View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2015

“As a seed-stage investor, should you pay up for team or traction?” When you are thinking about joining an early stage company, how should you be evaluating the risk of the overall company? How should you be weighing the presence of a great founding team versus early signs of traction?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage B2B Distribution Early Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. It’s time to scale up and I need money to keep up with demand.” Congratulations!

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. But I have seen equally bad behavior from super early stage investors. Here’s what you need to know.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

But the way the market values this early work can vary greatly. I’m often surprised by how much effort seed stage teams put into building an early product and how little credit that receives from investors. And the ultimate uncertainties for a seed stage company are around talent and customer demand.

Seed Stage 180

Seed Stage Bootstrapping Demand Early Stage 180

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

As the seed stage that atomized and series A rounds have become larger and more traction based, the paths to series A have changed. 500K in angel or pre-seed funding -> Raise a $2–3M institutional seed -> Raise an A. This is the logical path that one would think is pretty “standard” for early stage companies.

Early Stage 214

Early Stage Dilution Valuation .Net 214

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Seed-stage compatible: Like traditional equity VC investors, Flexible VCs accomodate early-stage investment risk within their portfolios better than a traditional RBI funder. Short track record.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

OCTOBER 28, 2019

Over the past few years, “pre-seed” as a distinct category has emerged within the early stage fundraising landscape. Of course, as a labeled category of financing arose, so did a number of dedicated pre-seed funds emerge to specialize in it. We at NextView Ventures believe that the seed stage is a spectrum.

Seed Stage 247

Seed Stage Finance Dilution Early Stage 247

Hippoland

JULY 24, 2016

Valuation is a nebulous topic amongst early stage startups, so I thought I’d really spell it out in detail. In short: Valuations for seed stage companies are fairly arbitrary and driven solely by supply and demand. Supply - amount of your round and Demand - investor demand. You’re not unique.)

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Valuation Vertical Demand 48

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

As the seed-stage startup fundraise process has received more transparency in recent years, ranging from published advice on how to raise seed capital to increased availability through AngelList, Funders Club, and various accelerator programs, I’ve noticed another trend emerging.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. It’s time to scale up and I need money to keep up with demand.” Congratulations!

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

For example, assume you are a seed-stage company that needs $500,000 but you go out looking for $1 million. If you end up with more investor demand than you can handle, you can always raise a larger amount of money. Be careful not to go out asking for an amount that is larger than you need.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence 100

View from Seed

JULY 31, 2019

However, early-stage company building is inherently unpredictable, and you will find an adaptive mindset invaluable as you chart a unique path for your company. . As a founder of a seed-stage startup, you might think that once you get to Series A all your problems will go away (spoiler alert – they don’t!).

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Demand Early Stage Founder 166

Startup Company Lawyer

AUGUST 31, 2012

Over the past few years, convertible debt has emerged as a quick and inexpensive method for startup companies to raise money from angel investors and early stage venture funds. ” As a result, Ted introduced the Series Seed preferred stock documents as an alternative to convertible debt for early stage investments.

Convertible Security 73

Convertible Security Equity Security Preferred Stock 73

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

ABM/Demand Gen), Richard Crowley (Slack, Ops Architect), Misha Brukman (JanusGraph, co-founder). Seed funds back to basics in 2019: We highlighted the barbelling of VC in the year-end 2017 update and see this continuing in 2019. Natalie Diggins (Neustar, ex-VP Cloud Platform/DevOps), Francesca Krihely (MongoDB, Dir.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. It’s time to scale up and I need money to keep up with demand.” Congratulations!

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Instead, it was more of a result of over-funding at the seed stage. There was simply too much money coming in to the seed stage, which increased the supply of companies at the seed stage. The low supply and high demand is driving up the valuations and deal sizes. And the hiring costs are higher.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. You are now entering the rollout stage , with money required for marketing, hiring a full-time team, and a production process. It’s time to scale up and I need money to keep up with demand.” Congratulations!

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

Additionally, funds such as Foundry Group and Google Ventures have taken their own approaches – the former creating a separate early stage entity , the latter encouraging their seed stage partners to create standalone personal syndicates. 2) The Bundled Expertise Syndicate.

Syndicate 98

Syndicate Syndication South America Seed Stage 98

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

In addition, I think that a “peace treaty&# between early-stage investors and startup companies on standard terms (at least at a term sheet level) is a step in the right direction. I suspect that this seems reasonable if there is basically no due diligence due to the early stage of the companies. (By Legal fees.

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

” I don’t know for sure if this is true, but I have the impression that early stage VC’s as a whole have gotten more accessible than probably any time in the past. We are pretty explicit that we are a dedicated seed stage fund focused on internet-enabled businesses.

Portfolio 67

Portfolio Social Media Seed Stage Email 67

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

While it it may not feel that way, the data suggest that there is indeed too much capital in the system — especially so at the seed stage, with more and more individuals and larger funds trying to invest in companies at this stage.). This is because excessive capital becomes toxic for an early stage company.

Venture Capital 117

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 117

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Today, the signs of the new bubble are the Linked-In initial public offering (IPO), Facebook’s stratospheric valuation and the rapid rise of early-stage startup valuation. It sent a signal that there is an irrational demand for tech IPOs. This tech bubble is unfolding just like all the other bubbles before it.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

K9 Ventures

JUNE 12, 2012

While it it may not feel that way, the data suggest that there is indeed too much capital in the system — especially so at the seed stage, with more and more individuals and larger funds trying to invest in companies at this stage.). This is because excessive capital becomes toxic for an early stage company.

Venture Capital 105

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Founder Seed Stage 105

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

” And some seed stage investors told me, “I prefer not to fight over price now. You rarely find full ratchets in early-stage deals any more. Nobody I know accepts multiple liquidation preferences in early-stage deals. And every seed stage VC tells me they don’t ever even ask for them.

Ratchet 354

Ratchet Liquidation Preference Equity Stock 354

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 14, 2017

It was a conscious decision to maintain the fund size at the same level, despite both market pressure (larger rounds at earlier stages) and demand pressure (lots of LP money entering the stage) to raise a larger fund. K9’s last fund, K9 Ventures II, L.P., was a $40M fund. And yes, I’m presently 42.

Technology 96

Technology LP San Francisco Portfolio 96

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Much of the slack at seed stage funding is taken up by the Russian state. In sharp contrast to the US and UK governments, in 2013, the Russian Government provided around 38 percent of seed deals and 24 percent of startup stage funding. The role of the Russian Government.

Russia 140

Russia Europe Government Vertical 140

Hippoland

MAY 23, 2018

Early stage fundraising is an interesting beast, because there are all kinds of reasons why VCs invest at this stage. Now that seed and series A are starting to bleed together, you are now seeing some large Sand Hill VCs do seed deals again. And if no one is demanding your round, then it’s a moot point.

Valuation 48

Valuation Portfolio Later Stage Seed Stage 48

Hippoland

MAY 23, 2018

Early stage fundraising is an interesting beast, because there are all kinds of reasons why VCs invest at this stage. Now that seed and series A are starting to bleed together, you are now seeing some large Sand Hill VCs do seed deals again. And if no one is demanding your round, then it’s a moot point.

Valuation 48

Valuation Portfolio Later Stage Seed Stage 48

Steve Blank

AUGUST 27, 2009

We’ll look at the model stage-by-stage. Concept and Seed Stage In the Concept and Seed Stage, founders capture their passion and vision for the new company and turn them into a set of key ideas, which quickly becomes a business plan, sometimes on the back of the proverbial napkin.

Silicon Valley 260

Silicon Valley Product Startup Product Development 260

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

The secondary wave of VC-backed IPOs has also come to fruition… both consumer facing (Yelp, Demand Media, Pandora, Carbonite, HomeAway, Angie’s List, et al) and B2B (Jive Software, Brightcove, Imperva, Responsys, etc). What’s the impact for early-stage startups? Author howerl. Filed under Uncategorized.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 30, 2014

With plenty of resources available for entrepreneurs about how to craft an effective pitch deck for raising seed-stage capital from VCs, often what’s left out are some of the tactical components of an initial meeting. As a bonus, it also showcases a good character trait to the VC: You’re focused on and driven by results.

Technical Review 308

Technical Review Entrepreneur Due Diligence Seed Stage 308

The Equity Kicker

AUGUST 8, 2017

Suitable for early stage investment. Is at the right point in the Hype Cycle and plays to our strengths in evaluating demand. How much AI talent is required at pre-seed and seed stage Applied AI startups and can we find enough companies with that talent? We can articulate a few underlying investment theses.

Artificial Inteligence 78

Artificial Inteligence eCommerce Early Stage Algorithm 78

Rob Go

MAY 5, 2014

Seed stage investing has developed significantly over the past 7 years that I’ve been in VC. It’d pretty standard for entrepreneurs to contemplate raising an “institutional seed round” prior to approaching VC’s for series A rounds. Many have said that the institutional seed is the new series A.

Seed Stage 69

Seed Stage Leadership Portfolio Boston 69

View from Seed

MAY 27, 2015

But we noticed that while the information in these podcasts is interesting, many are often far removed from the actual day-to-day challenges of very early stage founders that are just trying to go from nothing to something. How do you test demand for a product without having said product? Are we in a tech bubble?

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Early Stage Non-Compete Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 2, 2017

Managed marketplaces , robotics , and on -demand delivery networks are changing how we experience the simple pleasure of eating a meal. That said, we realize that the starting point for companies at the seed stage may be much narrower than a company’s ultimate ambitions.

Seed Stage 273

Seed Stage Portfolio Cofounder B2B 273

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

A lawyer I asked about it said: When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. Angels and even VC firms occasionally do this, but they alsoinvest at later stages.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

On the one hand, I do think that there's a role for basically high risk tolerance faster, like early stage investment mentality and research and academia. Any venture capitalist will tell you, "That's why we take a wide spectrum of that at the seed stage." I think that'd be really important.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68