Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2021

Often, the number one question that entrepreneurs fail to address is: “How much money do you need, and what valuation do you place on your company?” The key here is to create a win-win partner situation for your investors. Lack of clear objectives/goals. Then you have to have evidence to support your request.

Software Review 307

Software Review Due Diligence Elevator Pitch Early Stage 307

YoungUpstarts

MAY 1, 2020

by Ash Rust , founder and managing partner of Sterling Road. Given that mindset, it’s only natural that most entrepreneurs jump at the first chance they get to secure early-stage startup funding. Most startups will need a viable product and proof of credibility before they can expect early-stage investors to really bite.

Early Stage 165

Early Stage Security Angel Investor Lead Investor 165

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

As an early-stage company that just closed our seed round at $8.1 There are currently tons of “zombie” startups that have runway, but growth has slowed and they have valuations that they won’t be able to grow into. So what does an early-stage company do to avoid the doom and gloom plaguing the world of startups?

Early Stage 111

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 111

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: $35mm in Series C (extension of Series B at higher valuation) from General Atlantic, Matrix Partners.

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Investors may not be called co-founders, but they always get equity, commensurate with their share of the total costs anticipated, or share of the current valuation.

Equity 238

Equity Cofounder Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property 238

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

You might like to think that a bunch of savvy venture capitalists saw a market niche for raising smaller funds or perhaps there was a generational shift where disgruntled junior partners spun out of bigger firms to start their own gigs. Well, both of those things happened but they were lagging indicators.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. is to start with just the data.

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Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

Steve Blank

APRIL 23, 2014

Companies manage these three types of innovation with an innovation portfolio – they build innovation internally, they buy it or they partner with resources outside their company. Corporate business development and strategic partner executives are flocking to Silicon Valley to find these five types of innovation.

Acquisition 332

Acquisition Intellectual Property Silicon Valley Startup 332

NZ Entrepreneur

MAY 31, 2021

The Angel Association of New Zealand ( AANZ ) is co-hosting with New Zealand Growth Capital Partners ( NZGCP ) a series of workshops on early-stage investment. Jason Graham from Movac provided an early-stage venture capital fund perspective, detailing 35 investments made across 5 funds and 22 years.

Portfolio 81

Portfolio New Zealand Management Technical Review 81

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 26, 2013

Every early-stage startup should explore this new funding alternative. New “up-and-comer” VCs focus on early-stage companies. VCs are finding that they don’t need the “large” funds of $100M to $500M to support a portfolio, if they focus on early-stage startups.

Angel Investor 231

Angel Investor Entrepreneur Early Stage Silicon Valley 231

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

By contrast, they backed 620 funds in the last three months of 2021 First time fund managers hit hard: In 2022, limited partners backed 141 funds run by first-time managers, a 59% decline from the prior year and the lowest number since 2013 How does the constrained LP environment manifest for funds and startups? Luck favours the bold!

Venture Capital 215

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Institutional Investors 215

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 14, 2022

At this stage, the idea is pitched mainly to family and friends. A business plan is drawn up to attract investors and partners. At this stage, the founder mainly raises funding from their sources or family and friends. Here, the company’s valuation benchmark is set, and funding is solicited accordingly.

Technical Review 144

Technical Review Due Diligence India Startup 144

Steve Blank

JUNE 27, 2017

If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels. Uber – current valuation >$70 billion – knew the day they started that their ridesharing service violated the law in most jurisdictions.

Startup 275

Startup New York City Valuation Distribution 275

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational. That never would have happened 10 years ago.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. Future opportunity size doesn’t count in the early stages.

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

by Lu Zhang, founder and managing partner of Fusion Fund. 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.

Technical Review 140

Technical Review Due Diligence Early Stage Differentiation 140

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Using NextView as an example, since we both seek to lead the seed round and only lead during this round, I’ve seen this trend manifest in one of two ways: In a priced round, the entrepreneur will often share their valuation ask (or a stated floor) for the pre-money valuation of their company much sooner in the process.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

For early-stage startups, the goodwill component can easily exceed the size of all the financial elements together, or can just as easily mark a company with good financials as not investable. In the investment community, these leadership elements are often called “goodwill.” Focus on talent and people growth.

Leadership 120

Leadership Technical Review Due Diligence Valuation 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

They have too many highly paid partners, fat fees, an aging corporate infrastructure and difficulty raising money from institutions. As lifecycle investment partners, they have become weighted down with portfolios still recovering from the economic downturn. Super angels sometimes drive up valuations.

Angel Investor 342

Angel Investor Venture Capital Silicon Valley Portfolio 342

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 12, 2019

While the rewards may be a boon to their company in the short term, the consequences of accepting outside funding too early can be debilitating. There’s a reason why I refer to early-stage VC funding as vulture capital, and to be honest it’s pretty accurate. Money in Exchange for Control. It certainly was for us.

Early Stage 85

Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping Pre-Money Valuation 85

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2014

The next default of waiting until later is equally bad, since partners who bow out early will still expect an equal share of that first billion you make later. Investors may not be called co-founders, but they always get equity, commensurate with their share of the total costs anticipated, or share of the current valuation.

Cofounder 261

Cofounder Stock Founder Technical Cofounder 261

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

. $100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. We believe that this fund is the perfect size for us to be the best possible partners to early-stage entrepreneurs today.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

We are in a bubble (with so many private $1bn+ valuations). 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. Where are we today? ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 16, 2015

by John Vrionis, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. What’s critical for entrepreneurs to understand is that valuations for startups do not increase at a linear rate; they increase geometrically based on achieving the right milestones. It’s part art, part science.

Valuation 100

Valuation Dilution Chicago Technical Review 100

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. 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. Yes, via conversion rights at a valuation cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

Every early-stage startup should explore this new funding alternative. New “up-and-comer” VCs focus on early-stage companies. VCs are finding that they don’t need the “large” funds of $100M to $500M to support a portfolio, if they focus on early-stage startups.

Technical Review 215

Technical Review Early Stage Venture Capital Startup 215

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. As always a balanced perspective is in order.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

ReadWriteStart

JULY 15, 2020

New talk of capital efficiency is gratifying, but there was another lesson from pre-COVID-19 valuation struggles. Venture capitalists and early-stage investors have told all of us, founders are critical to a startup’s valuation. Remember Morality Impacts Valuation appeared first on ReadWrite. Morality matters.

Valuation 91

Valuation South Carolina San Jose Balance Sheet 91

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2017

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Provides networking with cofounders and strategic partners. In today’s fast moving market, the basic product development cost and time are critical to survival.

Technical Cofounder 153

Technical Cofounder Intellectual Property Wiki Cofounder 153

Genuine VC

JULY 9, 2013

Although these startups are very diverse businesses themselves, they face similar requirements (especially in that they’re currently all in the seed to Series B range of company stage). And the results were pretty interesting, especially as they clustered with meaningful overlap among companies.

Early Stage 246

Early Stage Boston Portfolio Silicon Valley 246

VC Cafe

AUGUST 2, 2022

As an early stage investor in the world of gaming and metaverse technology at Remagine Ventures, I find these companies have the potential to set the agenda, become the potential platforms for developers building in this space and future acquirers/consolidators of startups building the next generation of the Internet.

IP 206

IP Cofounder Valuation Acquisition 206

Steve Blank

MAY 29, 2011

Max and his partners interviewed and analyzed over 650 early-stage Internet startups. Today they released the first Startup Genome Report — a 67 page in-depth analysis on what makes early-stage Internet startups successful. longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of 2 and they are 2.3x

Technical Cofounder 333

Technical Cofounder Early Stage Startup Silicon Valley 333

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 17, 2013

Often, the number one question that entrepreneurs fail to address is: “How much money do you need, and what valuation do you place on your company?” The key here is to create a win-win partner situation for your investors. Lack of clear objectives/goals. Then you have to have evidence to support your request.

Software Review 265

Software Review Due Diligence Elevator Pitch Startup 265

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. Future opportunity size doesn’t count in the early stages.

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

They come at the early stage while a startup has no revenue or valuation, so professional investors are hard to find. Network with potential cofounders and strategic partners. Here are some key positives from an entrepreneur perspective: Shorten the time and cost from idea to prototype.

Startup 397

Startup Cofounder Incubator Early Stage 397

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Make sure your plan answers every relevant question that you could possibly imagine from your business partners, spouse, and potential investors. Intellectual property is a large element of most early-stage company valuations, and this value determines what percent of the company an investor will expect to get for his money.

Intellectual Property 281

Intellectual Property Entrepreneur Sweat Equity CTO Hire 281

View from Seed

MAY 2, 2019

This is the logical path that one would think is pretty “standard” for early stage companies. My experience is that YC partners tend to encourage founders to hold off on taking more money shortly after getting into YC, arguing that their value will increase significantly in just a few months. The Pre-seed to Pre-traction A.

Early Stage 214

Early Stage Dilution Valuation .Net 214