Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

During the summer of 2010, I developed a workshop, A New ACEF Valuation Workshop for Angels and Entrepreneurs. To provide some reference points, I surveyed thirteen angels groups in North American to determine their recent experience in negotiating the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies. 2011 Angel Group Valuation Survey.

Angel Groups 125

Angel Groups Valuation Pre-Money Valuation St. Louis 125

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

90% of the airtime around ownership and valuations is focused on what happens when the first check is written. Effective post money is the effective valuation of an investor’s dollars at any one time. Also, being too dogmatic isn’t very fun J. What matters is effective post-money at exit. We think about this a lot too.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

JANUARY 7, 2020

Anecdotally we’ve heard the sentiment that there are still very few firms who can lead seed rounds in New York, while we’ve also seen a recent uptick of Boston seed rounds led by non-Boston firms. SF/Bay Area, New York, Boston, and LA. For this analysis, I focused on the four largest startup ecosystems in the U.S. –

New York 207

New York Boston Marketing Aggregator 207

Feld Thoughts

JULY 9, 2019

When I was in Boston a while ago (it was very cold, so it must have been January), I had a wide-ranging conversation with Eric Paley. We ended up talking about using Gross Profit, instead of Revenue, to do valuation analysis. I’ve been thinking a lot about gross profit (and gross margin ) lately. Isn’t accounting fun?

Revenue 179

Revenue Valuation .Net IPO 179

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

90% of the airtime around ownership and valuations is focused on what happens when the first check is written. Effective post money is the effective valuation of an investor’s dollars at any one time. Also, being too dogmatic isn’t very fun J. What matters is effective post-money at exit. We think about this a lot too.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

David Cohen

SEPTEMBER 19, 2020

Techstars funded PillPack as part of the Techstars Boston Accelerator in 2013. The company later settled in Boston. The geographies of the accelerators that funded the known unicorns are: Seattle: 3 Boulder: 2 New York City: 1 San Antonio: 1 Boston: 1. 10: PillPack (2013). Techstars Unicorn Insights. The Not-Quite-Yet Unicorns.

San Antonio 171

San Antonio New York City Seattle Los Angeles 171

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

One of our recent investments, offered by Founder Collective (FC) – an eight-year-old manager with offices in Boston and San Francisco – is an excellent example of what we look for when we invest in funds offered by other managers. FC’s portfolio is made up exclusively of seed stage investments at seed valuations.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

Gust

DECEMBER 21, 2011

Boston, New York City, Seattle and Southern California spawn many exciting startups…but do not exceed the Valley in any measure of entrepreneurial achievement. This is not to say that there is no competition for deals in Seattle, Boston, New York and elsewhere.)

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Southern California Tucson Seattle 107

Rob Go

MAY 21, 2014

Everyone knows that nobody gets consumer in Boston. Boston has amazing consumer companies, but the region gets no love for some reason. Care just went public, is an $80M+ revenue business, and has a multi-hundred million dollar market cap (not a vapor private valuation). It’s just a given. Couple thoughts.

Boston 57

Boston Cram Down Indiana eCommerce 57

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

It’s almost exactly 5 years since Aileen Lee first coined the term “unicorn” in reference to startups with $1 billion+ valuations. A few of these had previously raised private rounds at $1B+ valuations like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but a good majority of them only reached unicorn status upon exit. valuation in 2017 round).

IPO 120

IPO Valuation San Francisco Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 10, 2022

We’re running our new and improved accelerator program back, we’re doubling our offering and raising the valuation cap (hello $400K) , and we’d love for you and your team to apply. Jambb: Boston, Massachusetts . We’re upping our offering from $200K to $400K and raising the valuation cap upon acceptance into the program.

San Diego 156

San Diego San Francisco Alabama Valuation 156

Agile VC

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

The very strongest companies can still likely get out if they really wanted, but may not command the valuations they hoped for in more bullish times. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. The second tier of companies probably have to wait whether they like it or not. Author howerl. Read More ».

IPO 100

IPO Marketing Silicon Valley Technical Review 100

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

The terms and valuation for both offers were comparable and when the team debated which path to choose, we all agreed both firms would have made good partners. round which closed in November 2003, and the pre-money valuation between $10 million and $15 million. It was a pretty good valuation for the time. It was a $4.7M

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Kayak is great Boston-area success story. Valuation is an important aspect of VC deal terms, and a major determinant of your ultimate outcome. Of the ones I have been to recently, the Nantucket Conference has been my favorite. great group of people and a small enough gathering that you can actually get to know many/most of them.

Fractional CTO 248

Fractional CTO Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 248

Altgate

DECEMBER 12, 2008

→ A Squeeze On Boston Venture Valuations Posted on December 12, 2008 by fnazeeri Today there was a front page story in the Boston Business Journal about how the market’s downturn is putting a squeeze on local venture valuations. Long live blogging! Bookmark the permalink. → Comments are closed.

Boston 28

Boston Valuation Venture Capital Startup 28

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Be realistic about your valuation. You may have heard a valuation should be doubled because investors will cut it in half. That likelihood goes down if you are not in Silicon Valley or Boston. That’s become “expected.” However, it also makes the investor question your logic. So, you need to have a backup plan.

Angel Investor 159

Angel Investor Technical Review Software Review Accredited Investor 159

David Teten

AUGUST 20, 2019

The Boston Consulting Group and MassChallenge , a US-based global network of accelerators, partnered to study why “ women-owned startups are a better bet ”. However, to raise RBI a woman founder does not need to promise a valuation of $1 billion within 5 years. Realistic projections.

Revenue 60

Revenue Cofounder Founder Venture Capital 60

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2014

I’ve known Joe for a while – we met through Techstars Boston, where he’s been a great mentor and very active angel investor. He’d gotten a random note asking about his valuation when we invested relative to another financing that was just announced. How did someone come up with the valuation?

Valuation 143

Valuation Stock Angel Investor IPO 143

Startup Lessons Learned

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

The law of large numbers (of customers) says you cant help but make at least some money - your valuation is determined by how well you monetize the tidal wave of growth. The spread between your LTV and blended CPA determines either your profitability or your rate of growth, and a high valuation depends on balancing these two factors.

San Francisco 167

San Francisco CPA SEM CTO Hire 167

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2011

And look at the valuation creep across the board in the past year. Just wanted to say that because a friend told me today that a Boston VC commented to him that I spend too much time blogging and he prefers to spend his time investing. They don’t have market power. I finished this in less than 40 minutes. I also do marketing.

Email 287

Email Bankruptcy Equity Technical Review 287

Seeing Both Sides

DECEMBER 17, 2015

A few years ago, I did an analysis on the Boston-based companies that were worth more than $500 million in value, which I called Boston Unicorns. One of the (somewhat depressing) conclusions I made at the time was "there have been no multi-billion dollar valued tech companies founded in Boston in the last 13 years.".

Boston 20

Boston B2C Down Round IPO 20

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Sweat equity is just one component of early-stage valuation. Foregone wages tends to be the anchor that keeps valuation negotiations from sailing into oblivion. Coming soon to Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia. In fact, it could be worth much more. Employees and founders are motivated by different things.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

Rob Go

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Geography: 18 of the 23 are in Boston or New York. Some of our most interesting companies have originated in places like Estonia (GrabCAD), Croatia (Farmeron) and Omaha (SkyVu), although all have either moved or have a significant presence in a major tech hub like SF, Boston, or NY.

New Hampshire 50

New Hampshire Croatia Omaha Portfolio 50

Mike Michalowicz

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

There is a lot happening in the Boston restaurant landscape. Some say it’s the ridiculous and ever-escalating Boston rents, some say Millennials are to blame, but in either case – complaining never pays the bills. He has owned and managed restaurants in several of the different Boston Neighborhoods. link] [link].

Boston 120

Boston New York Hosting Cost 120

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Below, we talk to Glen Mello , Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank’s accelerator team in Boston. It can be lower cost and can either buy more time or accelerate growth. Glen is an active contributor to the local tech ecosystem and well-versed in how and when startups can use venture debt to their advantage.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

This initial wave of applicants resulted in the selection of six initial Accelerator participants – female & male founders at startups hailing from the Bay Area to Miami to Alabama to Boston, ranging from b2b SaaS offerings to consumer services… all transforming people’s everyday lives.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

Rob Go

JUNE 16, 2014

Now it’s table stakes”; Jo Tango’s blog post on the VC Bottleneck in Boston; and Mike Volpe’s comments on a post from my blog on raising seed rounds vs. Series A’s. On top of that, there are fewer series A investors now than there have been in the past (at least in Boston). Wow, that sounds really bad.

Early Stage 67

Early Stage Boston Portfolio Venture Capital 67

The Startup Toolkit

AUGUST 30, 2012

The valley only has about 4x more VC deals than London (although average valuations are admittedly 2x higher): The valley is not 1000x better. After ~120 meetings everywhere from Boston & New Jersey to LA & Sand Hill Road, we gave up, dug in our heels, and got back to building our business. But check it. Everywhere.

Silicon Valley 52

Silicon Valley San Francisco New Jersey India 52

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Incubators I hear mentioned most often include YCombinator , led by Paul Graham in Silicon Valley, and TechStars , located in Boston, Boulder, New York City, and Seattle. To convince you it can work, TechCrunch recently aggregated the combined valuation of YCombinator companies at $7.78

Incubator 215

Incubator Entrepreneur New York City Silicon Valley 215

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 24, 2011

Incubators I hear mentioned most often include YCombinator , led by Paul Graham in Silicon Valley, and TechStars , located in Boston, Boulder, New York City, and Seattle. To convince you it can work, SiteBoat recently aggregated the combined valuation of the top 21 companies graduated by YCombinator at $4.7

Incubator 234

Incubator New York City Silicon Valley Startup 234

Genuine VC

OCTOBER 18, 2011

You can find quite a bit of advice in the blogosphere about how to optimize around the most salient dimension: valuation. And savvy entrepreneurs realize that terms are just as important (and even sometime more so) than just the one figure of valuation. Pitching your startup in person is always better than over a video-screen.

Valuation 154

Valuation LP Boston Partner 154

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 23, 2018

Two LA, one San Diego, one Salt Lake City, two Boston, seven New York City. Some of these are generalizable and our friend Semil Shah does a nice job covering several in his post “ Investing Outside the Bay Area.” Phase 3 US and Canada (2017+). Where are we now? Literally a broader mindset.

Silicon Valley 99

Silicon Valley San Diego Los Angeles Southern California 99

David Teten

MARCH 8, 2013

How to assess opportunities (idea, team, valuation). Today he resides in San Francisco, but is a Boston native and still holds out hope for another Brady Superbowl win. This webinar is designed to be an introduction to angel investing as well as to the HBS Alumni Angels organization. How to source great deals.

San Francisco 114

San Francisco Venture Capital Angel Groups LLC 114

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

About Bessemer Venture Partners: Bessemer Venture Partners is a global investment group with offices in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Mumbai, and Tel Aviv. Detailed SaaS Spreadsheet (Valuation and CAC benchmark). SaaS 13 Index Valuation. S&M productivity (CAC ratio) for the SaaS 13 Index. My Investments. anecdotes. (13).

Software Review 48

Software Review Partner United States Venture Capital 48

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 24, 2011

In fact, most of the most active investment firms are located there, although NY now has moved solidly into second place (ahead of Boston). To make this work, you will need an initial valuation of at least $5M. Back to VCs, Silicon Valley venture capital firms are still the most active.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Revenue Elevator Pitch Silicon Valley 233

View from Seed

AUGUST 20, 2014

If the company is doing really well, the VC will have an incentive to try to do more of the next round at perhaps not the highest possible valuation. This is what happened awhile back with Gemvara here in Boston. Series A Dynamics: This is a middle-of-the-road outcome in terms of optimizing your next round of financing.

Startup 301

Startup Syndicate Syndication Boston 301

BeyondVC

APRIL 15, 2011

In addition, over 750 investors came in from all over including London, California, Boston, and DC to network and participate. Add VCs from Boston and CA and elsewhere and you have quite an experienced plethora of investors to work with.

New York 129

New York Sweat Equity Marketing Startup 129