Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

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APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. It is 2010. It would be in their interest to make it easier to fund.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

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JUNE 22, 2011

I said, “It’s much easier now than it was in 2008/09.&# And time is the enemy of all deals so start sooner rather than later, as anybody who was planning to raise in October 2008 will tell you. That happened a lot in 2002 and again in 2008. It’s what I love about entrepreneurship and about venture capital.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

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OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). What are your predictions for the road ahead.

Technical Review 241

Technical Review IPO Southern California Venture Capital 241

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JULY 16, 2010

So as of 2008 total LP commitments were still at nearly $250 billion. Our current fund was raised in 2008/09.] After all, most people don’t understand that “venture capital is a get rich slowly&# scheme. So the people who invest in VC funds have two problems. The top quartile funds have performed well.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

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APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m happy to say that in 2006-2008 we has some good exits including BillMeLater, DealerTrack, UGO Networks and PrePay Technologies to name a few. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital VC Industry.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

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NOVEMBER 14, 2010

And so it happened that between 2000-2008 I was the biggest buzz kill at dinner parties. They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. Remember it was only 2008 where Microsoft and even Google were laying off employees. Same with VCs.

Florida 299

Florida Technical Review San Antonio Los Angeles 299

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OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. It’s my job to invest wisely in entrepreneurs who are capital efficient, who innovate in ways that pay off economically in good markets or bad and who plan for worst-case scenarios.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Stock Hawaii Early Stage 269

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APRIL 20, 2011

In the early 80’s he left academia to work on venture capital investing with Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

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FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Lindel is no stranger to thorny venture capital issues — he was arguably amongst the most successful LPs of his generation.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

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MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Founded in August 2008 in Palo Alto, CA, by Sam Christiansen and Keith Lee. When the show has been processed it will be available here (estimated 8pm PDT).

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

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JUNE 27, 2021

They sold 2 years later for $16 million In the financial crisis of 2008 we had a company that had jointly hired lawyers to consider a bankruptcy and also pursued (and achieved!) Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. the sale of the company for $1 billion. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

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SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

He first came to see me in 2008 when we was raising money for his 1st startup – NextMedium. At every entrepreneur event I through between 2008-2012 I invite Hamet because he was a great mentor for entrepreneurs. Hamet started his career in Venture Capital working for the first post-apartheid VC fund in South Africa.

Partner 340

Partner Los Angeles South Africa Cap Table 340

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JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). Tags: This Week in Venture Capital.

Venture Capital 225

Venture Capital Non-Compete Vertical Europe 225

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MARCH 11, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. It’s a tricky question with no clear answer. There are trade offs.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Startup Silicon Valley Warrant 319

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MAY 4, 2010

Online advertising platform for local businesses; ReachLocal reported over $203 million in revenue for 2009, compared to around $146 million in 2008. million loss in 2008. million, compared to a $7 million net loss in 2008. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. I think you’ll enjoy watching.

IPO 236

IPO .Net Venture Capital Strategic Investors 236

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JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. You have to be selected to present and it is typically reserved for companies that have already raised early-stage capital and are well into revenue growth. Should you use investment banks to raise venture capital?

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

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OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. So get out there and start raising your capital! Let’s be honest – the same is true for VC’s.

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255

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JULY 1, 2010

led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Founded in 2008 in Santa Monica by Ron Goldman (former CRO of shopping.com) and Rahul Sonnad. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. Current round: $4. Total raised: $6.0mm. See: TechCrunch.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Government 248

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JUNE 5, 2011

2007, 2011) and for the hottest of companies and in bad markets for fund raising (2003, 2008) prices test the bottom end of the range. So rounds tend to be “range bound&# where the top end of the valuation spectrum often being done in boom markets (i.e. There is no such thing as a uniform price.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

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JULY 24, 2012

When I couldn’t talk David into doing early-stage deals back in 2008/09, I hooked up with the guy who seemed to be working with the largest number of high-quality LA startups I had encountered – Dave Young – and started working with him and Nicholas Hobbs of DLA Piper. There’s more!

Los Angeles 299

Los Angeles Early Stage DC Silicon Valley 299

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FEBRUARY 6, 2016

And there was a great discussion about generational change at Venture Capital firms handled so well by Benchmark & Sequoia and how Fred is thinking about it. Just look at our rebound from the financial crisis of 2008 as something that I feel proud of as an American. Do you need to be technical to be a great VC? Worst system.

China 150

China United States Turkey Kansas 150

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AUGUST 24, 2015

I’ve seen friends (and family members) lose much of their savings that way over the years because “Black Swans” happen and in 1987, 2001, 2003 & 2008 (just to name a few from my memory) huge market gyrations caused much financial distress to people seeking short-term gains. At least later stage investors.

Stock 150

Stock Finance Marketing Valuation 150

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OCTOBER 14, 2015

One of the points I tried to make is that as venture capital investors as an industry we seem to have a healthy disdain for public market investors. We have an entire generation of startup founders who don’t have muscle memory from getting their burn rates back into shape from 2008/09 or 2001-2005. Others will follow.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate San Francisco Private Equity LP 150

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APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital VC Industry. I like the way he thinks.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

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JUNE 28, 2010

Spun off from Freewebs in 2008, based in Palo Alto. Current round: $2mm Series B from Tomorrow Ventures (Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google) and Lars Hinrichs (Xing founder). Current round: $8.5mm Series-C led by Jafco Ventures with DCM , Emergence Capital, and August Capital participating. Total raised: $19mm.

San Francisco 230

San Francisco Los Angeles Cofounder SMS 230

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FEBRUARY 25, 2010

It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. History repeated itself in September 2008 with that market crash. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice (although this also applies tightly with Raising Venture Capital ).

Technical Review 301

Technical Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Venture Capital 301

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SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. At GRP we sat out 2007 and much of 2008 for that reason and we’re now looking pretty smart for doing so. Answer: Not much. And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. It’s a shame.

Liquidity Event 308

Liquidity Event Silicon Valley Seed Stage Finance 308

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MAY 25, 2013

“I don’t know the exact math, but I hear it again and again: the top 2% of firms generate 98% of the returns in venture capital.” 2008 App ecosystem on iOS = $0. So let’s look at the main assertions. The industry is dying, except for the top 2%. ” Unfortunately the first part of that statement is true.

LP 374

LP Later Stage IRR Term Sheet 374

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MAY 15, 2010

Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. 7mm in Series C; last round was in 2008; total $24mm raised – Investor: Bessemer (Byron Deeter)(lead); previous investor included Index Ventures, did not participate – Read more: TechCrunch , peHUB.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

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SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

On a panel that I sat on with Ron in LA in 2008 he stated that there were no circumstances in which the founder should take money off of the table. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice VC Industry startup technology vc venture capital. I already had this argument with Ron Conway and we disagree on the topic.

Founder 329

Founder Liquidation Preference Term Sheet Participating Preferred 329

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JANUARY 16, 2012

So why would raising venture capital be any different. Our 2008 fund looks spectacular. You’d even probably go as far as to ask your best customers if they wouldn’t mind proactively reaching out to your prospects to subtly tell them how great you are. We’re the largest fund in Southern California.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

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JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital. And what we think about Sequoia’s website , First Round Capital’s and True Ventures (we both like to copy stuff from True). Read more: MediaWeek.

Venture Capital 217

Venture Capital Los Angeles Oakland Asia 217

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JANUARY 31, 2010

We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. We found a way to make our venture capital last when it shouldn’t have, at around the same time one of my all time favorite New Yorker cartoons was published on this topic.

Entrepreneur 308

Entrepreneur Silicon Valley San Diego Non-Compete 308

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FEBRUARY 14, 2016

That’s the beauty of markets and of capitalism. That was written in September 2008. Put simply, it’s really hard to build a strong company when all of your competitors are giving away free s**t fueled by venture capital chasing winner-take-all returns. Remember the RIP Good Times by Sequoia ?

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Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

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JUNE 23, 2015

Brian grew up locally and after he was graduated from Stanford (engineering) and Stanford MBA he went to work at a firm called Palomar Ventures. Rick was a partner there having previously been a Managing Director and founding member of Sun America’s venture capital practice and having been graduated from Harvard Law School.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder Early Stage 150

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AUGUST 9, 2011

By 2008 I had gotten more serious about championing companies through our investment process. It was September 2008. The following is a 2-week graph of the end-of-week price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in Autumn 2008. Venture capital is an industry best served up from 7-year aged casks. We did not.

Stock 305

Stock Technical Review Marketing Greece 305