Fika Ventures

☀️ What a perfect LA summer afternoon spent volunteering ☀️ Thank you to everyone who joined in for our quarterly #LATechDayOfService with The Surfrider Foundation 🌊 It was wonderful to see so many investors, founders, and operators from the LA tech community come together to give back to our local environment. Our efforts made a tangible impact as we collected 45.5 pounds of trash from the beach! Special shoutout to our incredible co-host, Silicon Valley Bank, for partnering with Fika Ventures to bring this awesome group together for this important cause🤝 DM me if you’d like to be added to the distribution list for the next day of service! cc: Fika Ventures TX Zhuo Arteen Arabshahi Ju-Djuin Csontos Silicon Valley Bank Phil Iacono Nuzi Barkatally Madelin Williams

🎙️ Our co-founders, Joseph Elias Phillips and William Corbera, were recently featured on Fika Ventures "Pour Over Podcast"! They chatted with Gabriella Brignardello about their journey from Bootstrap to Breakthrough, transforming Payabli into a leading Payments Infrastructure Platform. Jo and Will discuss their serendipitous meeting, the genesis of Payabli, and the core values shaping their vision. Learn about their complementary leadership styles, the importance of hiring all-stars, and fostering a culture of continuous learning. Don't miss this episode where they share their entrepreneurial journey, family influences, and invaluable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Listen now: https://hubs.ly/Q02FzX5G0 #Payabli #Podcast #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Fintech

Sharing some summer reading (and podcast) materials from the Fika Ventures team’s Q2 newsletter! Countless exciting updates including: 🌟 An insider’s look at our 9th annual LA First Look Retreat 🎙 New Pour Over Episodes with Payabli and Specright 💰 Recent funding news from Sift, Volta Circuit, Ivo, and Payabli 🤝 Many of our portcos are hiring from Bikky, StretchDollar, SubBase, Sunbound, and more so be sure to check out the Key Roles! 🏖 Join us for the next #LATechDayofService beach clean up on July 25th in Santa Monica (sign up link in the newsletter) And last but not least…here’s an opening teaser on the current VC landscape written by our very own prolific writer James Shecter(who puts genAI-authored output to shame!): As we stride through the midway point of 2024, the VC landscape presents a kaleidoscope of soaring optimism and lurking uncertainty. The public markets have mounted a remarkable rebound, skyrocketing nearly 40% compared to late 2020 levels - a resounding vote of investor confidence. Yet the private markets realm tells a more nuanced story, with late-stage valuations still trailing 4% behind, unable to rally above the ZIRP-driven heights… 👉 For more insights, dive into our Q2 newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gaGKKqQk 📫 If you’re not a subscriber yet, sign up here: http://eepurl.com/iaoksz

Grateful to have had the opportunity to join my long-time friend Samir Kaji on Venture Unlocked to discuss the evolving landscape of venture capital and the importance of a founder-first mentality. It’s a work in progress for our entire team at Fika Ventures but we are continually striving to earn our founders' trust and strike the right balance between offering objective advice and being their biggest supporters. You can listen to the whole recording here: https://lnkd.in/gYDvCDUt. Comments and thoughts are always welcome!

ICYMI... A big thank you to TechCrunch for their exclusive article on Payabli. We are in the midst of exciting times with our recent Series A fundraising led by QED Investors, and it propels Payabli into an even brighter future, enabling us to achieve the following: - Strengthen our next-generation Payments Infrastructure and Monetization Platform, enabling software companies to embed and monetize payments through a single developer-friendly API - Accelerate our market differentiation by unifying Pay In and Pay Out with true Embedded Payables products for software companies - Empower "Need to Pay" verticals, adding significant utility to software companies by monetizing their Bill Pay products and Pay Out modalities - Hire top-tier engineering and client-facing talent to further drive innovation, scalability, and client acquisition We are also thrilled to highlight and celebrate our notable product launches, including: 🔀 Split Funding for complex settlement use cases 🛠️ Creator No-Code Embedded Component Builder 💸 On-Demand Payouts 🤖 AI-powered Integration Bot Laura Bock of QED Investors shared her thoughts on the news: "We are thrilled to partner with Payabli in their vision to make every software company a payments company. The shift of trillions in payment processing to embedded software platforms has created space for next-gen infrastructure players. Payabli’s dedication to 'wowwing' their customers and supporting entrepreneurs is core to their mission." From TX Zhuo, General Partner at Fika Ventures, our investing partner: "We are excited to continue supporting Payabli in its bold vision to transform payments from a cost center into a monetization engine for software platforms. Payabli's agnostic payment infrastructure simplifies complex integrations, reducing admin and compliance costs. We eagerly anticipate their next wave of growth under Will and Jo's leadership." Our team is ecstatic about this news! https://hubs.ly/Q02DwrtD0 #TechCrunch #SeriesA #FinTech #Payments #FinTechNews #Payabli #PaymentInnovation #EmbeddedPayments

Huge congrats to Karthik, Austin, and the Sift team on an incredible $17.5m Series A 🚀 with a fantastic new partner -- welcome Crystal Huang and GV (Google Ventures) to the team! Fika Ventures and our friends at Riot Ventures have been privileged to be part of your journey since day one, and so excited for this next chapter! https://lnkd.in/gXR8WeE8

Announcing another milestone for Karthik Gollapudi, Austin Spiegel, and the rest of the team at Sift, who today announced their Series A raised led by our friends at GV (Google Ventures) We believe Sift's not just building a product; they’re catalyzing a new era of hardware innovation. In a world where the next great leap could come from a spacecraft, an autonomous vehicle, or an advanced robot, Sift is providing the foundation for these breakthroughs to happen faster and more reliably than ever before. Sift's unified observability platform provides the "picks and shovels" for the next generation of Industrial Revolutionists, and we couldn’t be more excited to be along for the ride. For more on why we at Fika Ventures invested: https://lnkd.in/gnqbRQWc And PS - Sift is actively hiring! https://lnkd.in/g8JaVtwf

Two-fer Tuesday! Huge congrats to: Payabli on their $20M Series A led by our friend Laura Bock @ QED Investors! AND Sift on their $17.5M Series A led by our friend Crystal Huang @ GV (Google Ventures) We feel EXTREMELY fortunate to get the chance to work with such talented entrepreneurs and amazing co-investors to build category-defining companies here in our backyard and beyond. Full details below: https://lnkd.in/gmWBJY9y https://lnkd.in/g7WVF9Ka As a gentle reminder, Fika Ventures invests $1-5M initial + follow-on checks in promising B2B seed and series A stage companies across the US and Canada.

A huge congratulations to the incredible team at Payabli on raising their Series A funding round! 🎉 We are thrilled at Fika Ventures to continue supporting Payabli in its bold vision to transform payments from a cost center to monetization engine for software platforms. Historically, it has been hard for software platform to build a payment processing and analytics stack as it was complex and required significant capital investment . But Payabli with its agnostic payment infrastructure has transformed it to a straightforward process allowing these platforms to avoid cumbersome integrations, substantial administration and compliance costs. We know that the market need for a platform like Payabli is exploding and are excited for Payabli's next wave of growth under William Corbera and Joseph Elias Phillips' leadership. Wishing Payabli even more success and growth as you embark on this next chapter. The future looks bright, and we can't wait to see all the amazing things you will achieve!

A little over 2 years ago, we led Payabli’s Seed round, and today, we are absolutely *ecstatic* to deepen our commitment through their Series A round, led by Laura Bock and QED Investors💫 It has truly been a privilege to be a partner to Joseph Elias Phillips and William Corbera. I know the best is yet to come as they continue to build a category-defining company in payments 💵 I had a lot of fun learning recording the latest episode of our Fika Ventures Pour Over ☕️ podcast with Jo and Will last month. I’m excited to ‘drop’ the sode today alongside the exciting news of their raise 📣 🎙️Give it a listen here ⬇️