View from Seed

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Taking Corporate VC: When It Makes Sense

View from Seed

I was an early employee at PayPal and back in the 2000-2001 timeframe, and we ended up taking a fairly significant amount of strategic investment (tens of millions of $) from various banks in the US, Europe, and Asia. All things being equal, seed and early stage startups are not usually well suited to take strategic investments.

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Denouement

View from Seed

Aggregate VC investment in 2009 hits a low of roughly $20B, a figure last seen in 2003 in the wake of the bursting of the dotcom and telecom bubble and 2001 recession. And even for early stage startups, VCs raise eyebrows at companies that have modest gross margins. VC funding for startups is drying up quickly. 2020 and Beyond?

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