If if you're always jumping if you're always jumping job to job and trying to I mean, moving cities, what what have you, you're reducing your opportunities to get a rebound Yeah. In my opinion. So hang around the hoop long enough you're gonna get a rebound. I love that. That's a that's definitely a quote. That's definitely a good one. So well, hey, man. This was a lot of fun. I know you're super busy.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I, Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the minds of the world's most influential institutional investors. In each episode, we sit down with an investor to hear about their journeys and how global markets are driving capital allocation. So join us on this journey as we explore these insights. But, let me just kind of introduce you. Thanks for coming on. We you know, for the audience, we've got Grayson Judge here.
He's the co founder and managing partner at Supermoon Capital. So Grayson, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate you, giving us a little bit of time to, talk about your background. Yeah. Thanks, Joel. Great to be here. Yeah. Excited. So why don't we kick this off? Why don't we share a little more information about, you know, you, your education, your career, and and how you broke into VC? And then, you know, for the audience, a little bit of a teaser.
Their their sector focus is really interesting, and, it's an area that I think needs a lot more attention. So I'm excited to go a little deeper in in your investment thesis and where you guys are headed. Yeah. So Mhmm. And raised in the Bay Area, small town in the East Bay called Arinda. Played water polo growing up. Water polo is a big thing in the East Bay community. Ended up actually getting homeschooled for a year when I was, I wanna say, 10 to 11. Yeah. My parents quit their jobs.
They pulled my sister and myself out of school and Mhmm. Homeschooled us. And we traveled around the world for a little bit, and that was my first first time I really got the travel bug. Mhmm. I've had the the bug ever since, but ended up going to Harvard, played water polo there. Mhmm. And that's where I met my current business partner, Mike Masterson. He was also a former water polo player at Harvard.
Mhmm. So he actually reached out to the team when I was a rising sophomore looking for an intern for the summer to do a CRM project for his previous firm. So I called him up, said, hey. Not doing anything for the summer. Would love to join you. And that was eight years ago now, and we've been working together ever since. Okay. So that's how I I met Mike. But the the two of us were working together at Sutter Post, like I mentioned.
And then our third business partner, Pat Connolly, approached us with the idea for a sleep focused fund. And, actually, he spent his career at Williams Sonoma, a variety of roles there, joined the business in the early seventies before they were public, took the company public, and left when I think they're doing 5,000,000,000 or so in revenue. So Mhmm. Successful story. But in his last few years there, he was tasked with coming up with new business opportunities for them.
And he realized that they were selling a bunch of bed frames but not selling any mattresses. And usually, if a consumer is looking to buy a bed frame, they're looking to buy the mattress that goes with it. So he said, okay. Which mattress should should we sell? One that gives you good sleep. What is good sleep? And through that process, ended up getting connected with the folks at ResMed.
So if you're not familiar with ResMed, they're about a 30,000,000,000 ish market cap business, respiratory care leader. They sell manufacture and sell CPAP machines, ventilators, and they have a home health monitoring business as well. But they had recently spun out a company called Sleep Score Labs, direct to consumer sleep tracking business. They said, hey, Pat, given your D2C experience, ecommerce experience, would love to have you join the board of SleepScore Labs.
So he joined the board there. And in one of the early board meetings, he realized, wow. This sleep market is prime for disruption, growing really quickly. This was when Casper and a bunch of those bend the box companies were coming out coming out with a bunch of bend the boxes and and selling direct to consumer, marketing all over subways. And so he thought, wow. This sleep industry is super exciting. We should start a VC to invest only in sleep.
And that's when he reached out to Mike through he knew just through the San Francisco network. And conversely me, who was working with Mike at the time, and that's the three of us came together. And why wasn't William Sonoma selling mattresses at the time? Was it just kinda not their core business and it just didn't make sense? Yeah. Good question. Yeah. Yeah. I think, that's a great question. I think they just had overlooked it. I mean, it's one of those blind spots.
And Mhmm. I mean, mattresses do take up a lot of warehouse space. Yeah. They're kinda bulky and tough to ship. And before the Casper's and Lisa's and the Tuft and Neals of the world, people really hadn't compressed them down into boxes that were easily shippable. Yeah. And Mike or Pat just realized that there was an opportunity to start selling. Yeah. And I guess most people, they go to a separate place to buy mattresses.
They go to, like, Mattress King. Usually when you buy a mattress, you don't buy the actual furniture. So it kind of makes sense, I guess. Know? Well, Sonoma's mainly focused on the furniture. Right? They do furniture and, like, bed bed frames and all that stuff. Yep. And and kitchen kitchen appliances. Yeah. But you're right. I mean, the the sleep retail lands landscape is pretty dispersed right now. You go to Best Buy for your electronics. You go to CVS for your supplements and your OTC aids.
You go to a DME for your clinical appliances. You go to a mattress firm for your mattresses. Maybe you buy direct from a company like Thuma or go to NRH for your bed frames. So Yeah. Right now, the the consumer landscape is pretty fragmented. And what what does consist of good sleep? So when you look at a mattress and and you say, hey, you know, this mattress helps you get sleep. Like, what should we you'd be looking for? I know for me, I've kind of evolved and I prefer the firm mattress.
Yeah. But like, I didn't always like that, but it was weird because I used to like the softer ones. And I noticed a few times when I had a really soft one, like my back felt kind of weird. So Yeah. Answered you answered the question for me. Okay. You def you definitely want a firm mattress. Like you said, a lot of consumers think that you want something softer, but honestly, they've done the they've done the research and you want something that can support your spine.
And that usually is a firmer mattress, especially if you're a larger individual. Definitely want something firm. I tend to like hybrid mattresses that have both springs and foam in them. Seems to me seems the best to me, but I mean, it it's all individual. Right? Yeah. And some people like different sizes. And so it's all up to individual preference. So with, you know, so what you're saying, which is pretty interesting, is kind of like a business that has scaled.
And then that business now wants to invest in innovation and really get access to other opportunities in the space to kind of really I mean, if you do that, you know, so this is very common in corporate venture capital.
So if you're a large construction company, you know, you've already built a construction company, there's revenue generating from that core business, but you want to expand, you don't want to build some new type of AI technology, you're just going to acquire a company, so that it all folds up into, know, the generating asset revenue generating assets of your company. So with Williams Sonoma, you know, you said that scale to, like, a $5,000,000,000 company, you know, was kind of the early vision.
And I guess your co founder, he exited Williams Sonoma. So he was kind of looking for, the next opportunity, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So he was he was honestly looking to retire to an extent. But if if you know Pat, he knows he's never gotten to retire. Yeah. He he loves to work, and I don't think he's ever touched a golf club in his life. Yeah. He And and what what kind of ideated the idea to to launch a fund focusing on sleep?
Yeah. Was it really to kind of get access to just all different types of innovations in the sleep space or was it the passion for sleep? Yeah. So it actually comes back to SleepScore Labs. So the company that ResMed had spun off, they had a, or they still have a non contact sleep tracker that uses sonar in a smartphone to track sleep non contact and easily downloadable for consumers. But they were pairing that with product insights and product recommendations.
And so a lot of startups were coming were coming to them saying, hey. We would love to validate our technology. Does it work for women? Does it work for men? Does it work for older age groups or younger age groups? And so they were running validation studies for these early stage consumer brands that wanted to get their product validated. So Pat said, hey. We should have a fund that backs these validated products.
So Mhmm. Initially, the fund was gonna be primarily focused on the consumer side of sleep. But given Mike's background, which I haven't touched on, but Mike cofound a med device company called Nevro, now public, I think 2,000,000,000 ish market cap. But his background was in life sciences beforehand at Bay City Capital, which is a life sciences VC here in SF founded by Fred Craves.
But given his background and then Pat's consumer expertise, it just made sense to cover both the consumer and clinical sides of sleep. Got it. And then what are some, what are some big innovations that you're seeing now in the sleep industry? So there's, you know, the last one that I saw was like, was it sleep eight? Or I forgot the name of the eight sleep eight sleep.
Yeah. So they had, you know, from what I remember, they had like a, like a sleeve that would be on top of the bed, and then it would kind of tell you, how how well you're sleeping. And it sounds like maybe if you don't sleep well, you're you're tossing and turning a lot too. Right? Yeah, yeah. So let me take a step back here and just kinda explain the way we see the sleep market, which is in three primary categories.
The first being interventions, and that is that'd be a primary intervention for sleep. You can imagine a CPAP treats your sleep apnea or a drug for narcolepsy, or say an ergonomic pillow for neck pain, but something that directly is intervening in a sleep problem or sleep disorder. That's the first category. Second category would be health monitoring and health management. So that is like a Whoop Strap or an Oura Ring or an Apple Watch or a home sleep test.
Something that gives a consumer or a patient understanding and and insight into their sleep from which they'll then get a primary intervention. And then the third category being enterprise infrastructure. So that could be b to b SaaS. We have a few AI companies selling direct to to sleep providers and health systems. It could be a company that's doing r and d services for large corporations getting into sleep.
It could be an API provider, but that's primarily the enterprise b to b focused side of the the industry. But that's kinda how we break it down broadly speaking. And then within each of those, there are subcategories. Can you can you unpack the subcategories for a second whenever you get a chance? Yeah. Definitely. So let's just take interventions for instance. Mhmm. You can sub you could break that down into environmental interventions. So that could be air. It could be working on the air.
It could be working on the temperature. It could be working on the humidity in your bedroom. Right? It could be working on the feel and the the ergonomics of of your sleep. So Yeah. Each of those is an axis through which to improve or enhance sleep. And eight, which you mentioned, is working on the thermoregulation and the temperature element of sleep, which is a pretty important element. A lot of people don't know this, but you actually should sleep in a pretty cool environment.
A lot of people sleep too warm and it disrupts their sleep. But the air quality in your bedroom and the humidity in your bedroom and all of these variables actually have a pretty large impact on your sleep. So thinking about solving each of those variables is one key component to improving your sleep. But you can think about consumable interventions, right? A lot of people take melatonin, they take OTC aids like diphenhydramine, right?
Benadryl, or some of these other off label uses of allergy drugs. They might be doing things like VR for sleep. So VRChat or Tripp, these are some companies in the that people are using to help them sleep and relax before going to bed. You can think about, and then on the clinical side, you can think about a range of different interventions, right? So for sleep apnea, for instance, the number one treatment has always been CPAP machines.
That's been the gold standard treatment for the past fifty years. But now just recently in the past few years, you've seen a number of new modalities, treatment modalities come online from implantable stimulators like Inspire to oral appliances that are adjusting your jaw. They're called mandibular advancement devices to new sorts of drugs that are actually being developed for sleep apnea. So we're seeing a range of new treatment interventions come online and be developed currently as we speak.
So we think five to ten years from now, instead of just having one size fits all treatment plans for a CPAP patient, or a sleep apnea patient, they won't just have to get a CPAP, right? Maybe they'll go directly to an oral appliance therapy. Maybe they'll go directly to an implantable stimulator. So we think that's really expanding the, both the market, but also the desirability to get tested and diagnosed with these disorders. Right?
So ResMed thinks that there are about a billion people worldwide who have sleep apnea, but only twenty percent are diagnosed and half of those patients are actually treated. So you have about eight hundred million people worldwide with undiagnosed sleep apnea. And a big reason why these patients don't wanna get diagnosed is because historically, the main treatment option was a CPAP. And a lot of people don't wanna wear a CPAP, right? Mean, it's basically an octopus covering your face at night.
Though they've shrunk the mediums to a much smaller, just nasal pillow and there's form factors that are less invasive per se. But historically, a lot of people have had a reticence to get tested and get diagnosed because they don't like the therapy. Yeah. But you can imagine if there's a pill or a nasal spray or just a injectable for sleep apnea, that could make it a lot more accessible for a lot more patients.
Yeah. So you said that you're working with a couple labs and I'm sure there's some incubators, but where's kind of the best places to find these great startups in terms of sourcing and screening? And some of these people in the audience are, you know, emerging VCs. They're looking to Mhmm. You know, probably learn about VCs. So can you share a little bit of insight on, you know, how you can, you know, source and screen deals and what makes it a good investment? Yeah. So a few questions there.
I mean, the first is just location of innovation. Right? And so we think about innovation communities. So we taking a step back here. We invest globally. So we we about 50% of our portfolio is abroad, 50% here in The US. But we're looking all over. So, I mean, sleep's a global problem. Innovation happens globally. So we're a global focused fund. But I would say, I mean, some of the the key hubs here are the the usual suspects. Stanford, Harvard, MIT.
Sleep medicine was kinda formed, and the birthplace of sleep medicine was down at Stanford in the mid seventies. Mhmm. A fellow by the name of Doctor. William Dement kinda led the push there, known as the godfather of sleep. Mhmm. So Stanford, Harvard, MIT. But then globally speaking, there's a consortium of sleep scientists in The Netherlands. There's one in Iceland. Iceland just got a big contract from European Union to do more sleep research.
Israel, of course, Japan, South Korea, Germany, a number of folks over in Germany who are coming out with some really impressive work. Then Australia. So ResMed was actually formed in Australia. Okay. CPAP was invented in Australia. So folks at Monash and Flinders doing some really cutting edge cutting edge research. Back in The US, I mean, UPenn, the military, so NASA, it's kinda all over the map. But we have a we have a number of of scouts that we call our lightning rods.
Mhmm. So these are individuals who are well connected in their innovation network or community, and they kind of serve as a representative of Supermoon in these communities and evangelize sleep, try to get people excited about starting sleep sleep companies, also help us source deals. Yeah. And we also work with a group of sleep scientists that we call the Sleep Science Collective.
And these are individuals who are later in their careers, but have published a lot of research and also well connected, and and they also help us source deals as well. Yeah. No. That's interesting. And then what do you look for in founders? So, like, as you're screening, and investing in companies, what are maybe some of the the, the red flags that you see?
And then also just kinda what what in your mind is like, wow, this person you know, this is a common trend that I'm seeing in winning winning entrepreneurs. Yeah. So we kinda segment our founders into three different cohorts. First being technical founders, who might not have any sleep market background Mhmm. But are really, really technically competent in one specific area. So it could be maybe computer vision or AI or life sciences. Right?
Mhmm. Mhmm. Second second founder cohort, former operators in the sleep market. So that could be maybe a business development or a product manager at a ResMed or an Inspire or a Philips or one of these larger sleep companies. Then the third category being former sleep scientists, sleep scientists and academics. So folks who are doing cutting edge research in the space and looking to commercialize their idea. So that's kinda that's kinda the way we segment our founders.
Mhmm. And each of those founders has specific needs and and requires different value add from us. Say if you're a sleep scientist, you might not know how to go about starting a company. Right? And might not understand the pitfalls of commercializing a research finding. But if you're a night market operator, maybe that's all you've done for your career, and now it's about scaling and fundraising or some other sort of value add that we can offer. Right?
So and I think when evaluating these different founder cohorts, it also requires just understanding, like I've said, what their challenges are gonna be moving forward. Yeah. And how well how well they're aware of what they don't know. Right? Because, I mean, everybody talks about the unknown unknowns as being the riskiest segment when thinking about different risks. Right?
Yeah. So as as long as these founders are aware of what their shortfalls and shortcomings are gonna be and know their limitations to an extent, I think that gives us a lot of confidence that they're gonna be able to mitigate their their own risks, but also figure out ways to achieve success moving forward. Okay. Yeah. That's helpful. And where do you see sleep going?
So, you know, with with, like, all the technology and AI and also just the sensor technology, what what do you think is kinda like next level, technology? I mean, in my mind, you know, you're tracking more data. I mean, I think what could be really sci fi stuff is really like recording dreams.
I don't know if, like, people have been looking have you seen some of that blend in terms of, like, just, you know, capturing capturing activity in the brain and and, maybe hopefully playing some of that back? Yeah. So we think that sleep is a technologically driven field, and it always has been. Right? Yeah. I mean, you do it when you're unconscious. It happens in the middle of the night. Not something that you can visualize or someone else can visualize for you.
So going back to its earliest days, you need technology to understand what's going on when you're unconscious and what's going on at And so the gold standard way to measure sleep up until now has been the polysomnogram. It's a variety of sensors that you wear in a lab while being watched by a lab technician. So that's been the gold standard. And up until about the corona and the COVID times, about seventy five percent of patients who are getting diagnosed with a sleep disorder- Mhmm.
Were going into a lab to get diagnosed. Twenty five percent were getting diagnosed at home. And then when COVID happened, you had a a seismic shift and that ratio inverted. So actually today, about seventy five percent of patients are getting tested at home, twenty five percent are going into the So COVID was a real game changer when it came to home sleep testing and the accessibility of getting diagnosed.
And so over the past three, four years, we've seen a number of companies entering the home sleep testing hardware market with a variety of form factors. So, I mean, the leader per se has been Itamar, which has a PPG based finger and wrist device. But you see, we've seen companies that have forehead patches, jaw patches, chest patches, a wide variety of different form factors. Still to be determined what happens with that market. We kind of believe that it's getting commoditized to an extent.
And it's a race to the bottom in terms of price and is it disposable? Is it not disposable? So a lot going on with that market. But we, I mean, we think that the sleep technology intervention space, as I mentioned previously, is super compelling. Yeah. There's no drugs. There's no drug for sleep apnea. So the life sciences and pharma space is super compelling. A lot of innovation happening there.
A few companies are leading the way, but we have a number of companies in the pipeline and ones that we're tracking that are doing some really interesting work. Yeah. On the on on drugs for sleep apnea and other disorders. We think chronobiology is a super interesting space. So not sure you know this, but every cell in our body tracks to a circadian rhythm.
Mhmm. And different different things that we do throughout the day, different activities, different stimuli we receive throughout the day affect our circadian rhythm. Mhmm. And so by by manipulating those activities, we can actually improve our health and well-being pretty dramatically. And that's why when you travel and have jet lag or you stay up late to do work or or a shift worker, you're gonna see the ramifications, and you're gonna feel pretty shitty.
Yeah. So if we're able to actually adapt our circadian rhythms using some sort of drug or some sort of timed therapy or some some sort of behavioral approach or or light stimuli, those sort of interventions can really improve our health and well-being. But beyond that, I mean, there's super compelling use cases in terms of timing when you take your drugs. So right now you go to the pharmacy, they say, hey. Take this in the morning, but or take it in the evening.
But your your morning, Joel, could be very different than my morning. Right? And so Sure. The the effect size could be could be wildly different depending on when we take it or maybe even being able to reduce the dosage, depending on when you take it. So some super compelling use cases in pharma for chronobiology. Then we think brain computer interfaces and neural technology, super compelling as well. The gold standard, like I said, is polysomnograms for sleep, for tracking sleep.
And polysomnography includes an EEG. So tracking brain waves has always been the key the the the key way to understand sleep. Mhmm. But up until, I don't know, past five five to ten years, EEG technology outside the lab wasn't very accurate. Right? But now you're seeing accuracy start to approach that of in lab EEG. It's not there yet, but Yeah. It it will be. At least we think it will be.
Mhmm. And making it more accessible to consumer devices outside the lab, be it a headband or a hat or AirPods that have EEG embedded in them or small patches that you put behind your ear. I mean, variety of different form factors, but consumer EEG is gonna power a brand new set of software applications that build on that hardware infrastructure. Yeah. That hardware layer. So another super interesting space for us. We think some interesting special situation type opportunities out there.
So consumer retail, maybe a retail concept that blends both sleep, clinical sleep and sleep disorders with consumer, the consumer side of sleep. So right now, as I mentioned earlier in the call, you go to Best Buy for your electronics. You go to Mattress Firm for your mattresses. You go to, I don't know, a bedding retailer, Parachute Brooklyn, and etcetera for your bedding. Then you go to your local sleep clinic for your sleep disorder testing.
I mean, what about bringing that all in house to one under one hood? So it's the per the the the primary door for sleep for consumers and patients alike. It's an interesting opportunity like that. But you mentioned dreams earlier. One of our sleep science collective members is a leading dream scientist named Adam Har Horowitz. Based at MIT. He's actually living up in Sitka, Alaska right now with a native native tribe that has a culture of dream sharing.
But he's developed a technology called Dormio that can incept you or incubate a dream when you're in the state of hypnagoja. Mhmm. And hypnagoja has been used throughout throughout the years by creatives and artists alike to enhance creativity. And so the steel ball technique, which was used by folks like Thomas Edison, you nap with your arm extended out over the sofa or bed Mhmm. Holding a steel ball or a key on top of a plate.
And then when you enter the state of hypnagoja, you actually fall asleep, and you will release the ball. It'll wake you up by falling to the floor, and you'll be able to record the creative dreams that you had in that that small time time frame. Wow. So he's digitized it and brought it to the modern day with a a glove sort of product. Mhmm. But doing some studies right now around PTSD, create creativity enhancement.
So a lot of interesting applications of the technology, but we think in the next, I don't know, five years or so, this will be something that sees the light of day. Yeah. So switching gears a little bit, I would like to talk a little more about just the emerging manager ecosystem.
So what advice would you give for people that want to, you know, go down the journey of launching their own fund and then maybe just some insights on like, just the the market from from talking to other funds, other LPs, you know, what what are LPs looking for as they're looking for opportunities, you know, some of those insights, I think it really benefit the community. Yeah. Oh, where to begin? So we held our first close during the the market downturn right at the beginning of COVID.
So our first close was held March 2020, right at the trough of the public markets. And so we actually had a few LPs who withdrew their commitments. So it a pretty tough time for us. Didn't know if we'd get through it, but the next nine months were Zoom calls for twelve hours a day back to back to back. Just trying to persuade the institutional LP community and the family office community that there was a there was a market opportunity in sleep. Mhmm. Right?
Yeah. Mean, the first the first time we would talk to an investor, they would say, oh, this seems super niche. Right? Mhmm. Too small of a market opportunity. But by the third call, it was like, wow. Sleep's actually too too large. How are we gonna handle it all? Right? So getting them And it sounds like after you've unpacked it a little more, it seems like it's getting a little more closer to, like, the health care IT space.
So there is kind of, like, clinical applications and, you know, sleep is really important when it comes to, like, probably your blood pressure and all that. So I know, you know, my my father, I mean, full transparency, like, he he probably, you know, developed some of his high blood pressure because he was working the night shift when he was younger in his career.
Yep. So I think definitely sleep has, I don't know if you have any insights on that, but, like, definitely has, like, health, side effects. Yeah. Well, mean, every every bad disorder you can think of is comorbid with with sleep disorders, right? From hypertension to diabetes to cancers, Alzheimer's. So you name it, it's comorbid with sleep. And Mhmm. Still jury's still out there whether or not it's cause or or just correlation.
But, I mean, like you said, I mean, sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our health and well-being. Mhmm. But getting back to the fundraise. So, I mean, first step was just educating LPs around the market, right, and the market I think given how specialist and how differentiated we were, it wasn't a matter of educating them on on how we would source deals or be successful after investing as much it was just, hey. There's an opportunity in sleep.
Mhmm. I think once you got once we got to the third or fourth meeting, it was then, okay. Well, how are you guys gonna be uniquely differentiated to help your portfolio companies grow? And are you gonna be able to source the best deals in the space? And but I I think that all came secondary or even tertiary to just, okay, how big is the market opportunity in sleep? Then so I I think that was, I mean, that was a good lesson for us.
And now going into our our our second fundraise, it's shifted more to, okay, are you guys gonna continue to be able to execute the strategy that you so so far executed pretty well in fund one. Another lesson, though, was getting investments in the early to see some traction, to see some proof points, and and show our our perspective LPs. Like, hey, these are these sorts of investments we're gonna keep making. This is a great case study on our strategy.
Yeah. Doing that early was super, super helpful. So we had, I think, four deals warehoused Mhmm. By the time we we held our first close. And being able to point to those both for the first close, but then also for subsequent subsequent closes as those portfolio companies grew and had great press releases and and scaled their revenue and landed contracts, what have you. Mhmm. All all of those proof points were positive for our fundraise. Mhmm. And enabled us to show more than just educate. Right?
Like, hey. This is actually happening. X y z. These companies are real. They're actually they're growing quickly, etcetera, etcetera. Mhmm. Versus just, hey. These are the theoretical sorts of companies we'd like to invest in. If we theoretically had a fund, then this is the theoretical market size. Right? It made it it made it realistic and and real for Mhmm. For prospective LPs. That's good feedback. So what what would be some good real quick. I just wanna double click on that.
So for Yeah. For emerging fund managers, what are some key things that they want to highlight on those portfolio companies? I mean, definitely, probably, ideally, if there's like, a, a graduation to like a, you know, series series a. Yep. But, like, what are some of the maybe the KPIs you wanna list? I think you said a few of them. I think, like, hey. If the company, you know, got a huge press release or the company landed a strategic customer, that'd be great.
But, you know, any other helpful, you know, things to call out to kinda showcase those those warehouse deals? Yeah. I think at least and I'm speaking primarily about family office LPs because that's our that's our primary LP base for FundOne. I think they wanna see media coverage. Right? I mean, I know they wanna see media coverage. Interesting. It makes it real. It's getting a an article published about your fundraise, and you can read, hey.
Supermoon Capital invests in x company alongside ABC investors. Mhmm. And ABC investors are investors that they know. Right? Everybody talks about being contrarian in VC and how you have to be successful to be or you have to be contrarian to be successful. But it is a bit of a catch point too because you need other investors to syndicate opportunities with you, and you need growth investors to then purchase your assets at some point. Right?
To your point, like, when you say families wanna see headlines and they wanna see some type of media, you know, that that also go you know, to your point, that isn't contrary. They wanna see some validation. So it also makes sense if there's some type of anchor LP or some type of strategic investor, maybe, like, obviously, it's, like, the corporate, you know, institutional arm of William Sonoma was an LP. Yeah. That's a huge sign because it shows credibility in the market.
Yeah. Ultimately, ResMed did come in as a strategic company in the fund. And having the the behemoth in the sleep technology space Mhmm. As one of our LPs was great validation. K. Both for what we were doing, but also for the market opportunity. Mhmm. And I think a lot of prospective LPs really appreciate seeing them come on board. And it also helped with portfolio sourcing, right, and and deal sourcing because it gave us credibility and validation. Like, hey. These guys are legit.
The the number one Steve technology company in the world has backed them. They're not just some some schmuck saying that they're gonna take over the sleep space. Right? Yeah. So then I I think just getting back to the strategy around fundraising, just being able to to to do what you say you're gonna do. Right? And so we talked about using our sleep science collective to help us source, evaluate, and then help develop our our portfolio companies. And we had case studies where that happened.
Right? It was like, hey, sleep sleep scientist x was able to help us source company y that we then invested in and then look at what they've done after we've invested. Right? Be it from helping them on their product roadmap or launching a clinical trial with them or getting their product validated or publishing research. Right? What have you. But just being able to testify to the robustness of our strategy and the fact that, like, we were actually executing on it, that was also super helpful.
And then getting CEO testimonials from those early deals to really explain your value add, that was also super, super helpful when it came to fundraising. Yeah. Having our CEO say, hey. Supermoon was great. They've been more helpful than some of the bigger brand name VCs on our cap table. Stuff like that really went a long ways. Yeah. I think another thing, though, is face to face meetings. Right?
You you can't beat a face to face meeting, and Zoom just doesn't cut it when it comes to fundraising. At least for the the institutional side and the family office the family office side. Mean, we've invested in a number of portfolio companies that we haven't met face to face. But I think if you're a family office, you really need to build that that trust with your GP. Yeah. It's hard to do that over Zoom.
You know, one thing I haven't talked to anybody about is, you know, just LP community events. Have you done you know, have you guys done any of those, like, dinners or little LP summits? And Yeah. No. Yeah. We'll share We did a Mhmm. Sorry. Go ahead. No. No. I was gonna share a couple things that I picked up, when I've done a few of those events, but, but, you know, we'd love to hear yours too. I think it'd be important to kinda yep. Mhmm. We we did an annual meeting.
We've done an annual meeting every single year. Recorded it and published those videos to Vimeo and sent Vimeo links to to prospective LPs. Yeah. So that was good. I mean, that being said, I think we could definitely take it another level when it comes to LP events. I mean, sleep is so interesting that The one thing I'll say about our annual meetings though is we've had our sleep science collective individuals come and present on unique sleep research that they're working on or like sleep 101.
Right? What is sleep? How you can sleep better? And so I think given that our investment focus area is so appealing and so unique and everybody sleeps and most people have sleep disorders and sleep problems, that it was compelling for these LPs to actually attend and and see see these lectures, see these presentations, learn about sleep because it's personally appealing beyond just the the commercial opportunity in sleep.
So if you're a emerging manager focused on a uniquely compelling space that, you think your LPs are are personally invested in or personally tied to Mhmm. You can definitely leverage that with, unique content and programming around that. Yeah. No. That's super helpful. And I think one thing that I've learned too is, you know, kind of some type of curation. So if you've got Mhmm.
An LP base that's interested in a certain sector, you can kinda group them, to kind of attend, like, a little micro event. And, I think definitely, like, the portfolio companies, like, you know, experts in the space are, are definitely helpful. And then I think also just, you know, when it comes to presentation, I've seen a lot of people invest a little money in, videography and, you know, photography. That way, like, they can document some of those experiences.
Like, sounds like you had a video and you played back some of that, probably Yeah. Password for like a password protected, video. So that also helps too. So Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I mean, getting your deck right, of course, super important. Marketing collateral. I mean, small things like just Mhmm. What's your email? Like, is it are are you responsive? Are you taking care to be thoughtful in your responses, following up as soon as you've had a meeting with next steps?
And Mhmm. I mean, kinda just dotting your i's and crossing your t's. Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Well, this was really, really helpful. I'll just give a second to anybody that has any questions. But in the meantime, the question I always ask people is just kind of like, what are the what are some of the biggest learnings that you've taken away in maybe the last quarter? You know, maybe it's professional. Maybe it's personal. Maybe it's a piece of advice from a mentor.
If there's anything you kinda wanna leave us with, you know, that would be great. Jeez. I I think I would just say that you never know. I mean, everybody says this, but you never know what's gonna happen. Right? Yeah. And people, they talk about what the future's what the future's gonna look like all the time. They say, oh, AI is gonna take over the world or Bitcoin's gonna be the next gold. I mean, whatever. Right? Yeah. But you you never know.
And so I think it's just, like, you gotta play to win every single day. You gotta wake up and say, hey. Anything can happen. Can be I can be super successful or I can be unsuccessful. Right? But I have to I have to be in the arena and compete. Right? And so if you're competing, have an opportunity. But if you're if you're not willing to put yourself out there and take risks and Yeah. Not not not courageous enough to to do things that you're not comfortable doing.
Mhmm. You'll never you're never gonna be successful. Right? Yeah. And you you never know what's gonna happen. Right? And so you might as well take advantage of the opportunities that you're given and shoot your shot. Right? Yeah. No. I totally agree. And I mean, to piggyback off of that, the the additional thing that I would say is you never know where people, will end up as well.
So there could be someone that maybe, you you know, maybe yourself, like, you're, you know, kind of developing your career, you were just kind of a beginner. Yeah. And somebody kind of like wrote you off. And you never know where somebody could end up in five years, you know, you could be an L, you could have come into liquidity, and, you know, you could be a massive LP. And that person Never burn bridges. Never burn bridges. Right?
Like, you can meet people that you don't think you'll ever gonna meet again. Mhmm. Right? And Yeah. You end up meeting them five years from now and Or they become your boss. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I mean, was somebody that and I don't know if you have like a funny story about that. But like, there's somebody I just casually met, like, maybe a year ago at some random cocktail event. And, this person kind of came back my community recently.
And that person was like, Hey, I met you at this event, you know, by the way, I just sold my company, like a couple. Like recently, I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. And then I just kind of thought back. And yeah, that conversation was a pretty, you know, it was like the end of the event. So it's kind of on my way out, you know, but I didn't remember that conversation because it seemed like an interesting, business that that person had.
But, know, I I didn't know that, you know, the next time I would meet them, they're you know, they would be talking about how they, how they had such a, you know, a great success story. So it's Yeah. So it's kinda No. It's crazy. It's still a small world.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a small world to camp for bridges and especially if you're, I mean, the other thing I would say, though, though, is, like, if you're in one place for a long time and you hang around the hoop long enough, you're gonna get a rebound at some point. Right? Yeah. And so I think the people who are and I'm I'm not gonna describe that.
But if if you're always jumping if you're always jumping job to job and trying to I mean, moving cities, what what have you, you're reducing your opportunities to get a rebound Yeah. In my opinion. So hang around the hoop long enough, you're gonna get a rebound. I love that. That's a that's definitely a quote. That's definitely a good one. Well, hey, man. This was a lot of fun. I know you're super busy. So thanks for making time for for me and the community sharing your story.
I think this was really great. This is exactly what I expected it to be because I know that, know, the sector focused experts, a lot of times it's important to kind of dive a little deeper and see what the great opportunities are to entail. So thanks for all that you do. And, of course, and, you know, I know that you're going be backing a lot of technology that's going to help us literally sleep better at night. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully and accept you with some dreams. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, thanks so much and have a good one. Pleasure, Joel. See you. Alright. Take care.