View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

Think of your seed capital as a way to empower you to reach that important milestone in order to raise the next round immediately after … not leave you just shy of the interim prize. This constant state of fundraising can be draining on a founder/CEO and detrimental to the company. Don’t raise as much. Account for optics.

Seed Capital 120

Seed Capital Seed Stage Demand Finance 120

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2011

Finance Friday’s gets off the ground with today’s post by introducing you to an imaginary startup, the entrepreneurs that we’ll being following throughout the series, and their first challenges: splitting up the founders’ equity and addressing the case where one of the founders provides the initial seed capital for the business.

Equity 137

Equity Finance Pre-Money Valuation Denver 137

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

When seeking equity investments, the source of capital is, for the most part, tied to the stage of capital being raised. You see, equity capital is raised in stages or rounds. Pre-Seed Funding 2. Seed Funding 3. The five main stages include the following: 1. Series C, D, etc.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 15, 2013

Provide some sort of seed capital to their founders. Take a small amount of equity (usually ~6%) and overall have terms that are favorable to entrepreneurs. Not every accelerator is/could be/would be a member in GAN, nor is it designed that way. Take no less than 5 and no more than 12 companies at a time.

Global 179

Global Networking United States Seed Money 179

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 9, 2018

Raising seed capital is a tricky business. Most are making major mistakes in their approach when seeking capital. In their quest for sustainable growth, the elusive dream for most first time founders is that first funding. High growth startup companies need seed money to get things going. Option Two: Post-Launch?—?Raise

Technical Cofounder 20

Technical Cofounder Silicon Valley Early Stage Cofounder 20

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

Raising Seed Capital. Most startup founders do not have enough capital to launch their companies and need to raise money at some point. Among the most common methods of funding used by startups when raising seed capital is “Convertible Debt Financing.” 2) Giving equity in the company.

Finance 93

Finance Accredited Investor Angel Investor Seed Capital 93

YoungUpstarts

APRIL 12, 2016

by Anand Srinivasan, founder of LeadJoint.com. Most businesses – online or offline, need seed capital to get established and without access to these funds, launching a business can seem like an improbable dream. Unless your business idea is to launch an oil rig, you do not need huge capital investments.

Cofounder 100

Cofounder Sweat Equity Startup Seed Capital 100

Haystack

SEPTEMBER 2, 2018

If you have conviction : invest and help the founder finish their round with good intros to other investors. Most of the rounds I participate in today are priced equity rounds. There is a process the founder goes through, he or she collects interest, and then works on closing the round with their lawyers at a fixed time.

Seed Stage 76

Seed Stage Seed Capital Equity Europe 76

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2012

Define equity type. The first capital a young company receives usually takes the form of common stock, the same class of shares the founders hold. These “IV drip” financings may reduce risk for investors, but put more pressure on founders. But the lead Angel would certainly ask to be given a seat.

Term Sheet 223

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Post-Money Valuation 223

Gust

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

It should therefore come as no surprise that an asymmetry of information exists, mostly gleaned from experience, between founders and investors in a venture financing deal. A group led by Ted Wang is trying to change that with the innovative Series Seed documents , which I’ll discuss in a future post.)

Finance 178

Finance Term Sheet Preferred Stock Bridge Financing 178

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Define equity type. The first capital a young company receives usually takes the form of common stock, the same class of shares the founders hold. These “IV drip” financings may reduce risk for investors, but put more pressure on founders. But the lead angel would certainly ask to be given a seat.

Term Sheet 227

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Post-Money Valuation 227

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

One of the best and most positive movements proliferating around the tech community is what Product Hunt founder and CEO Ryan Hoover calls “building in public.” – Flowchart: Seed VC Decision Tree (how one seed investor gets to yes or no). – Checklist: Critical to-do’s immediately after raising seed capital.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Seed Capital Syndicate Syndication 120

Austin Startup

APRIL 28, 2019

Mitch Marchand, founder of Vybe Software, working at Sputnik ATX accelerator in Austin, TX First off, and full disclosure, I operate an accelerator program (Sputnik ATX) and have strong opinions on this subject as a participant in the “helping startups” market. Giving up equity for a desk is a sub-optimal business decision.

Incubator 50

Incubator Equity Programming Cloud 50

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

How to finance a new seed-stage startup? Convertible equity? ” Ressi in particular seems to be passionate about removing the “debt” component from convertible debt seed financing transactions. .” Convertible debt? As of August 2010, Paul Graham famously proclaimed , “Convertible notes have won.

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

Haystack

AUGUST 18, 2019

More and more seed capital has flooded into the market, making the situation for funding seed rounds ~$2M-ish total size more competitive. When more capital is chasing the same set, entry prices go up and returns are likely to go down.

Seed Stage 108

Seed Stage Cap Table Early Stage Malaysia 108

Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2011

Define equity type. The first capital a young company receives usually takes the form of common stock, the same class of shares the founders hold. These “IV drip” financings may reduce risk for investors, but put more pressure on founders. But the lead angel would certainly ask to be given a seat.

Term Sheet 158

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Post-Money Valuation 158

Haystack

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

4/ The Big Winners: Cylance raised around ~$280M in financing, with large equity stakeholders being Khosla Ventures, Fairhaven, and Blackstone. The company only raised a bit over $1M as seed capital. 5/ The Crowd Saw X, We Saw Y: One of my favorite quotes about startups and technology comes from Instagram’s co-founder Systrom.

Acquisition 62

Acquisition Artificial Inteligence Balance Sheet Cofounder 62

Business Plan Blog

DECEMBER 10, 2013

The most important principle of startup fundraising that every entrepreneur needs to know is: raise enough capital to achieve a set of milestones that will allow the company to attract the next round of investment. Below are the milestones that you will need to achieve in order to attract seed investment from Angels: Business Plan.

Angel Investor 55

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Seed Capital Advisory Board 55

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 12, 2011

When we were last with Dick and Jane on Finance Fridays, our fearless entrepreneurs were figuring out how to split up their founders equity and account for an investment from Jane. While they’ve been hard at work on their product, they’ve also incorporated the company, now named SayAhh (thanks Mac!)

Balance Sheet 136

Balance Sheet Forecast Cap Table Early Stage 136

Gust

OCTOBER 5, 2011

In case it isn’t clear by now, angel investors aren’t in the business of making risky early stage investments in order to earn 6% interest on their money, or even 10%— the upside is all in conversion to equity—so the interest rate isn’t a major point of negotiation. These deal terms are simple but significant.

Finance 79

Finance Preferred Stock Term Sheet Early Stage 79

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

To catch you up, here’s a brief summary of TinySeed: TinySeed is a remote accelerator designed for SaaS founders seeking mentorship from world-class experts, community with other talented founders, and enough funding to live for a year. And in exchange for this $6k-$18k and mentorship, YC asked for 7% equity.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

An entrepreneur starts a company in classic " bootstrap " fashion - with a combination of sweat equity and their own financial resources. First, look for " one and done " financings - companies that need just one round of outside capital to propel them to positive cash flow.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Business Plan Blog

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

The most important principle of startup fundraising that every entrepreneur needs to know is: raise enough capital to achieve a set of milestones that will allow the company to attract the next round of investment. While all of these milestones are vital to the success of raising seed capital, market validation is towards the top of the list.

Intellectual Property 55

Intellectual Property Advisory Board Startup Seed Capital 55

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2015

My guests on Bay Area Ventures on Wharton Business Radio on Sirius XM Channel 111 were: Errol Arkilic , former program director for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps), now founder of M34 Capital. Venk Shukla , president TiE Silicon Valley and general partner, Monta Vista Capital.

Government 120

Government Channel Southern California Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

But when the finally convert the debt to equity the round gets filed with the SEC and thus journalists often pick up on it. 5mm in Series A – Investors: GRP (Mark Suster)(lead), Greycroft Partners (Dana Settle), and Matt Coffin (founder of LowerMyBills) – Read more: TechCrunch , SoCalTech. They also avoid Reg D.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

Business Plan Blog

OCTOBER 4, 2013

One recipe for failure (business failure and capital raising failure) is building a lopsided team weighted to one function of the business. If you have a technical background and you are focused on product development, consider a co-founder with a sales and marketing background that can focus on selling your world class product.

Part-Time VPE 79

Part-Time VPE Fractional VPE Cofounder CTO Hire 79

The Next Web

OCTOBER 3, 2012

Andrew is the co-founder and CTO of Parse.ly , a technology startup that provides big data insights to the web’s best publishers. He wrote: When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Andrew Montalenti.

Cofounder 155

Cofounder Technical Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 155

www.thestartup.eu

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Posted by Stefano Bernardi On June - 21 - 2010 It’s a known fact that seed capital is very scarce in Italy. Sweat Equity: Juliette and Marco put in a bit of work during weekends as project managers, designers, developers, sysadmins, etc. TheStartup.eu Meet Tipsandtrip. CEO Marco Magnocavallo. Total: $8,350.

Bootstrapping 49

Bootstrapping Italy Sweat Equity Europe 49

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

Whats is the best way to find a co-founder for your startup? However, one of my co-founders doesn’t seem to be as motivated as the rest of us. As founders invest massive amounts of time into their start-up, how critical is it for them to come out of their “hermit caves” and network? Non of this academic stuff.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

Feld Thoughts

JULY 14, 2015

A company raises $1m of seed money from angels in a convertible note with a $6m cap. Assuming equity is raised at or above that cap, the total dilution, before the new money, is 16.6% (equivalent to an equity financing of $1m at a $6m post money valuation. But in this cycle, I hadn’t seen it in a seed round.

Recapitalization 70

Recapitalization Pre-Money Valuation Post-Money Valuation Angel Investor 70

VC Cafe

JULY 5, 2010

A s venture funds struggle to raise money in Israel, seed capital, one of the earliest and riskiest stages of investment, is becoming harder and harder to secure. VC Cafe: There has been a drastic rise in the number of funds offering seed (or super seed) capital in recent months, especially in the valley.

Technical Review 106

Technical Review Software Review Seed Stage 106

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Researchers polled experts in lending, mezzanine capital, private equity, venture capital and private businesses themselves. Not a big shock, but things don’t look pretty, especially in the venture capital world. Been there Done that This is very depressing for all future founders, or even currently early stage founders.

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

Hearpreneur

OCTOBER 20, 2019

And unlike other fintech companies that are primarily equity-financed, we raise capital by offering a best in class savings product to consumers (a 1 month renewable CD that pays 6% APY), which in turn allows us to meet our short term capital needs required for loan origination. 12- Raising $500,000 in pre-seed capital.

Papua New Guinea 64

Papua New Guinea Hawaii Advisory Board Churn Rate 64