the z list 💥🧿✨👩🏻‍💻 #54

I hosted a dinner with Terri (Type Capital) last week, and it was SO lovely to bring together an incredible group of consumer founders + VCs. Made some incredible friends, too :) also went to dinner with a group of my favorite consumer investors:

Attended an event last week hosted by Niko (GC) & Rex (Daybreak Ventures) with my favorite consumer founders + VCs in NYC and can’t wait for the event Ali (swsh) is hosting with Niko tomorrow.

listening 🎧 brat by charli xcx

reading 📖 SPQR A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

watching 🎥 Bridgerton Season 3 Part 2 and Inside Out 2

fav nyc spot of the week 🗽 Le Gaz

June’s edition of 1 GP Allowed will feature Terri Burns and July’s Edition will feature Turner Novak. We have GPs slotted till February of next year (1 GP/month). Subscribe!

For context, I’ve just conducted the first few interviews and they’re typically 1.5 - 2 hour long discussions in-person with the GP focused on learning about them, their career history, advice they have for junior VCs, advice for founders, and more. I am so excited to share the first edition in 2 weeks.

Z List IRL hosted by Zehra

thursday 6/20

• Early-Stage Founders Breakfast + Headshots

  • for who: early stage founders breakfast + headshots (and some VCs….a few…..)

  • hosted by: Besart (Antler) & Zehra (Stripe Atlas + Google Cloud)

monday 6/24

• Pride Besties Breakfast

  • for who: founders + VCs celebrating pride month :)

  • hosted by: Zehra

tuesday 6/25

• B2B Besties Breakfast

  • for who: b2b founders + investors

  • hosted by: Zehra

thursday 6/26

• Female Founders & Investors Breakfast

  • for who: female founders + VCs

  • hosted by: Zehra

• The Future of Consumer Social: Panel

  • for who: consumer social nerds

  • hosted by: Zehra 

monday - wednesday 7/15 to 7/17

• Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2024 Conference

  • for who: founders, investors, operators

  • hosted by: Fortune 

  • I’ll be speaking on a panel at this conference! It’s in Park City in July :)

VC Ecosystem News (No GPs Allowed)

Whittling down the most important pieces of VC news is exceptionally difficult! Here’s 10% of what I covered in last week’s No GPs Allowed.

Most important! 🚨 Consumer is actually thriving from Kirsten Green at Forerunner Ventures! & photo-sharing app BeReal acquired by Voodoo for €500mn 

• Vinod Khosla, Marc Andreessen And The Billionaire Battle For AI's Future from Alex Konrad

• Continuation funds have roughly doubled their quarterly exit activity, enduring as a viable liquidity solution for PE firms. The rigid exit environment has prompted GPs to launch continuation funds to provide more flexible timing for portfolio company exits, offer liquidity to existing investors, and grant secondary access to new investors. Exits increased from 13 in Q1 2023 to 27, according to PitchBook’s Q1 2024 Global Private Market Fundraising Report.

• The workers are not alright: Most employees are quiet quitting and it’s costing the global economy nearly $9 trillion a year

• Rippling bans former employees who work at competitors like Deel and Workday from its tender offer stock sale

  • ZN’s POV: I like Deel!

Fundraising News

• Mistral secures €600mn funding as valuation soars to almost €6bn

• Greylock Leads $36 Million Financing for Cybersecurity Startup Seven AI: new company uses artificial intelligence to help enterprises combat cyberattack

• VC Sheel Mohnot leads $4.3M seed in automated financial reporting fintech InScope

• Griffin Gaming Partners targets $500M for downsized fund III

• After hits like Reddit and Scopely, Collaborative Fund easily raised a $125M fund to tackle climate, health and food

• Foresite Capital raises $900M sixth fund for investing in healthcare and life sciences companies

Consumer-Specific News - if you’d like ALL of the consumer news, subscribe to my other newsletter Fan Behavior.

• Why gamers are finding joy in sticking to old favourites

• The Delicate Art of Turning Your Parents Into Content: gen Z creators are learning the lessons of Scorsese and Akerman: putting mom and dad in your work brings pathos, complexity, and a certain frisson.

• Jake Paul’s rare CVS trip to buy deodorant inspired his next business venture—and he refuses to follow the CEO playbook

• New York Passes Bill to Make the Restaurant Reservation Black Market Illegal

  • ZN’s POV: download my friends’ app TableOne. It gives you insane notifications for resy’s at hard to get restaurants in NYC.

Friend’s of The Z List: Events & Projects
Wanna feature your event? Fill out this form.

wednesday 7/17

• Inside Summit

  • hosted by: Madison & Claudia (The Room Podcast)

Wanted to dedicate this edition of The Z List’s friend’s section to the Inside Summit, happening on July 17th in NYC. As a part of The Room Podcast community, I’m super excited to extend 20% off tickets for a limited time (use code: ZEHRA20) Inside Summit is going to be the tech event of the summer - and very different from any other conference you've been to. Here's some of what you will experience at Inside Summit: 

• Founder & funder matching for those fundraising or looking to build their network

• Founder-to-founder buddy matching for founders to make new friends and mentors (make founder friends that are a stage ahead of you)

• Vendor & customer warm introductions

• Small-group conversations & workshops oriented around tactical topics that aren’t happening anywhere else

• Free headshots

• Goodie-bag full of products from some of the hottest DTC brands

• Consumer brand “market” access

• After-party with open bar & bites

saturday 8/17

• The OOO Summit: For Owners, Operators, and Outliers

  • hosted by: Ankur (Carry) & Andrew Yeung

Jobs (investor, operator, founding opportunities)

The Z List job drop, powered by Parallel.

Platter - Unleash your brand's individuality! Platter customizes their Shopify theme & app bundle to perfectly reflect your unique vision.

• Shopify Senior Software Engineer - Apply Direct

• Shopify Software Engineer - Apply Direct

• Solutions Engineer (Shopify) USA - Apply Direct

• Solutions Engineer (Shopify) Argentina, Brazil & Canada - Apply Direct

• Senior Product Designer USA - Apply Direct

• Senior Product Designer Argentina, Brazil - Apply Direct

• Product Designer - Apply Direct

Favs - A Los Angeles startup, is rethinking social media with an app focused on close connections and authentic interactions, minus the distractions of traditional platforms. ✨ Zehra’s portfolio company ✨ 

• Growth Marketing Manager - Apply Direct

Doorlist -  DoorList is a social platform for campus events and group communication, enabling users to manage social calendars and facilitating over 1 million event invites.

• Founding software engineer - Apply direct

Disco - A post-purchase ad network for Shopify brands, helps top brands like Caraway acquire new customers by recommending products to interested shoppers after they purchase from similar brands.

• Senior Full Stack Software Engineer - Apply Direct

Friends of Zehra

Zenie AI - Zenie is an AI app for women to press pause in their day and reflect on how they’re feeling. Say you’re preparing for a first date, job interview, or big presentation at work, you can journal with Zenie to process what you’re going through and get expert advice on how to tackle these challenges head on.

• Social Media Content Creator - Details Here

SWSH - swsh is a social app for your friends not followers

• Summer Intern - Details & DM Ali Here

Kulfi Beauty - Kulfi Beauty celebrates South Asian beauty & culture with fun beauty products and content created with our community.
✨ Zehra’s portfolio company ✨ 

• Social Media Coordinator - Apply Here 

Doola - Start your US business from anywhere and keep it 100% compliant.
✨ Zehra’s portfolio company ✨ 

• Head of Product Marketing - Apply Here

Soundmap - Soundmap is a gamified consumer social app for music fans. We have scaled to 100k DAU in less than 90 days and we are consistently top 5 in the iOS music game chart.

• Backend Engineer - Apply Here 

Merazine - Turning online shopping into an immersive, social gaming experience.

• Founding Engineer - Apply Here

Carry - Carry is an all-in-one platform for tax-advantaged accounts, investments and strategy for business owners and high earners.

• Senior Software Engineer - Apply Here

• Operations Associate - Apply Here

• Marketing Generalist - Apply Here

• Senior Tax Accountant - Apply Here

Want to get your jobs featured on the Z List? Sign up for the Parallel waitlist here.

Z’s Consumer Investment Theses: Fan Behavior

After a few weeks of writing, rewriting, and unnecessarily fine-tuning every other word in my first public consumer investment thesis, I’m finally ready to share it

I love putting my ideas pen to paper. This is a super high level idea of what you can expect in the first edition of fan behavior :) if you made it all the way to the bottom of the newsletter to see this: I salute you!!! ✨🕯️👀⚡️🧿💭🔮

Friend’s of The Z List: Announcements

Founder friends’ fundraises were announced!

Tinashe (whose song Nasty has gone hugely viral on Tiktok) has been using my friend’s product, Symphony, for the past few months to promote the song. It's so exciting to see this happen in real-time, especially with the song’s success.

Resources

• Looking to hire & pay talent abroad? Deel allows you to easily hire, pay, and manage contractors and employees in 120+ countries. Get 20% off + a free HRIS by booking a demo at the link above.

• Need a graphic designer? Celine has been a friend for 4 years and is an incredible designer. She’s worked on brands that you’ve definitely seen on Twitter.

• Figuring out how to manage your money as a founder or wanna learn how to maximize your tax return?  Sign up for Carry.

• Need an EA but can’t afford one? Howie is the fastest and most responsive scheduling assistant on earth. You can email him anytime to set up meetings and coordinate your calendar.

• Hiring as an early-stage company? Parallel is the all-in-one hiring operating system, designed to convert top talent & maximize your hiring efficiency. Sign up for a free trial.

• Want to make more money on your Shopify store? Platter is offering free website audits to identify opportunities to boost conversion rate and average order value. Grab a time while you can by clicking here.

• Wanna start a newsletter? I use Beehiiv for all three of my newsletters. Cannot recommend enough (you get a discount)

Discounts

• Kulfi Beauty, use code “zehra” for 20% off. I use their concealer rose rush and their kajal eyeliners in nazar-no-more everyday.

Want to work with Zehra?

• If you’re interested in working with me in any capacity I have some bandwidth and would love to learn more :) fill out this form. 

Please reply to this email if you'd like to amplify your events with the z list community or if you'd like to collaborate on an event together.

Have fun! 💥🧿✨👩🏻‍💻