Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. Limited Partners or LPs (the people who invest into VC funds) have taken notice as 2014 is by all accounts the busiest year for LPs since the Great Recession began. The “big boom” in startup financing started around March 2009?—?more more than 5 years ago?—?and

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

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

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

After the recent announcement of the Series Seed Financing documents by Marc Andreesen, Brad Feld points out that there are now four sets of “open source&# equity seed financing documents: TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley). Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR).

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

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. But this financing contour description is just a proxy for underlying business metrics. We at NextView Ventures believe that the seed stage is a spectrum. A continuum.

Seed Stage 247

Seed Stage Finance Dilution Early Stage 247

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

As high-conviction, seed stage investors, we are inherently relationship-driven, and we value meeting exceptional founders face-to-face. Kent Bennett from Bessemer Venture Partners spoke to this initial slow down: “ We couldn’t do anything until we understood the new normal. You lose that online.

Venture Capital 350

Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 350

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

For the last couple of years, I’ve been investing in startups as a partner at Mucker, while spending a lot of time in the Valley working with potential co-investors and partners. By the time the venture financing topic is broached, they already have significant traction for their business.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. Seed stage was super tough.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

But the emphasis of our program is the direct one-on-one interaction with NextView partners to help push the company forward. The partners at NextView hold sessions more than once per week to push the participants’ thinking and actions to strive towards making significant advances finding true-product market fit.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

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. Market Value.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 22, 2012

Let’s start out with the basic functions of a tech company: 1) Engineering 2) Marketing 3) Sales 4) Business development 5) PR 6) Design 7) Product Management 8) HR 9) Operations 10) Finance Ok, that's just overwhelming. When the product is early and still pivoting, these are kind of the same thing. Ready to start simplifying?

PR 144

PR Technical Review Seed Stage Design 144

Women Entrepreneurs Can

NOVEMBER 19, 2022

A Venture Capital Firm is a firm that invests in startups and early-stage companies. Early-Stage Investments vs. Mid-Stage Investments. Investing in a startup company carries a high degree of risk, particularly at the early stage. Pre-Seed Investments.

Venture Capital 52

Venture Capital Early Stage Liquidity Event SEC 52

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

What’s the difference between an angel round and pre-seed round and why do I believe we’ll see more pre-seed rounds taking place in 2024? While the answers are somewhat semantic, the pre-seed funding round is making a comeback in 2024 startup financing. Seed is about showing initial product market fit.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

How to finance a new seed-stage startup? ” Ressi in particular seems to be passionate about removing the “debt” component from convertible debt seed financing transactions. .” A convertible note financing is not a loan in the conventional sense. Convertible debt?

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2012

We at NextView Ventures often invest in a startup’s first round alongside other funds; either seed stage focused ones like ourselves or larger traditional firms. Addressing both of those issues can stem from the motivations as to why someone would want to put their hard-earned cash into a risky early-stage startup in the first place.

Angel Investor 257

Angel Investor Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 257

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 99

Syndicate Syndication South America Seed Stage 99

Feld Thoughts

MAY 8, 2012

Yesterday I sent emails out passing on participating in two seed rounds for companies I really like. They had lots of investors trying to invest and each company was competitive with two other seed stage companies we’ve seen in the past 30 days. Finally, we believe strongly in active engagement as a seed investor.

Seed Stage 138

Seed Stage LP Warrant Syndicate 138

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2011

I strongly believe (at least for very early stage technology ventures) that you will get diminishing returns and arguably negative returns once you get past an initial threshold of team, product, market and financial diligence. I immediately jumped up and called "b t". This could include 2 short meetings and a couple of phone calls.

Technical Review 31

Technical Review Due Diligence Silicon Valley San Jose 31

K9 Ventures

MAY 14, 2011

In my view the terminology being used for early stage investors by the press and the media is not as clear as it should be. I’ve talked about this on several occasions when I’ve been at conference and on panels, but I figured it would make sense to do a post explaining my taxonomy of the early-stage investing world.

Preferred Stock 125

Preferred Stock Seed Stage Incubator Early Stage 125

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 12, 2012

We at NextView Ventures often invest in a startup’s first round alongside other funds; either seed stage focused ones like ourselves or larger traditional firms. Addressing both of those issues can stem from the motivations as to why someone would want to put their hard-earned cash into a risky early-stage startup in the first place.

Angel Investor 128

Angel Investor Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 128

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

It continues to be highly dependent on company, stage, and location. At the early stages, raising the first $2m tends to be straightforward in most geographies that have meaningful startup communities. Most importantly from my frame of reference, the amount of activity at the early and seed stage seems to be extremely robust.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Private Equity Early Stage Valuation 70

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

And that product is a highly engaged seed-stage investment where we are usually the lead or co-lead in a round and will often take a board seat. So, the bar will be different for each investor, and for very early stage fundraising, the goal is to find true believers more than convincing skeptics. (My

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120

Business Plan Blog

JANUARY 2, 2014

government’s long standing restrictions on fundraising has given life to a new type of financing called crowdfunding that allows Angel and other early stage investors to quickly assemble a group of investors over the internet. An easing on some of the U.S.

Angel Groups 51

Angel Groups Accredited Investor Angel Investor Due Diligence 51

The Next Web

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

which will help with recruiting employees, finding the best partners, fast-tracking distribution in key countries, and landing marquee customers. Unlike other countries, China’s business environment is quite insular and having the right investors can be the reason you’re able to connect with important potential customers or partners.

Asia 123

Asia Silicon Valley India China 123

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

We’ve also worked with our Partner, Dana Kibler who is also our CFO for nearly 20 years. Obviously the funding environment has changed considerably in 2022 but as early-stage investors our daily jobs stay largely unchanged. Venture capital is a talent game, which starts with the team that’s inside Upfront.

San Francisco 408

San Francisco Early Stage Venture Capital Los Angeles 408

www.seriesseed.com

MARCH 2, 2010

SeriesSeed.com Series Seed Financing Documents Blog Home Documents Blog Archives Subscribe 09/02/2010 Version 2.0 and why Series Seed Documents are better than capped convertible notes “First they ignore you. of the Series Seed Documents as well as a red-line showing the changes I’ve made from the original set. 

Finance 58

Finance Term Sheet Equity Aggregator 58

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

Out of hundreds of applications, we selected six pre-seed stage teams building companies shaping a brighter collective future by combining software and creativity to drive change in the lives of everyday people — their businesses include everything from empowering local main street businesses to making automobile insurance more accessible.

Seed Stage 285

Seed Stage Programming Finance B2B 285

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

In October, we held our annual Limited Partners meeting at NextView. From the seed stage perspective, what we’ve seen this year is that the definition of a seed round has broadened considerably. This is happening because many series A investors are not really investing in early stage companies any more.

Later Stage 28

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Ratchet 28

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 13, 2010

On July 27th, 2001 Accenture IPO’s and many of the partners grew fabulously wealthy. Investment in training, adherence to process, global knowledge sharing systems, quality control / partner reviews and campus recruitment programs that attracted the right talent. The things that always differentiated Accenture?

Turkey 302

Turkey Differentiation IP Technical Review 302

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

Amidst the mass of new initiatives, new firms, new strategies, etc that constantly pop up in the early stage investing landscape, it’s helpful to have a clear articulation of what VC’s are focused on and how they see the world. We focus on investing in seed stage companies. Stage: Pre Product: 12.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2023

We wholeheartedly believe in the potential of each company we select; the smaller batch size allows the NextView partners, who possess deep operating and founding experiences at companies like LinkedIn, PayPal, eBay, and Blue Apron, the space to spend meaningful one-on-one time with each founder every single week.

Programming 156

Programming Sacramento San Francisco Founder 156

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Usually financial metrics are pretty sparse at early stages and investors have a hard time giving companies “credit” for steady, linear progress. For seed stage companies, typically, it’s about: Compelling founder(s). We’ve seen high-flying financings on companies that just have traction.

Business Model 65

Business Model Seed Stage Valuation Vertical 65

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

Luckily, I teach with two great VCs, Mar Hershenson of Pear Ventures and Jeff Epstein of Bessemer Venture Partners who both put together presentations unraveling the mysteries of how and why startups raise money. For startups the early stage funding landscape looks like this: Step 1: The Pre-seed round – you raise $100-$750K.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 15, 2020

Robert and I talked about how it's working, the science of pseudoviruses and reporter genes, how his father's example in science and business set him on his path, and how to bridge the gap between science and finance. I'm general partner at MarsBio VC and Director of The Corona Initiative. Here is my conversation with Robert Rhinehart.

Technical Review 68

Technical Review Software Review Finance Technology 68

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

Jussi Laakkonen , CEO & founder of Applifie, summarized it well: We recently raised our seed round at Applifier and it was led by a silicon valley seed fund MHS Capital, whose general partner is Mark Sugarman. If you are in the very early stages with your company and there are no major reasons (e.g.

Silicon Valley 104

Silicon Valley Startup Seed Stage Delaware 104

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

With new micro VC entrants into to early-stage investing plus increased competition from angels, incubators and the like – traditional VCs have taken notice. So VCs spent a couple of years experimenting with earlier-stage investing, which is OK. The Explosion in Early-Stage Innovation. There are also others.

Venture Capital 296

Venture Capital Software LP Early Stage 296

Professor VC

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

My first reaction is incredulity that limited partners would buy into this idea. Seed stage investing is all about the team, so there may be something to this idea. Labels: entrepreneur , seed investing , venture capital , venture financing. I also teach Entrepreneurial Finance at San Jose State. at 1:42 PM.

San Jose 28

San Jose Silicon Valley Venture Capital Angel Investor 28

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 12, 2011

million in venture financing. No doubt early-stage companies can be started on a shoestring by low-paid entrepreneurs, but when financing a scalable, sustainable product, a free application server won’t make much of a difference. In fact, it’s barely even the beginning for most companies in their seed stage financings.

Startup 79

Startup Social Media RSS Social Network 79