Even as we inch further down the funnel, demand-minded marketing teams tend to shine. They excel at optimizing the conversion rate between leads and opportunities, for example. The mechanics of the pre- and upper-funnel—awareness, engagement, nurture—are well understood, measurable, and adjustable.

But there’s one metric that often proves more stubborn: opportunity-to-win rate.

Maybe it’s because there are so many cooks in the kitchen—demand gen, product marketing, sales, sales development, sales enablement, revenue ops—or perhaps because the “human element” starts to enter the equation. Either way, turning around a declining win rate is one of the toughest challenges go-to-market leaders face.

The cost of generating a qualified opportunity is already high—and with digital saturation, it’s climbing even higher for many B2B companies. That makes win rate arguably the most critical performance metric in any go-to-market system. Improving it even slightly can boost top-line performance and relieve pressure on the top of the funnel. After all, the better the win rate, the fewer leads a marketing team needs to generate.

Yet when opportunity-to-win rates start to decline, the root causes are rarely clear—or confined to a single department. The truth is: restoring win rate is a multi-factorial, cross-functional challenge.

Sometimes the problem is entirely self-inflicted—like sunsetting post-opportunity marketing programs or changing how opportunities are defined in CRM. Other times, it’s largely external: new competitors enter the market, budget freezes hit, or regulatory shifts slow deal velocity.

That’s why we created this visual checklist. It’s intended to be a collection of “prompts”– to ask your colleagues in companies with a conventional tech stack, or your GTM-integrated LLM (for companies that have taken a more aggressive posture around AI tooling). While this resource alone may not single-handedly reverse a declining win rate, hopefully it helps point you toward the change—or combination of changes—that can.

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The post Declining Win Rate — Here’s Where to Look appeared first on Battery Ventures.

Many private, venture-backed companies are facing this scenario (or something like it) right now. With timelines to exit much longer than they used to be, startups need new tools to retain and motivate employees for the longer haul.

Many such companies see restricted stock units (RSUs) instead of stock options as part of the solution. It can be a smart move—but only if done at the right time, with a clear sense of the potential pitfalls. We prepared this explainer with help from compensation experts at Sequoia, as well as actual scenarios that have emerged within our portfolio. We’ll walk you through the basics of RSUs: what they are, how they differ from stock options, and what type of companies might offer them. We’ll briefly cover common questions your employees may have. Then we’ll explore some real-world questions company leaders should think through before making a switch.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is an RSU?

A restricted stock unit (RSU) is basically a promise to grant someone a given number of shares in a company at a certain time—or when certain conditions are met. Typically, RSUs are either time-bound, linked to performance, or both. So a new hire’s RSUs might vest in tranches every year for five years. Or a long-time employee might be granted a chunk of RSUs that vest when the company hits a specific revenue milestone.

How is an RSU different from a stock option?

Options give an employee the option to buy a certain number of shares at a set “strike price” at any time. They offer the traditional startup dream: Get in on the ground floor of the next Google/Uber/etc., and when the company goes public, you can buy your options for the pennies they were worth when you started—and then sell them for the millions they’re (in theory) worth now.

RSUs, on the other hand, are simply worth whatever they’re worth when they vest. Unlike options, employees don’t have to pay anything to exercise them—once RSUs vest, they’re freely granted. From the employee perspective, it’s more like being granted equity at a big, established company: less potential for massive upside and overnight wealth, but more predictability.

Why startups make the switch from options to RSUs

RSUs tend to make more sense for companies at a later stage of growth. As your company grows and your valuation climbs, that strike price starts to become more of an issue—later hires see less upside potential might experience more of a scramble to pull together cash if they decide, for whatever reason, they need to exercise their options before an IPO. One portfolio company we spoke with recently explained their strategy: “We made the switch almost four years ago due to rising strike price/convergence.”  Another concurred: “We started to issue [RSUs] a few years ago during IPO readiness, and because strike price was getting quite high.”

Companies with large international operations may also see benefit in switching to RSUs. International taxes are already complicated and costly to manage, so a simple grant of shares at a predetermined time may work better than options for employees living overseas. One of our portfolio companies started issuing RSUs because they have a “huge presence in India, and not having a strike price helps attract talent.”

Eliminating the strike price and (from the employee’s perspective) upfront tax payment involved in exercising options streamlines the offering for employees, too. An RSU can essentially function as a bonus that is easily converted into cash in one step. As one HR leader at a mature portfolio company put it: “We’re still using options for our new-hire and refresh grants, but we introduced RSUs for retention and recognition grants. We wanted a way to differentiate these by offering an equity vehicle that didn’t require the individual to come out of pocket to exercise.”

Why RSUs are becoming more popular now

Over the past few years, we’re seeing more later-stage, larger companies stay private for longer as they wait for a liquidity event. Switching to RSUs makes sense for many of these larger companies because it offers more predictability and stability for employees who joined the company more recently.

RSUs vs. stock options: A comparison chart

Let’s review the key differences between RSUs and stock options:

To sum up, RSUs are a simple grant of shares that vest at a predetermined time and/or when the company hits certain milestones. Once they vest, they’re immediately available as shares, and employees can sell them right away.

Because RSUs tend to be granted by later-stage companies, there’s more predictability. Employees can be fairly confident that shares in an established company will be worth something in five years’ time. And because there’s no cost to exercise, even if the value of the shares dips between the time they’re offered the package and the time the shares vest, it will still probably translate into money in their pocket.

Stock options, by contrast, require the employee to make decisions, usually after talking to a tax professional. They must choose when to exercise the options—and if they don’t sell right away, they may end up paying alternative minimum tax in the year they exercise, and then paying capital gains tax when they eventually sell. Options are most attractive for employees when there’s a significant upside—when the exercise price is significantly lower than the price at which they’re able to sell. From the employee’s perspective, options do confer downside risk—if the company doesn’t succeed, the value of the shares could fall below the exercise price, making them worthless.

The leadership perspective: Downsides to consider

We’ve covered the basics from the employee’s perspective. Now let’s consider the company leadership perspective. Leaders should consider a few points before making the switch to RSUs from options:

• Internal divisions. Whenever you switch to RSUs, you’ll create a division within the company between early employees and later hires. Typically, companies grant fewer shares when they offer RSUs (because they involve less downside risk). So switching to RSUs too soon could create a group of ‘early RSU’ employees who benefit less from the company’s growth than peers who were hired earlier—and potentially even walk away with less cash altogether, because they’ve been granted fewer shares.

SOLUTION: Time the switch right. Wait until you enter that slower-growth stage, and/or until the strike price for options becomes problematic for employees.

• Tax headaches. Options create complexity because employees have to choose when to exercise them, but the lack of choice in RSUs means it’s up to you to structure an equity package to avoid causing unintended problems for employees. Because employees will be taxed when their RSUs vest, if RSUs vest before the company goes public, employees could potentially owe a tax bill on shares they can’t easily sell. This is particularly relevant when the blackout period occurs during the first few months after an initial-public offering and shares are listed. During this period, insiders, including employees, cannot sell their shares.

SOLUTION: This is why companies go for a double-trigger structure for RSUs. If shares don’t vest until X years have passed and the company has gone public, then employees won’t be taxed until they’re easily able to sell their shares to cover the bill.

• Employee confusion. Any kind of switch like this can create uncertainty and confusion for your people. If employees are already familiar with how options work, they may not be as prepared to manage RSUs.

SOLUTION: Make it simple. Offer employee education to make sure people are prepared for the different tax implications of their equity packages. Many companies also offer employees the option to withhold some of their shares when their RSUs vest, to cover the tax bill and make the process as smooth as possible.

• Raised expectations. Employees who do understand the differences between options and RSUs may take the switch to RSUs as a signal that you’re preparing for an IPO. If you’re still some years away from going public, you could be setting them up for disappointment.

SOLUTION: Timing is everything! Make sure you switch at the right time, when you’re prepared to send this signal to your savviest employees. Battery can help portfolio companies pinpoint the precise moment for their company’s trajectory. Contact us to discuss your situation.

Bottom line

If timed right, a switch to RSUs should be beneficial both for a company and its employees. As a company leader, you’re looking for the moment when offering options no longer makes sense from a burn perspective. If you’re finding that the spread between strike price and fair market value has narrowed enough that you have to offer more options to create the same financial value to the employee, it’s time to think about a switch. As an advocate for your employees, aim for the moment when the cost to exercise new options becomes too expensive, or the upside potential of new options levels off. If you choose your moment well, everyone should feel good about the change.

The post Restricted Stock Units (RSUs): When and Why to Make the Switch appeared first on Battery Ventures.

As in every industry, Excel is the workhorse financial professionals have relied on to handle calculations of arbitrary levels of complexity.  In fund accounting, it is typical for it to be employed twice: once by third-party fund administrators — relied upon by some firms for most finance operations — and again by internal teams to verify their work. But for all its strengths, Excel was not intended to serve as a transactional database, and its very flexibility allows users to create calculation logic too complicated to parse or debug.

Thus, as the industry scales, the cracks in Excel are widening: Spreadsheets multiply, errors compound, and firms risk institutional knowledge walking out the door with each departing employee.  Fund accountants spend days untangling or rebuilding models, reconciliations drag on between admins and teams, and GPs sometimes remain one step removed from the calculations that matter most.

Maybern*’s founders started with a straightforward “Excel to software” premise. A platform that generalized correctly across the breadth of financial “primitive” concepts used by firms would enable them to define their calculation logic lucidly with proper transactional histories, permissions, and audit trails in a single and dynamic performance book-of-record. Moreover, this logic would be simple to execute, and calculations that can take days to prepare could be handled in minutes.

Achieving this simplicity has been no small feat, especially given the diversity of limited-partner agreements (LPAs), side letters, and rounding conventions that must be correctly applied in each calculation. Instantiating this context precisely enough to deliver precision down to the penny requires deep understanding of the domain, an expert delivery methodology, and a calculation engine capable of representing all the nuances in play. The stakes are higher than just efficiency: Clean audits and avoidance of restatements are essential to the LP trust and regulator approval.

From our first conversation with co-founders Ross Mechanic and Ashwin Raghu more than two years ago, it was clear they built Maybern with this reality in mind. Engineers by training, they had lived the problem themselves at Cadre, a real estate investment platform, and immersed themselves so deeply in the mechanics of fund operations that, as one customer put it, “they should have honorary degrees in fund accounting.”

That fluency shows up in the product, a canonical data model for fund accounting that is built to serve as the system of record for every calculation. Each time a fund is onboarded, Maybern ingests its LPAs, side letters, and historical calculations, then abstracts them into reusable primitives: fee rules, waterfall tiers, rounding conventions, and more. These primitives form the foundation of a library that grows to capture the quirks and edge cases of the industry.

Over time, we think this library becomes something larger: a living alphabet of fund economics, powering a scalable system that makes even the most complex fund structures simple to model, audit, and trust.

In just 18 months since launch, Maybern is already partnering with some of the largest funds across the alternatives landscape. CFOs describe how Maybern provides them leverage as operational complexity grows — ensuring accuracy, reducing latency in critical calculations, and delivering both tighter control and greater transparency. For internal fund accounting teams, Maybern is unlocking time savings and beginning to enable more-sophisticated forms of reporting and scenario modeling. The platform is also laying the foundation for AI-driven LPA ingestion and auditability, providing not just results but clear explanations of every calculation.

Battery is proud to partner with the Maybern team on this journey and to announce that we are leading the company’s $50 million Series B, alongside our peers at Primary, Human Capital, and MetaProp Ventures.

The post Maybern: The Performance Book of Record for Fund Accounting appeared first on Battery Ventures.

Over the last year, that focus has deepened as we’ve studied how AI is impacting selling. We launched our Battery CRO Dinner Series, bringing together more than a hundred CROs to exchange best practices, and hosted another 125 CROs and revenue leaders at our 2025 Battery Kick-Off sales summit, organized by our Operating Partner Bill Binch, a former CRO himself. Across these conversations, one theme came through clearly:

Today’s buyers expect immediacy, precision, and personalization at a scale humans alone can’t deliver.

That theme is core to our newest investment. We’re thrilled to announce Battery is leading the Series A financing of 1mind, the company behind a new class of AI-powered GTM “Superhumans.”

Meet the GTM Superhuman

1mind builds photorealistic, intelligent AI teammates, or Superhumans, that engage, qualify, demo, and convert customers across web, in-app, email, and even live Zoom interactions. These agents have a face, a voice, and a deep understanding of their respective companies’ products and playbooks.

Modern buyers expect fast, self-serve, personalized experiences, not forms and multi-day handoffs. 1mind meets buyers on their terms, offering instant, relevant conversations any time, including 2 a.m. on a holiday. Superhumans remember every prior interaction: They pull the right case study instantly, handle objections with accuracy and empathy, and don’t exaggerate to get a deal over the line.

Superhumans take the first touch in parts of the funnel where no SDR ever reached: late-night traffic, free product tiers, and high-volume SMB segments that were previously too costly to serve. But many customers quickly find sales-adjacent use cases, like customer support and success. After all, a Superhuman’s knowledge isn’t limited to why a prospect should buy a product. They can also help customers realize maximum value post-purchase.

At HubSpot, 1mind’s Superhuman “Fiona” was deployed on its free SMB product – a part of the business with no human engagement. Fiona produced a +75% lift in free-trial signups, +25% lift in closed/won, and an 88% engagement rate. After seeing those results, HubSpot expanded Fiona’s footprint fivefold.

Across enterprise customers spanning B2B software and logistics, healthcare, and the public sector, 1mind’s Superhumans consistently outperform chatbots and traditional SDR benchmarks, cutting sales cycles from months to weeks.

You can talk to 1mind’s Superhuman on their site, and below are a few other customer Superhumans you can test out:

• Fiona, Hubspot’s Superhuman
• Bobbi, BostonDynamic’s Superhuman
• Quincy, Quickbase’s Superhuman

We’re teaming up again

This investment also marks a reunion. Founder & CEO Amanda Kahlow has spent her career reimagining how companies connect with buyers. She previously founded 6sense*, which pioneered account-based marketing and helped usher in a data-driven sales era. While building 6sense, she saw firsthand that finding buyers wasn’t the hard part – closing them efficiently was. That insight became the seed for 1mind. We first partnered with Amanda 12 years ago on the 6sense journey and we’re thrilled to be working together again.

To bring 1mind to life, Amanda partnered with Sachin Bhat, a former head of engineering at Rippling and a repeat founder himself. Together, we feel, they’ve assembled a team with rare depth – marketers who understand the GTM motion and engineers who know how to build agentic AI that operates in the real world.

Looking ahead

Today, 1mind’s Superhumans are driving millions in additional revenue across dozens of enterprise customers, with expansion into customer success and onboarding already underway. Tomorrow, we believe they’ll form the foundation of an entirely new GTM operating system – one where every company can deploy a personalized, perfectly trained digital teammate to engage buyers and accelerate growth across the entire customer lifecycle.

We’re proud to lead 1mind’s $30M Series A, partnering again with Amanda and the entire 1mind team as they build the future of intelligent, human-like GTM engagement.

The post Our Investment in 1mind: The Future of GTM Superhumans appeared first on Battery Ventures.