Wrapping up a year like no other
Welcome to the Adverb Ventures December Newsletter!
Adverb Founder Retreat
It’s all about the people. At Adverb, we live by this mantra. Our early stage investing is centered on founders and now, 18 months in, we have a growing community of founders in our portfolio and friends of the firm who we had the privilege to convene together for our first ever retreat in October. There is no better reminder about how lucky we are to do what we do than to spend a few days together with this community.
Our programming kicked off with Liza interviewing Billy Beane, former GM of the Oakland A’s and subject of Moneyball, on how he tackled baseball in a radically different and data-driven way. On Day 2, we dove into practical topics for our founders: research leader Behzod Sirjani presented on deepening customer understanding, OpenAI GTM Lead Maggie Hott shared her tips for selling, and serial founders Kayvon Beykpour and Jeff Siebert spoke about their founder journeys and navigating a fast-evolving technology and market backdrop. We wrapped up the day by zooming out with Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Design and Research Mike Davidson and even got a rapid fireside chat with Vijaya Gadde, board member at Planet, Guardant Health and Mercy Corps and previously long-time Chief Legal Officer at Twitter.
The time away from regular routines made for deeper conversation and strengthening relationships between the members of our early Adverb Founder Community. We are all looking forward to the next one and the stories the founders we’ve backed will have to share then.
Portfolio Spotlights
We welcomed Michael Gao and Bao Van of Alpaca Health to the Adverb portfolio! They are building an operating system for pediatric autism clinics. Their toolset leverages modern technology (yes, AI and more) to create more efficiency and improve the quality of care and ultimate outcomes for clinics in the US. Michael and Bao were members of the South Park Commons and based in NYC.
We welcomed Aja Beckett of Shotsy to the Adverb portfolio! Aja has built the #1 companion app for people on GLP-1 medications (e.g. Ozempic, Zepbound). Shotsy helps users better understand and manage the medication, its results, and its side effects, and Aja’s first-hand experience as to the transformational potential for these medications has set her sights on being the digital partner through this journey and beyond. Shotsy is available for iOS and as of this week, for Android.
Cove AI launched their AI workspace with an amazing reception (TechCrunch, ProductHunt). Cove is the first consumer product we’ve seen which pushes the boundaries of how to work with AI for everyday planning and collaboration. The team behind it is prolific and previously helped build Google Street View and Uber Eats.
Adverb Community and Programs
In October, April spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt alongside Glean CPO Tamar Yehoshua and Amplitude Analytics CEO and Founder Spenser Skates on product-market fit to a packed house at Moscone.
April is Speaking at Primary Venture Partner’s “On the Business” Mastery Day for senior women execs in SaaS on Tuesday, January 21, 2025
The one-day program will include topics on “first team thinking” and P&L Fluency, along with speakers currently or recently in C-level roles at companies including Toast, BILL, Demandbase, and Ticketmaster.
April will share her experience on board room management in conversation with Erica Brescia, MD at Redpoint. Apply here to join.
Adverb will be hosting a founder happy hour in LA during the week of Upfront. Stay tuned for more information in January.
Reflecting on 2024
We are often asked what we’ve learned since we started Adverb. We can say without a doubt that the pace of innovation and market activity is faster than anything we’ve seen in our careers. Every week brings new technical breakthroughs, product launches, and funding rounds which reconfigure the competitive landscape in which early-stage founders are building.
We come away from this year grateful to be in business with a growing community of founders who seek the balance between setting a bold north star and staying the course in spite of the noise with responsiveness to new information and the agility to change their plans along with their assumptions.
Throughout the year, we’ve hosted over 20 events for founders and builders to convene with and learn from each other, and find connection in what can otherwise be a lonely journey in those early days of building new companies. Finally, we are grateful to you, our early subscribers, for tuning in to our updates.
More to come in 2025 – much like the companies we back, Adverb is just getting started. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year – we can’t wait to see what the next year brings!
Best wishes, Team Adverb