Global Growth Fund: Mission and Investment Strategy Overview

Headline's Global Growth fund aims to support exceptional founders worldwide through innovative technology and a robust investment strategy.

### Global Growth Fund: Backing Founders with Innovative Strategies
* 🌍 The Global Growth fund aims to support **exceptional founders across the globe**, continuing a legacy of backing **great talent for nearly three decades**.
* 🚀 This new growth strategy is backed by a fresh team that brings **diverse experiences and insights** from various institutions, enhancing the fund's ability to **identify and support top founders**.
* 🔍 The firm utilizes proprietary technology, such as the sourcing tool **Searchlight**, which analyzes data from **8 million companies globally** to identify **promising investment opportunities**.
* 🌐 With a strong presence in key global markets like Europe, the fund is capitalizing on the **increasing venture funding**, which has risen from **5% two decades ago** to about **18% in 2024**.
* 📈 Despite market fluctuations affecting some portfolio companies, the fund remains committed to investing in **generational technologies and innovative founders**, particularly in the realm of **AI**.
* The fund recognizes the importance of **understanding local markets and cultures**, employing investors who can **navigate these nuances effectively**.
* ⚙ As new technologies emerge, the fund is focused on **discerning which innovations can be integrated into existing workflows**, ensuring that investments are **strategically sound**.

What is the mission statement of the fund, and what do you want to be doing with the money? First off, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to talk about our new Global Growth fund and strategy. Headline broadly has been around for almost three decades, and this growth fund represents a new step in continuing to back great founders generationally across all countries and be able to support them in all parts of their journey. So, I do think in terms of headlines, overall growth strategy, in the past, they've been focused on doubling down on existing winners in their portfolio. Yes, this new growth strategy has brought on a new team. So, myself included, we've all come from various different institutions, bringing lots of learnings from all of the great people we've worked with and the great track records and resources and networks that we have. And we're really trying to find the best founders and support them to the ends of

the earth using the great back end that headlines already builds. But finding them can also be challenging, right? I think, you know, the firm has experience, but the environment is different. You know, you're seeing Series A now where the round size is so ginormous, it is sort of reminiscent of a growth stage round even three or four years ago. How do you play that? I'm glad you mentioned that. So just backing up a little bit to what you said in terms of finding them can be challenging. Headlines got three really unique aspects, I would call it, you know, the people, the global multi-local presence, and the proprietary tech and process. So in terms of this proprietary tech and process, the headline team has really invested in a ton of back-end infrastructure, and they actually walk the walk when it comes to that. I think as VCs, we often invest in, you

know, great tech, and do we incorporate it ourselves into our workflows? Well, headline actually does. We've got a great sourcing tool called Searchlight, which basically our CTO calls Advanced Signal Processing, and we look at all sort of 8 million entities of companies that there are globally. We process all sort of public proprietary and third-party data sources and use our own in-house algorithms that have been fine-tuned over the last few decades. And now we've got Time series data spanning over a decade, and then we surface the right signal for our global multi-local footprint of brilliant investors around the world to then go meet. So we've got so you will on the ground, you're meeting, you're meeting all for Nancy at that point in companies that aren't just based on the West Coast and the US. You're looking at them in Brazil, you're looking at them in Berlin, you're looking at them worldwide. When you think about these large

valuations that we're speaking to, where is some of the opportunity that Searchlight and indeed I know you've got other uses of technology within as well to be able to then look at ultimately making these companies more efficient. Yeah, absolutely. We continue to see tremendous opportunity globally, particularly in Europe. We've got boots on the ground and great investors and partners in Berlin, Paris, London, and other places like you mentioned, who actually speak the language, understand the local idiosyncrasies of all those cultures and companies and incentives. And we try to find the best companies there. And in fact, in Europe, actually two decades ago, only 5% of venture funding was flowing there. I think as of 2024 year to date, it's something like 18%. And when you look at the actual economic value creation globally, there's still plenty of opportunity for us to be able to appropriately match the funding

sources with the great talent, density, and opportunity we're seeing there. You've got such an extensive portfolio over it. Some of them perhaps haven't been treated that pleasantly on the public market. I think of the success stories that have become a little bit beaten up like a bumble that's been in the public market, far-fetched as well. But then you've been in the new really hot names, Mistral, for example, in France. Are you going to lean into the opportunity? Are you going to keep on consumer tech? Where are you thinking some of your investments are going to land? And a lot you mentioned there. So across all stages, you know, I think we have to be aware of certain macro trends. But generational technologies, companies, and products, and founders are building as we speak right now and in every sort of market cycle. So we'll continue to back them. You know, as it relates to A.I., of course, it's a huge buzzword and a lot

of companies are thinking about how they can incorporate the new generational technologies appropriately into their workflows and into their products. I want to back up a little bit and just think through when there are big platform shifts or new technologies, how these get adopted. It typically follows this sort of S-curve, which is to say the first few years are kind of the early adopters that might be more experimental and on the front lines of adopting this. And usually, let's say after like 20% market penetration, it really inflects and it gets to that early majority and late majority. And after that, it'll plateau more when the laggards have adopted it. So I think there's been a lot of excitement about these new gen AI technologies and alarms. But when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Right. And I think the smart founders are thinking through which products are actually appropriate to apply, which

forms of intelligence. And there's a lot of nuance there that I wish we had time to cover today.

Headline's Xiao Sees Tremendous Opportunity in Europe

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Mission Statement of the Global Growth Fund

The Global Growth fund aims to support great founders generationally across all countries and stages of their journey.

The new team, bringing diverse experiences and networks, is focused on finding and backing the best founders.

The fund's unique aspects include a global multi-local presence, proprietary tech, and a strong back-end infrastructure to effectively support its mission.

Leveraging Technology for Global Investment

The company uses a sourcing tool called Searchlight to process data from 8 million global entities, aiming to identify investment opportunities.

With a decade's worth of time series data and a multi-local footprint, they focus on meeting companies worldwide, not just in the US.

The firm sees significant growth potential in Europe, where venture funding has increased from 5% to 18% over two decades, and aims to match funding with economic value creation.

Investment Strategies in a Changing Market

The speaker highlights the diverse portfolio of investments, acknowledging both successful and struggling companies.

They emphasize the importance of backing generational technologies and founders, regardless of market cycles.

The adoption of new technologies typically follows an S-curve, with early adopters leading the way, and the speaker stresses the need for smart founders to determine the appropriate application of these technologies.

Intelligence comes in various forms, each with its own unique characteristics.

There is a lot of complexity and nuance in understanding these different types of intelligence.

The topic requires more time to fully explore and discuss.