Transcript: Assure.co: Jeremy Neilson on all things Venture

Host: This episode of Startup Project is brought to you by bare dot tax. Bare dot tax compiles all your crypto transactions and makes it easy for you to file your taxes. Check out bare dot tax that is b a r dot t a x. Bare dot tax. Hey Jeremy, welcome to the startup project.

Guest: Hi, thank you.

Host: Um, so I wanted to talk to you because, you know, Asher is at the intersection of a lot of things I'm interested in. One is, you know, venture capital, private equity investing.

And you also produce great amazing content and you're also, you know, you do your own podcast. So it's always great to talk to other podcasters as well.

Uh, but I think I'd like to start the conversation from sort of the origin story of Asher and how it got started and, you know, what led you to found Asher?

Guest: Sure. Yeah. So, uh, Asher comes from, uh, let me let me start back a little bit. In order for Asher to actually exist and do what we do, there's a few key pieces or parts that were necessary for this to happen. One was my background.

So I went to law school, I then went to MBA school, and then I was hired to launch and run the Utah Fund of Funds here in the state of Utah where I live.

And this was an economic development program meant to bring alternative capital to the state of Utah.

This is not the situation we're in today in the ecosystem, but 15, 20, 30 years ago, uh, Utah would develop great companies and Silicon Valley, uh, venture capital firms would would say, hey, love to fund you, but you have to move to California.

So Utah had this great base, this great group of of great entrepreneurs, but they were getting kind of plucked out of the state. So Utah wasn't getting the benefit of jobs and innovation.

And so the idea was, could we foster and grow the Utah ecosystem of alternative capital, venture capital. So the program was aimed at helping entrepreneurs, facilitating that investment, seeing if they could stay in Utah.

Uh, so ran that program, had success. We had $300 million dollars worth of of value. We invested in 28 different funds. So I had this great experience.

And then, uh, left there and tried to do some other things on my own, failed at a bunch of stuff, you know, tried to do my own fund to funds, tried to work with other uh, you know, governments or municipalities on a program similar to the Utah Fund of Funds and just failed, failed, failed.

So for two years, failed. And um, and then, uh, got a phone call from uh, somebody kind of out of the blue and said, hey, can you do due diligence uh, on funds? And I'm like, yeah, I can.

And they said, okay, we've got this contract and so I was able to work on the SBA's early stage venture capital program. So I did that for a year and then Angelist called.

And so this was kind of three years after leaving the Utah Fund of Funds, Angelist called and said, can you guys figure out how to do funds in bulk?

And I was kind of, you know, I wasn't quite sure what they were asking, but I said yes, because I'd been failing for for for two years, right? I'm hungry. I want I want uh, I want business. And uh, I had this experience though that that was perfect.

I had a law degree, I did the Utah Fund of Funds, I I did some consulting and side work, I did the SBA. And so I had all the pieces. I had this huge network as well, talking to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

I had this massive network that I knew I could figure this out. I had the education, I had the experience, and I had the network. And so said yes, my co-founder, uh, who is also my wife, uh, were like, well, let's do this thing.

And so we figured out how to do funds in bulk, which turned out basically to be SPVs or syndication, uh, at a very affordable, very easy, smooth, transparent, flexible way.

All the pieces were there, everything was out there and and kind of out in the marketplace somewhat being used and we took all of those pieces, put it into one group, stripped all the fat, all the extra stuff out of it and uh, you know, wrapped a great price around it, put it out in the marketplace and it just really blew up, mushroomed it just, you know, the phone hasn't stopped ringing since we we put that that together for Angelist and then, you know, Angelist launched and everyone's like, how is Angelist doing this?

And they found that Asher was that backend engine doing all the structuring and admin and tax and all that stuff. And we just people started calling, boom, boom, can you do that for me? Can you do that for me? Can you do that for me?

So that's the origin story of Asher um uh of us just figuring out how to do a certain product and having it take off from there.

Host: What was the outcome of the Utah Fund of Funds? Like, how did that change the Utah ecosystem?

Guest: So, um, in a program like that, it's very difficult to uh pin causality, you know, you know, because of this, we got this. But a lot of people do do say the Utah Fund of Funds had a great impact on the state of Utah.

Today, Utah, uh, is doing fantastic. It did fine before.

So, I mean, Utah had great uh, stories, you know, it had Novell, it had Word Perfect, you know, Omniture, like the So it had some great stories, but it's just it's kind of doubled every five years where we had one good company and then we had two, and then five, and 10 and and and today we have a very large number of great companies, a number of unicorns.

And um, and so Utah today the program just isn't needed. It was I built it, it just kind of wound down and uh, really nobody saying we need the program again or where's the next program. Everyone feels quite comfortable with where we're at.

We don't we don't feel like we're done per se. Uh, but they're not feeling like the government needs the government needs to step in and really uh, you know, start this or juice this.

Uh and and and as you know and everyone else knows today from the pandemic and everything, it's like, it doesn't matter where you live. I'll do due diligence on Zoom, you can be wherever, I'll be wherever.

So that also has really accelerated that attitude that I'll find you wherever you're at and if Salt Lake City is where you do your best work, great, all the better.

Host: Yeah, I think the whole pandemic change, you know, even to call us like, you know, Indian investor or a US based investor, like that didn't make any sense because the process essentially look same and more and more companies, like for example, I'm exposed to a lot of Indian companies and they're all registered in Delaware now.

Uh, and partly the reason might be Angelist or YC. Uh, but another interesting um a similar interesting example that I know of uh which probably was very successful was a program called Yozma in Israel.

Um, I think during the 90s uh the start of this uh sort of like a government fund which matched or gave half of the amount of investment that a VC firm outside Israel that is coming into Israel will get.

And they can retain up to I think 1X uh they have to return about 1X of the capital that the government invests and rest of them is, you know, your upside.

So I think that was uh sort of considered as one of the interesting moves by one particular nation and now we know that Tel Aviv is, you know, one of the biggest uh tech hubs.

Uh so when I was researching for this conversation the example that came up to my mind and today we you know, everyone is cloud, where is cloud? everywhere. Silicon Valley is now in cloud, right?

Um, so I think that's an interesting example that I can think of in terms of governments really, you know, pioneering a particular ecosystem because back then everyone wanted a Silicon Valley, but uh uh and Israel I think was very futuristic in terms of like looking in and you know, thinking about this way ahead before any other country or like particular geography is thinking.

Like we see that now with Miami, uh but they had a big boost of pandemic, but um if I could see anywhere in the world who had this advanced vision, I think Israel with Yozma was one of the very few ones.

Guest: You know, that India companies are all doing, you know, Delaware C Corps. That that does have a lot to do with Angelist or YC or Asher and that that the growth of investors has been growing exponentially.

And one of the reasons it is is because of what Asher built. You know, funds in bulk equaled, can we set up structures that allow a larger number of individuals with a lower wealth threshold to participate in investing in private companies?

You know, before Asher, you basically had to write a very large check or you had to go into a venture fund. Now with syndication like Angelist and and what Asher does for the ecosystem, you now can invest for sometimes as little as $1,000.

The the because of that, now individuals are saying, how do I get exposure to that ecosystem?

And the reality is is government regulation, it's very difficult for uh, for for you to do exactly what we did in the US in Canada or in England, or in India or in China because in those jurisdictions, their their laws, their regulations, their stuff is is complex, it's expensive, it's slow moving.

And so the advice that we're seeing, um, you know, our our clients are those that like you, you know, talking to the companies, the advice that we're hearing that they're saying is, just just just go register with Delaware and then I can invest.

I'm I'm ready to invest but I just can't figure out the the regulatory environment in your home country. America makes it really simple, the structuring is really simple. There's groups like Asher that make it really simple.

Just come to the US and register and then I can get my money into your company.

Host: Yeah, you're absolutely right because as someone who is from India and has done investments in India and US, it's much more simpler to invest in an Indian company when it's registered in US versus it's registered in India.

Even though however I want to say that, hey, if you're catering your Indian customers, you have to be there, but it's just too easy when you're registered, you know, in Delaware and and that's, you know, primarily because, you know, what you did with Asher and, you know, obviously Angel is it's sort of the pioneering of, you know, syndicates.

Um, in terms of what uh in terms of complexity, what is the real big piece that was missing? You know, why didn't it happen before Angelist/Asher combination?

Like why what was the missing piece that really uh that you solved uh that enabled all this?

Guest: Yeah. I think there's a couple pieces. One was was government or regulatory. So before this time, so the big regulatory or legal or regulat uh you know, law that got passed was the Jobs Act.

President Obama signed the Jobs Act and that had a number of elements into it in it. And one of those was allowing some some group like Angelist to build a platform and aggregate accredited investors on this platform.

Before the Jobs Act that was that was looked down upon, frowned upon, the SEC might shut you down. So they changed the rule that says, you can now kind of aggregate or email and like that's going to be approved uh, you know, behavior.

So that that was one big one. Uh, number two was I kind of joke half joking, half serious that, you know, no one was kind of dumb enough to try it until until I, you know, until my co-founder and I tried it.

But I had a unique background of having a legal background. So when you do syndication, when you do SPVs is what we do, uh, it's a legal, it's a legal activity, right?

You need legal in uh backing, you need legal instruction, you need legal experience. Fund administration, when you do fund administration for a venture fund, it's all accounting.

It's books, it's capital calls, it's bank statements, it's audits, it's financials. When you do an SPV, like we're talking about syndication, it is legal documents, legal documents, legal documents, security filings, legal documents. It's all legal.

So it wasn't like this easy crossover of someone's like, well, I know venture funds, I'll just go do that. Uh, it it just doesn't work that way. And so, the other thing in my opinion and not to disparage lawyers, um, they provide a great service.

But when you are in a law firm, you think things, you think about things differently. You think of things like, I bill by the hour.

And when we created the Asher SPV and you know, what what Angelist was hoping we could figure out for them was, how do we do this flat fee one time?

And that really breaks a lawyer's brain when they can say, well, I can get paid 500 bucks an hour, a thousand bucks an hour. Why should I basically provide a service that's going to turn out to be five bucks an hour? I just why why would I do that?

And so my co-founder and I were like, we want to change the world, right? We want to we want to do something big. We don't you know, let's just let's just not worry about that. Let's just figure out how to do this.

And then the final thing was just putting all the pieces together because you do have that legal mindset, you've got compliance, you've got banking, you have tax, you have admin, you have accounting and they're they're hard.

It's just it's just really hard and you look across the ecosystem, uh, you're dealing with professionals, professional licenses, regulatory, and to bring all those things together, there's a lot of kind of risk that you have to think through and you're really taking on very, very heavy, very meaty, very complex concepts and trying to make them as simple as possible.

And so uh, I'm not sure exactly why somebody didn't do it before but I kind of had that perfect background. And then my co-founder, she's brilliant on on on on on operations and organization and detail, things that I'm less good at.

So, maybe it's all these combination of things but yeah, it just happened to be and you know, maybe maybe it had everything to do with me being desperate as well, right?

Like like someone had to be as desperate as I was in not being able to find those success metrics that I was looking for in in building my own thing uh that put all those pieces on the table and and uh magic happened.

Host: What are the things that I think and correct me if I'm wrong, that came out of Job Sec was also equity crowdfunding. Uh how did that change Asher's business or was it purely an extension of Asher's business?

Guest: So equity crowdfunding, and there's kind of two definitions.

So the original equity crowdfunding is what we uh provided for Angelist and most all of the other other platforms out there and for our one-off clients and the angel groups and the family offices, you know, we we provide an equity crowdfunding type service.

But when you're talking about the non-accredited equity crowdfunding product that now is available because of the Jobs Act, we don't participate in that.

And the reason we don't is because the federal government here, the SEC, they were really careful and cautious about protecting non-accredited investors and so they basically took all of the regulated and uh licensed uh structures and entities and groups.

So they put a broker dealer required, an accounting firm's required, a law firm's required. And so we're none of those things. We're not a broker dealer, we're not an accounting firm, we're not a law firm.

So we we provide all those services, but you have to have that, you know, that card carrying signed certificate like formal broker dealer, former formal accounting firm, formal law law firm to provide services for any of the equity crowdfunding deals in an effort to make sure that the very best, the very, you know, highly regulated groups are the ones per per forming those services, that they have a lot to lose if they don't do a good job ultimately protecting the non-accredited investors.

Host: But but we did see like almost 10X swing of this equity crowdfunding phenomena, right? We've seen invest in Republic. How are they pulling off? Are they registered, you know, are are they carrying all this tax with them or uh how is the back end for these businesses right now powered?

Guest: Yeah, so they mostly are powered through technology and then they provide these services. So Republic is um Republic who's who's been a client, seed C invest is a client, Republic's a client of Asher uh for their for their reg D SPVs.

Um, like Republic what they do is they have a great system but they don't, but everybody goes direct. So when you talk about investing into private assets, you either go direct or you go through a structured vehicle like an SPV, right?

And so they basically have every non-accredited investor go direct to the company, so they don't need a structure.

And then they provide reporting and they and they make sure that before the deal is presented to the non-accredited investors, that's where all the broker dealers, that's where the lawyers, that's where the the the accountants come in and like checkbox, checkbox, checkbox.

Now it's worthy to be presented. If you raise your hand and said I'm interested, you go right on the cap table and then there's reporting back and forth.

So they've they've found, uh, you know, the right path such to keep those the structuring stuff at a minimum and and they all the all the regulatory heavy stuff's on the front end before they even present it to the non-accredited investors.

Host: So you I mean, Angelist and sort of Asher uh pioneered and basically created this whole ecosystem, right? Uh in terms of, you know, solo GPs, uh rolling funds and uh syndicates.

Um, and right now what is happening is with crypto almost there's a new wave that is coming in, right?

And everyone is like scratching their heads in terms of what is the a company going to look like and what is the uh, you know, right way to invest into crypto companies. Uh, how does Asher work, you know, in web 3.0? Like are you are you engaged?

I mean there are obviously I see investments into crypto projects which are, you know, registered in the same way as a, you know, as a regular company, but there are also companies which are not, you know, it's even like in a gray area where you can even call it as a company.

It's just a couple of folks working on a project and some founders I've talked to don't even have registration anywhere.

So how do you are how are you thinking about, how are you interacting and how is are you thinking about it actively, one and uh where is Asher in terms of just web three interaction right now?

Guest: Yeah. So we've done a large number of SPVs that go into and have gone into crypto companies.

When the first spike happened in 2018, we did a large number of SPVs that were going into that first wave of crypto deals and, you know, if you followed that, uh, you know, failures and successes and kind of craziness and and so on.

And uh, what we discovered from that experience was, you know, deals kind of fall into a few buckets.

Uh, a bucket of one, which is like, you're going to go into a company that actually works in the crypto or blockchain or web three space, but you're getting equity like any other company, right? You just have seed stage, series A, right?

And you're just going to benefit from whatever services they provide. That looks very familiar and very normal to all other any any other type of startup company.

Where it starts to get a little more tricky is when you're actually dealing with those tokens, when when they're going to when when the asset that you're getting or you're investing in is actually those tokens.

Now we have, you know, now we've got a a lot more complexity about wallets, cold storage, uh, you know, converting from one crypto to another crypto, distributions, you know, stocking agreements, like there's all this extra stuff which we do, we have done.

We do do that. Uh, some of it was falling into it, right? We said yes, like a little bit like Angelis called and said, can you do this? We said yes. Uh, the first crypto deal said, hey, can you do this?

We said yes and you know, it it's it's been a good thing, although sometimes growing pains as we figure out how how this movement goes. So we've really touched and experienced everything around the crypto world.

The thing that ends up slowing or stopping our ability is when banks or regulatory step in and say, you can't do that or you can't bank that deal. That can stop deals from happening because we can't we can't have the mechanism to pull the money.

So we're excited for innovations in blockchain to start to decouple, you know, banking stuff that makes it hard sometimes to do deals. So, so we're we are providing services to our clients that are doing crypto.

You know, your example or your question around if there's a startup company that isn't registered, that's on the organizer. That's our client's job to say, I will or will not invest into your project.

Um, once, you know, Asher stands there kind of quietly and waits as soon as the our client or the organizer turns around and says, I want to do an SPV on this deal, then we leap into action and and provide that service.

Before that, the our clients required to find investors, find the project and make sure that everything is on the up and up.

Host: Since you have a unique vantage point, right? Because you are at the intersection of so many funds and syndicates and public, private. Uh, what is your viewpoint of what is happening in venture right now?

Guest: My viewpoint and what's happening in venture right now is that there's been a sea change in venture. And when you say venture, I'm going to give you my definition of venture. My my definition of venture is investing in venture type assets.

So startup companies, even, you know, secondaries, growth companies, just, you know, being part of that private asset, high growth company investment eco ecosystem. Um, what has happened over the past 10, 15 years are a couple things.

One is the the mist, you know, the mystical nature of venture has been demystified just from experience, from time, from from education.

So it's no longer this scary thing from when, you know, my father or grandfather would say, you know, diversify, you know, don't, you know, don't stay away from risky things, you know, venture super risky. That's gone, right?

You know, your generation, people below below me, I'm I'm kind of like right on the line, my my generation. Uh, everybody below me is like, I'm, you know, I'm not going to follow my father's and grandfather's financial advisor advice.

I'm I'm I I understand things differently uh, from them and I have more experience. So, so the the mystery is gone from venture, so there's more people. Uh, now also through what Asher has built for the ecosystem, people can now write smaller checks.

Before Asher, you went into a fund. And a venture fund only has so many seats. The SEC says you only have X number of seats. And when those seats are filled, you cannot take any more investors.

And so it's a pretty easy math calculation to say, if I'm going to raise $100 million dollars and I only have 100 seats, my average checks a million dollars.

So, you know, even if they allow some people to write $50,000 checks or $100,000 checks, that, you know, you got to be very, very wealthy in order to write those types of checks. So, so now when I do a syndication and I'll say, I'll take 2,500 bucks.

Like that that changes everything. So now the the number of participants in the ecosystem is growing exponentially uh every day as they get comfortable or they get knowledgeable or they get presented with these opportunities.

You know, and the final thing is that along those lines of demystification, the returns of venture investing, although they can easily go to zero, they can easily go to, you know, 100 or a thousand percent return that that it is now a uh a piece of your portfolio that you should add to your portfolio.

Everyone's decision as to what percentage is is different, but you now have access, you now have knowledge, and you now have uh, you know, education or certainty that this is an asset class to participate in. So I only see it growing.

Um, I do see, you know, when when things happen of of uncertainty, you know, everyone kind of pauses and thinks about things.

But I believe, you know, the cat's out of the bag or there's a sea change when it comes to venture investing that will never go back to where it was 5, 10, 15 years ago that, you know, with groups like Asher, it's going to be that Robin Hood effect where, you know, if you're accredited, get out your phone, you're going to have the opportunity to build a portfolio alongside stocks and bonds and real estate or whatever else you put in there, you can now easily add private asset, startup companies, venture, whatever it is that's interesting to you in your personal portfolio very simply.

Host: Do you think because of the exposure because one of the things that was attractive for, you know, venture allocation in any portfolio was the outside returns, right? Um, with democratization of access, do you think the return expectation from venture is going to be changed?

Guest: No, I don't. Um, you know, venture is very different in my opinion from, you know, a a startup or a company that's gone public. you know, a startup company is creating something in theory, uh creating something that isn't invented yet.

It's not, it's not like, it's not like growing a pie to me, it's like creating a new pie.

And so, you know, just like what Asher did, which was SPVs were available, you went to a law firm and you paid $100,000, you went to an accounting firm, and you hired them for five or 10 grand a year, you went to a tax firm, you like you build this big team.

So you could do that. It wasn't that wasn't that you couldn't do it, but it's like we created a new market segment that allowed, you know, allowed something to really change.

And so I I don't think I don't personally see that venture investing goes towards the mean, uh at least right now and frankly, you know, as you look at deal flow, as you look at companies, you look at the problems in the world, you look at uh the things that we can fix and solve.

I I just there there's kind of an endless an endless amount of value and the more value create, then people will receive more value in the form of money, that's kind of how you you show value when it comes to, you know, success in the business world.

Maybe it would be nice to show show it in a different way, but that's basically how you show success or value is in in money. So you get more money and then now, you know, you can participate in the next one.

And so uh I don't see that ideas, value uh is is finite, right? It feels, it feels very infinite in you know, you can kind of go back to the funny things people said 100 years ago, right?

A any, you know, 100 years ago or 150 years ago, like everything that's going to be invented has been invented already. I can't remember who said that some someone said that about the, you know, the patent office. And um, right?

That's ludicrous and anybody that thinks we're going to start to see a decline in invention or value or I I just think I just don't see it happening.

Host: Having uh, you know, seen so much of, you know, private equity investing. Uh, how do you look at your own allocation in terms of private equity? Do you have a certain percentage invested in uh private equity at this stage investing?

Guest: I don't. I have everything in Asher. So it's it's one of those, it's one of those classic things which is, you know, I'm betting on myself at this point in my life and career. I understand Asher best. I I feel quite certain.

I it doesn't feel like a bet, it feels more like an a certainty outcome of of success.

I I many times think about, you know, when I do have an exit and I do, you know, you know, exchange Asher for for cash, what I would be doing and do do and and I get really excited about what's going on today, but it'll be exciting, you know, it was exciting when I was in law school in the in the dotcom, you know, in the internet.

I was super exciting and and today it's really exciting and it'll be exciting in in 10 more in 10 more years. I, you know, you you got to miss something but you're the next thing's on on the horizon.

Host: Uh just to give uh, you know, idea of the scale of Asher to the audience, like how much assets are you managing right now in terms of just uh talk to me about like the scale of Asher right now.

Guest: So we do about 200 SPVs a month for our various clients. Um, nine over 9 billion AUM right now. Um, we did about 2500 SPVs last year for our clients. We have about 8,000 SPVs uh that we that we administer for for our clients.

Uh, so uh and we we're seeing that kind of doubling every year. Uh so we're we're not seeing any slowing down of the interest of setting up SPVs and investing in private assets.

Host: So, one of the other things that we've seen in venture recently is like venture funds expanding into uh or restructuring themselves for two reasons, right? One is to invest in, you know, crypto.

Uh another one is to probably hold their outcomes for longer times, right? Uh can you talk about what exactly and how are they restructuring? And I I feel like you are the right person to ask that question.

Guest: Thank you. I I'm not sure if I can do it justice.

But uh what we're seeing is, you know, a couple of these large venture funds, uh in in my personal opinion, they've gotten so large and so successful that they have optionality now to make a new decision on their structure.

Similar to how the large private equity firms went public, was that about 10 years ago. Uh, some of these really large venture funds now have the optionality to change things and change the structure, change the expectations, change the optionality.

So they're really just taking advantage of that option where they can say, okay, uh let's let's change our regulatory uh permissions if you will.

Uh, let's now allow ourselves to approach the market and our strategy and our, you know, deliverable, our service to our investors in a new way.

And it's not I don't it hasn't uh been determined that their decision has been a good one. you know, that'll take a few years to figure out.

Um, but it's also to me it's more, it's more kind of communicative as to what's going on in the ecosystem that the ecosystem is becoming very fluid where before it was pretty gray, right?

You you did a venture fund, you went direct, venture funds had these terms, venture funds looked and acted this way.

You know, private equity acts and behave in a certain way. kind of started with those private equity groups going public and then you've seen a lot of change in the ecosystem and now venture funds if they're big enough can turn into what what are commonly called just asset aggregators.

So instead of these narrow siloed venture funds, it's like let's let's kind of break down all the siloed walls, put it all in one big pot in in some kind of crude theory or description. and then let's allow ourselves to make decisions quicker, faster.

You know, I do I do think the investing ecosystem is moving faster and faster. Uh, on our side, we have our clients coming quite frequently like, I need to set up an SPV and close in five days.

That's like lunacy to even think that, but we we can do it now. Um, you know, because the eco system's moved that way where it was like, I need it in a month. I need it in two weeks. I need it in five days, right?

So just the speed in which things are happening, opportunities, the amount of money money in the ecosystem.

I think these venture funds are saying, look, things are changing and these side load venture funds just don't fit any longer the opportunities that are coming at us, the speed of technology and innovation, we should, we should maybe restructure this thing so that we can approach the marketplace and do the investing that we think in a way that we think is best.

Host: It it's also reflective of the nature of outcomes, right? in a sense because if you're a sequoia and you're invested in Google or you know, if you're a Kler Perkins, uh those early wins like Google of the world, right?

They you can already almost they preemptively sold some of that holdings, right? And if your structure is positioned in a way that your LPs are not expecting you to cash out in the near term.

And that even seven, 10 years is if you consider that as a near term and you're not exiting, but if you can hold that, I mean you're looking at potentially you're missing out billions of dollars in returns um based on how I mean this is only we can backdate this strategy in terms of like how Google of the world, you know, Facebook of the world have performed.

Um also it's the nature of like the outcomes are going to be uh monopolistic in nature if you know, if a new technology comes and, you know, sweeps the internet. I think that's also another factor that is playing out as part of this.

But it would be really fascinating if you know, uh as in A6 and Z or or or Se going actually public. Uh I don't think they will.

I don't think it makes sense for them because I think then you're bound to this earnings expectation cycle which really doesn't make sense uh for you know, being a venture fund or any sort of fund.

Um, so I don't think they'll do that, but I think there's a rumor that uh that's floating around uh where people are thinking that, you know, they restructure to go public.

But I don't think it makes in any sense that they'll go public because the the business model is not linear at all. Like you can't expect like a four month earning cycle out of a VC fund in any way, right?

So you have to sell stock and that's the only option you'll get uh earnings.

But um, talking about, you know, uh just the business of Asher, there are a lot of ancillary opportunities, you know, I mean, I think probably Angelist, for example, if you see their evolution, they started with syndicates, came up with rolling funds, then fund management, which in a way you are powering Angelist, right?

Then I mean you also do Asher syndicates which I love to ask more about. But are you now thinking about as we'll just be the back end fund or also, you know, we'll create these new products that we are anyways innovating.

What's your thought process just as a business of Asher in terms of strategy and where you want to, you know, take in terms of like do you want to be like the Angel list of

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