In one of the posts I spoke about how the size and vintage of funds might affect you when you’re raising money. As usual the rule is, if you’re doing well, they’ll find the money for your next round.&#. Is their money being used to “protect&# the investment that was made from Fund 1? MORE >>

typical startup goes throughseveral rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take justenough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the nextgear. At Viaweb we got our first $10,000 ofseed money from our friend Julian, but he was sufficiently richthat its hard to say whether he should be classified as a friendor angel. MORE >>

Valuation is an important aspect of VC deal terms, and a major determinant of your ultimate outcome.  I unexpectedly found that it was more helpful to think about the company valuation as an output variable in the fund-raising equation.  The net effect was more money raised, higher valuation and the same percentage of equity sold.  MORE >>

They both had impressive testimonials from major corporate customers and clearly delivered good value for money. Unfortunately, we’re trapped by an old valuation paradigm which places a value on a venture based on its achieved and near term inherent profitability and thus inhibits our thinking about how to get the best exit value. MORE >>

But the real asset became obvious at almost exactly 5 PM that day, when all eight stopped what they were doing and began using a tool they had licensed from a Florida company to find other Internet gamers to join them in playing intense first party shooter games over the ‘net.  million at a valuation of $80 million.  The year was 1998. MORE >>