View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Traction is a biweekly podcast where founders share the creative or unusual things they did during the seed stage to make early progress. In the 10th edition of Traction, we hear the story of Vin Vacanti , co-founder/CEO of Yipit.com (daily deals aggregator) and YipitData (analyzes web data for institutional investors).

Framework 120

Framework Cofounder Seed Stage B2C 120

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. Pitch to your advisors, to US entrepreneurs, to your colleagues, wife, what not. And what do the investors think?

Silicon Valley 104

Silicon Valley Startup Seed Stage Delaware 104

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

That suggests, potentially, more early stage capital for entrepreneurs. As a VC and angel investor, I believe deeply in entrepreneurs. I want to see as many of them launch new businesses as possible, so I’m all for facile access to more early stage capital for more young companies.

Equity 100

Equity United Kingdom Cap Table Oklahoma 100

Rob Go

OCTOBER 14, 2012

Although the resumes of these founders differ quite a bit, for the most part, we back entrepreneurs with deeply authentic founding stories and a strong focus on product. Early Progress: Performance is a difficult thing to measure as a seed stage fund given the time horizons and the fickleness of private company valuations.

New Hampshire 50

New Hampshire Croatia Omaha Portfolio 50

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

Mark: But Dan, I want to say, your language, you have to be careful about not coming across as a grumpy entrepreneur. Venture capitalists are raising money from other investors, institutional investors who expect certain returns from us. So VCs invest in different stages. I bootstrapped it on my own.

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

K9 Ventures

MAY 14, 2011

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. This is probably the very first group that an entrepreneur who is starting out may approach for some funding for his or her idea.

Preferred Stock 125

Preferred Stock Seed Stage Incubator Early Stage 125

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 21, 2012

We’re thrilled to have among our limited partners a select group of individuals from the startup ecosystem as well as several large institutional investors (including a university endowment, a corporate pension fund, and a multi-family office). As many of you know, NextView is a seed-stage VC fund. Best of luck.

LP 100

LP Seed Stage Silicon Valley Limited Partner 100

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 2, 2014

Non-institutional Leads. I’ve seen a few cases now where a number of very high-quality institutional investors were interested in investing in a company at valuation, but a non-institutional investor was willing to set terms 1.5 – 2X higher than that valuation. But those are short lived.

Cram Down 66

Cram Down Institutional Investors Dilution Seed Stage 66

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 21, 2014

17 core investments have been made, I’d say our investment model was, and continues to be, consistent with the type of firm we want to build but if you’re not constantly evaluating how to get better and serve entrepreneurs, you won’t last very long in the early stage venture business.

Cofounder 102

Cofounder Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 102

K9 Ventures

MARCH 23, 2011

There has been a lot of noise in the Valley lately about how most seed stage deals are now being done as convertible notes. Before the era of capped notes, entrepreneurs preferred to do notes because the note essentially deferred the valuation of the company.

Pre-Money Valuation 132

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Equity Liquidation Preference 132

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

We focus on investing in seed stage companies. We almost always invest in the first round of institutional capital for these companies, in rounds that range from approximately $500K – $2M. But we behave pretty much exactly the same way in those companies as we do when we are the lead and only institutional investor.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

grasshopperherder.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

As such, you should make sure to think of the proposals as an investor and get a reasonable term sheet. Please note: I am not an institutional investor and I am not a consultant although I occasionally dabble/consult in projects I find particularly interesting. Here are some of my favorite things to avoid. User Experience (4).

Sweat Equity 41

Sweat Equity Equity Cofounder Non-Compete 41