale support
Tips for onboarding new companies into your portfolio
Navigating information flow between the investment team and ops
Advice for new funds thinking about formalizing their approach to support
Visible for Investors is a founders-first portfolio monitoring and reporting platform. Schedule time with our team to learn more.

investors
Reporting
Customer Stories
[Webinar] LP Reporting Best Practices with Aduro Advisors
Braughm Ricke is the Founder and CEO of Aduro Advisors — a premier fund administrator, selected by Fund Managers for its purpose-built software platform, FundPanel.io, and highly-trained service team led by industry veterans.
Braughm joined Visible.vc on May 10, 2022 to discuss best practices for engaging with and reporting to limited partners. A summary of the insights from the webinar is captured in a report co-created by Visible and Aduro.
The topics covered in the report include:
The importance of the LP Reporting
LP Reporting Best Practices
Updates as a Fundraising Strategy
LP Reporting Content Breakdown
[Template] Quarterly LP Reporting Update
Visible for Investors is a founders-first portfolio monitoring and reporting platform. Schedule time with our team to learn more.

founders
Operations
Metrics and data
Customer Stories
Kickstarting a Marketplace with Trey Closson, CEO of Amplio
About Trey
Trey Closson is the CEO and Founder of Amplio — a platform for proactively identifying the risks of tomorrow’s supply chain. Prior to starting Amplio, Trey spent time at Flexport and Georgia Pacific. Trey joins us to break down his first year as a founder and what he has learned from transitioning from operator to founder.
Episode Takeaways
A couple of key topics we hit on:
The current state of the global supply chain issues
How Amplio found their first customers
How Amplio is using pilot programs to scale their customer base
The importance of relentless focus
Why founders should invest in community
Why building a startup is a marathon, not a sprint
Watch the Episode
Give episode 6 a listen below (or give it a listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you normally consume podcasts)

founders
Metrics and data
Customer Stories
Finding the Balance While Building a Marketplace with the Founders of ChefPrep
About Josh & Elle
Josh Abulafia & Elle Curran are the Co-founders of ChefPrep. ChefPrep is a marketplace for ready-made meals that are prepared by award-winning restaurants, delivered to your door. Josh and Elle join us to break down their journey as startup founders.
Episode Takeaways
A few key topics we hit on with Elle and Josh:
How ChefPrep validated their core thesis
Why ChefPrep decided to focus on the supply side
Key marketplace metrics they track
Building barriers to entry in marketplaces
Why tracking the right data is vital to startup success
Building their company operating system
Watch the Episode
Give episode 5 a listen below (or give it a listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you normally consume podcasts):

founders
Hiring & Talent
Customer Stories
Looking Beyond a Candidate’s Resume with Malcolm Burenstam Linder
About Malcolm
Malcolm Burenstam Linder is the CEO and Co-founder of Alva Labs. The team at Alva Labs is creating a more fair and data-driven recruitment process. Malcolm joins us to break down his story and journey as a founder.
Episode Takeaways
A few key topics we hit on:
About Alva Labs and Malcolm
How Alva found their first customers
Using personal networks to find their first customers
Why founders need to be extremely diligent about their first hires
Why seeing a professional coach has been a gamechanger for him
Why everyone should look beyond a resume when hiring
Watch the Episode
Give episode 4 a listen below (or give it a listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you normally consume podcasts):

investors
Reporting
Customer Stories
How to Report to Limited Partners with Gale Wilkinson of Vitalize VC
Stay engaged with your founders right from your pocket. Monitor your portfolio and be the value-add investor you want to be with Visible for Investors. Learn more
One of the core responsibilities of a general partner (GP) is to report with both their Limited Partners (LPs) and portfolio companies. Gale Wilkinson, Founder of Vitalize Venture Capital, joined us to break down how their team engages with and reports to their LPs.
Why send LP Reports?
Just like any relationship, the LP <> GP relationship is all about trust. In order to better establish a relationship and improve the odds of raising capital for a future fund, GPs and venture funds need to have a system in place to report to and communicate with their LPs.
>> Check out Visible’s LP Template Library here.
Raise Future Capital
Not only are venture funds and general partners competing against other venture funds for LP capital, they are also competing against other asset classes. Of course, LPs will look back at your performance of previous investments but will also be judging you and your skills as a partner. Having a proven history of strong performance and communication is a surefire way to increase a GPs odds of raising funds.
Help Portfolio Companies
Different limited partners will offer different skill sets and opportunities. All portfolio companies are looking for help — that might be customer introductions, fundraising options, and hiring. Limited Partners can be a great source for VCs to help out portfolio companies. In turn, this only improves a founder’s relationship with the fund and improves their odds of success.
Due Diligence
Some limited partners will have a proven track record or expertise in the market. Because of this, they might understand the space even further and can help when it comes to due diligence and vetting potential investments. As Gale shares above, they have an LP that has expertise in workflow tech and help them with due diligence in the space.
How to create a tear sheet for your LPs
Gale and the team at Vitalize have done an incredible job of using tear sheets to help keep their LPs in the loop. The Vitalize team uses both the qualitative and quantitative data they collect from their portfolio companies and create a single page tear sheet for each company they can share with their LPs. Check out a few example tear sheets below:
A few things they include in their tear sheets:
Company Information
LPs are generally busy and have investments across many different asset classes. In order to help with them understand what a portfolio company does, be sure to include a quick description and the reason why you invested.
Qualitative Updates
The team at Vitalize also likes to include qualitative updates from each portfolio company. This is generally tied to revenue milestones but can also cover financing rounds and major hires.
Investment Information
Of course, LPs want to see the financials and information behind an investment. The team at Vitalize includes basic investment information like initial investment dates, capital invested, Vitalize’s value, and more.
Core Metrics
Using the KPIs and data that the Vitalize team collects from their portfolio companies they build a simple table that shows a companies quarterly performance. A few of the metrics the Vitalize team tracks and shares are:
Revenue
COGs/COS
Gross Margin %
Total Expenses
EBITDA
Cash Balance
Months of Runway
LP Reporting Templates to Get You Started
Ready to take your LP reporting to the next level? Check out our LP Reporting Templates to get you started. Or schedule a call with our team to learn more here.
Unlock your investor relationships.
Try Visible for free for 14 days.
Start your free trial Try Visible for free for 14 days.