View from Seed

MARCH 4, 2020

In a few months, we are likely to see the annual Forbes Midas list of top performing early stage VC investors. Innovation is Becoming More Broadly Distributed. The biggest rise, unsurprisingly, was China, which enjoyed a huge surge in venture capital dollars over the past decade and enjoyed its fair share of blockbuster exits.

Venture Capital 313

Venture Capital China Technical Review Africa 313

View from Seed

APRIL 2, 2024

Similarly, I’d argue that the early-stage venture “product” has elevated across the board. These brands have been able to run a goldilocks playbook – scaling attractively but not irresponsibly, expanding SKUs and distribution without sacrificing quality, and really cementing their brand love among consumers.

Merger 343

Merger Non-Compete Early Stage Venture Capital 343

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. So we have five themes – Digital Life and Distribution are the other two.”. Distribution. Brad’s start in Venture Capital. This time frame – 2005/2006 – web 2.0

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. We detail below the major categories of VC: VENTURE CAPITAL TYPOLOGY. FLEXIBLE VC VS. OTHER VENTURE CAPITAL MODELS.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

Among these opportunities, the chance to pitch an investor and secure funding is perhaps the greatest of all — at least in the early stages of your startup career — as it can ultimately determine the long-term fate of your company. Have a reasonable attitude about your early-stage valuation, and don’t get too hung up on it.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

In response, venture capital firms like Sequoia and Andreessen/Horowitz are hiring new partners just to work with their portfolio companies and match them to corporations. Ventures that are further along and now executing their business model are no longer startups, they are now early-stage companies.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. So it’s unsurprising that typical “A rounds&# of venture capital were $5-10 million.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

www.geekwire.com

JULY 10, 2012

VENTURE CAPITAL. You are here: Home / Startups / Bad returns be damned: Venture capital fundraising jumps 31 percent in U.S. Bad returns be damned: Venture capital fundraising jumps 31 percent in U.S. According to the Dow Jones research, 43 early-stage funds raised $3.1 About GeekWire.

Venture Capital 42

Venture Capital Seattle Cofounder Software Engineering 42

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. This states how the proceeds from a sale or dissolution of the company will be distributed. Tags: Startup Advice This Week in Venture Capital. This is a shame.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 11, 2021

If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping. Funding can be pulled, and future distributions withheld, if objectives are not met. Progress milestones become management objectives.

Term Sheet 433

Term Sheet Advisory Board Liquidation Preference Startup 433

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. When people refer to a strategic investor they are usually talking about an investor that comes from the industry you serve as opposed to an independent venture capital investor. The reality is that their core business is not venture capital.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated.

Valuation 319

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 319

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated.

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 8, 2013

I probably get around a dozen e-mails a week asking me how to get into venture capital. On top of that, anytime I talk to anyone who wants to get involved in startups but isn''t sure what they want to do, inevitably, I hear, "And then I was thinking maybe I should look into venture capital, too.".

Venture Capital 167

Venture Capital Early Stage Portfolio Private Equity 167

Steve Blank

MARCH 19, 2009

Now with a new infusion of $8 million dollars of venture capital, SuperMac had been resurrected from the dead and was attempting to restart. They had an existing distribution channel and their dealers and customers thought they knew who the company was and what it stood for. The first step was to recruit a new management team.

Silicon Valley 146

Silicon Valley Software Review Technical Review RSS 146

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

It’s probably not too controversial to say that the median level of sophistication of early stage entrepreneurs in Los Angeles is lower than that of Bay Area. I regularly come across companies who happen to have the #1 paid app in the App Store fly under the radar for years before raising venture capital.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

We also have a better known brand than some of our early stage companies, so we can leverage that to help source talent. This is roughly comparable to PRNewswire’s distribution service. We have insight on the competencies of our companies’ personnel, and who is hiring or shrinking. Ethics Policy, Expenses policy).

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

Both Sides of the Table

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. Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Current round: $20mm in Series C by Accel Partners (Jim Breyer, board member at Wal-Mart, Dell, and FaceBook), KPCB, and DAG Ventures.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

That’s a bit of a cautionary tale to VC investors today who might think it’s inevitable that the private value they are enjoying in their portfolios will certainly translate to distributions in the near future. Was this a lost decade for venture capital? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated.

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 9, 2020

Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group , he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is a writer and speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship.

Community 87

Community Startup Venture Capital Cofounder 87

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2020

I don’t doubt that there is opportunity in some of these offerings, but I question if there is a long-term sustainable venture that’s appropriate for venture capital. Startups currently in the early stage are going to be building for perhaps the next dozen years. How has an inevitable future world closer to now?

Early Stage 227

Early Stage Venture Capital Portfolio Distribution 227

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

As a globally focused LP in early stage VC funds, we at Blue Future Partners have observed a growing trend of firms investing substantially in software tools, whether developing proprietary solutions or adopting off the shelf tools. But what tools are they using themselves to automate their own processes?

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

While developers can now spin up applications faster than ever before, one of the downsides is the complexity of managing these distributed applications and technologies. Year of HQ2 and Distributed Teams: It was a banner year for non-Silicon Valley cities as NYC and Northern Virginia were selected as Amazon’s HQ2.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2015

You incorporate expected company returns, mortality rates, and fee structures to try to predict how a venture capital fund works from a cash in, cash out, and NAV standpoint. And no, the numbers don't exactly add up--but they're more than close enough for venture capital. It's also not the "average fund".

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Pre-Money Valuation IRR Valuation 60

Gust

DECEMBER 22, 2011

Most of our early-stage startup clients fit this description. Copyright is the right to control reproduction and distribution of original works of authorship fixed in tangible forms of expression. Each of these categories is a deep subject that can be explored in a future post.

Intellectual Property 149

Intellectual Property Technical Review Software Review IP 149

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

This is the failure of many early-stage companies when they try to scale. Once you’ve been around for a few years, attracted some great people, landed real, paying customers and raised venture capital you’ve likely got a talented team around you. Some entrepreneurs make the mistake of never devolving power.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 24, 2014

Investors keep pouring money into startups and early stage companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association , the amount of money that VC’s invested rose 8% to nearly $30 billion in 2013. Just get it done” is fine when entrepreneurs are starting out, but not when the work is distributed to a bigger team.

Startup 252

Startup Angel Investor Early Stage LLC 252

The Equity Kicker

MAY 31, 2016

Cambridge Associates is a service provider to the Limited Partners that invest in venture capital funds that’s known for the quality of its research. Their advice to LPs is to catch these distributed returns by investing in emerging managers outside of traditional US venture heartlands.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Early Stage Dilution Later Stage 60

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

BeyondVC

JANUARY 6, 2018

This speed of adoption of new tech will accelerate at the largest enterprises, and they will be reliant on early stage startups to do so. There’s been lots of buzz for the need for a shared, distributed ledger but 2018 is the year we see production level use cases in the wild.

Cloud 60

Cloud Cofounder Portfolio Advisory Board 60

Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2012

Conventional wisdom dictated that they made reckless investments in very early-stage ventures mostly doomed to fail. In addition, angels were up against a selection problem: All the best entrepreneurs and opportunities would naturally gravitate to the best venture capital funds, leaving only the “scraps” for angel investors.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Venture Capital Seed Stage Silicon Valley 152

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. If you don’t, please educate yourself on this site, Venture Hacks and the term sheet series by Brad Feld/Jason Mendelson, among other places.

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2018

If the entrepreneur wants total control of their own venture, with no one looking over their shoulder, they should work within the limits of their own resources, a process called bootstrapping. Funding can be pulled, and future distributions withheld, if objectives are not met. Progress milestones become management objectives.

Term Sheet 140

Term Sheet Advisory Board Liquidation Preference Portfolio 140

VC Cafe

OCTOBER 4, 2022

The application landscape, while still in the early stages, seems to be rapidly growing. As the tools are being democratised (from OpenAI’s invite-only approach to Stable Diffusion’s open source disruption), new APIs are making it possible for developers to create novel products using these technologies.

Generative AI 204

Generative AI Artificial Inteligence Video Architecture 204

Steve Blank

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Filed under: Customer Development , Customer Development Manifesto , Market Types « “Lessons Learned” – A New Type of Venture Capital Pitch Closure » 21 Responses Tweets that mention Times Square Strategy Session – Web Startups and Customer Development « Steve Blank -- Topsy.com , on November 16, 2009 at 7:20 am Said: [.]

Customer Development 219

Customer Development Web Developer Customer 219