View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2021

What Are Your Valuation Expectations? But mainly we did it because these corporate VCs were among the only groups willing to invest at PayPal’s somewhat inflated post-money valuation, during the middle of the dot-com crash when traditional VCs pulled back sharply and other sources of funding were constrained.” ” (Rob Go).

Seed Stage 177

Seed Stage Hiring IPO Analytics 177

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2017

I read commentary or Twitter or blogs and realize that there are also strongly held convictions that there are these evil VCs who do terrible things to mostly altruistic founders. But unlike the popular press reporting of this conflict — 80% of the time it is founder-to-founder conflict and not investor-to-founder conflict.

Cofounder 217

Cofounder Stock Options Equity Technical Review 217

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. I said that at the Founder Showcase, too. In addition to FOMO it is partly driven by massive increase in valuations for earlier-stage companies who raised money at bit seed prices but who still have product risk. This post originally ran on TechCrunch.

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 28, 2015

This article highlights their advice on issues ranging from financing to patent trolls: While startups may believe lawyers are too costly, working with one early on avoids potentially serious problems later. “And if you have a valuation cap; a higher cap is always better than a lower cap.” ” The Cost of Financing.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

There is a myth among first time tech founders that product is everything. Here are five financial concepts that every startup founder should know to build an everlasting company. Asset valuation. The concept of asset valuation may seem counterintuitive, but it is an important idea. Alpha generation.

Founder 118

Founder Valuation Dividend Startup 118

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

“Why do founders want to take the VCs’ money? The constraint between good ideas and growth operates in both directions. Founders will continue to take the “growth at all options” path that leads to privacy & trust creep at places like Quora. Growth, again. Grow or die.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. Every Flexible VC structure allows founders to access immediate risk capital while preserving exit, growth trajectory, and ownership optionality. . Payments are commonly delayed for a grace period of 12-36 months.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

YoungUpstarts

MAY 14, 2018

Marks, founder and managing partner of High Rock Partners and author of “ Middle Market M & A: Handbook for Investment Banking and Business Consulting “ Conventional wisdom says that a company grows by reaching new customers, increasing its workforce, expanding marketing or launching new products or services. by Kenneth H.

Acquisition 124

Acquisition Finance Raleigh Mezzanine 124

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 16, 2020

Business valuation is defined as a way to determine the overall economic value of a company , and is a necessary component of a sound business plan and strategy. Any of these situations will demand a valuation to determine current and future projected value. . Three Methods of Valuation. Life happens to all of us.

Valuation 162

Valuation CPA Software Review Revenue 162

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2021

Many of his original investors still remember when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg first related his personal challenge to only eat meat that he killed himself, in an effort to learn sustainable farming and consume resources responsibly. Offer an attractive and viable investment equation. Display real commitment to a plan, with milestones.

Intellectual Property 352

Intellectual Property Equity Bootstrapping Valuation 352

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

Currently, most ecommerce businesses have IT staff constantly running manual tests to confirm that their site is operating properly, or they manually create expensive software to run these tests. Takeaway lesson: A shocking number of technology startups never even get their first product out the door. His first capital raise was a $2.75

Private Equity 94

Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Industry or Operating Experience? I know many VCs who don’t have operating experience and frankly some of them are fantastic. When you look at a deal so much of what you’re trying to understand are the skills, resiliency , work ethic, motivation and team dynamics of the founders. Now you’re talking.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 26, 2016

The key to being able to run a business that isn’t yet profitable (on operating margin) is availability of capital to finance losses and preferably at a cost that isn’t too punitive to the founders and employees. This can be a spectacular situation IF there is freely available capital to fund the company at good valuations.

Metrics 150

Metrics Cost Acquisition Startup 150

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 10, 2014

With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Offering debt is better than offering direct equity, especially in early stages when you have no valuation for setting equity percentages.

Founder 254

Founder Cram Down Angel Investor Equity 254

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2020

With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Offering debt is better than offering direct equity, especially in early stages when you have no valuation for setting equity percentages.

Management 308

Management Cram Down Angel Investor Equity 308

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 23, 2017

by Joe Duncan, founder of Duncan Capital LP. The combination of services and infrastructure traditionally housed under one roof – underwriting, research, sales & trading, supported by large back office operations, and monitored by compliance systems – will remain at the sector’s core. Underwriting.

Technical Review 154

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software Review IPO 154

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

Here’s the punchline: if you run your company as if you have closed a VC equity financing round even though you actually closed a convertible debt round, you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to raise your Series A financing. The investors, founders, and “community” are all super excited about ASC.

Burn Rate 152

Burn Rate Equity Software Review Early Stage 152

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

So when I tell you what I’m seeing in venture financing these days if you disagree with me, it might just be that we’re touching different parts of the elephant. Semil asserts, Seed-stage valuations have generally been left-unchanged, and I could argue even they’ve gone up since the beginning of 2022.

Cap Table 93

Cap Table Valuation Salary Seed Stage 93

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

of teams’ online pitch decks and recorded videos, as well as loved the dozens of second-round video conversations which we had with Founders working on quite compelling startups. Many of these Founders we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to connect with if we hadn’t launched this program.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations. Should VC’s really be impacted by public market valuations when the money that they’re investing today should be for returns in 7-10 years? Short answer – yes.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2022

I love working with great people and as a venture capitalist, am fortunate the number of founders I’m impressed by far exceeds our investment capacity. Here’s an example of a founder that I’ve known for a while who recently raised a seed round with different firms than ours. fundraise came about & why it didn’t include me (yet).

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Founder Acquisition Startup 89

www.entrepreneur.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

Entrepreneur Homepage Startups Starting a Business Home How-To Guides Startup Basics Business Ideas Business Planning Startup Financing Success Stories Home-Based Business Starting a Business Play Video How to Take a New Product from Just an Idea to a Business (Video). Financing Some Jobs Act Proposals Make Headway.

Sweat Equity 55

Sweat Equity Equity Fractional CTO CTO 55

The Startup Magazine

JUNE 1, 2023

By Daniel Sokolovksy, Co-Founder and CEO, WARP and Troy Lester, Co-Founder and CRO, WARP The dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was more than just a bank collapse, it was a reality check for both startups and the VCs that fund them. As a founder, ask yourself – does your business actually warrant VC funding?

Early Stage 112

Early Stage Los Angeles Silicon Valley Cofounder 112

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. A pre-IPO board usually had two founders, two VCs and one “independent” member. Technology Cycles Measured in Years.

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Steve Blank

MARCH 31, 2014

In fact, it was only 7 years ago that Apple shipped its first iPhone and Google introduced its Android operating system. Look at the valuations of companies like Tesla, Illumina, and Twitter. The companies that can show “startup-like” growth rates of 50% plus per year will get stratospheric market valuations. Apple owned 0%.

Private Equity 325

Private Equity Metrics China Intellectual Property 325

Genuine VC

JULY 19, 2010

Initial investment in a company is among the first non-founder capital raised. The difference now is that given the structural changes in the market, seed-stage investors are more likely to be rewarded in valuation given the value which is created during this segment of the company’s life cycle.

Seed Stage 175

Seed Stage Technical Review Dilution Offshore 175

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

Other angel investors and smaller funds also copied this innovation, and many of these new Micro-VC fund managers (like me) came from operational backgrounds at companies like PayPal/eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, or Google, rather than finance backgrounds from investment banking or Wall Street.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

The Startup Magazine

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

As a testament to the growing power of “the creator economy,” visual content creation app development startup Lightricks has secured an impressive $130 million investment round, at a valuation of $1.8 New investors Migdal Insurance, Altshuler Shaham, and Shavit Capital also participated in the round, closing off the action. Startup Journey.

Private Equity 144

Private Equity Developer Venture Capital Merger 144

Version One Ventures

DECEMBER 14, 2016

In other words, any correction in public valuations happened quickly and has now stabilized. From Series A and onwards, fundraising takes longer and valuations are typically below the expectations and benchmarks of 2015. We expect that the financing scene in 2017 will look very similar to 2016. for the last two years.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Early Stage Portfolio Valuation 60

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 24, 2014

It’s for reasons like these that I support getting startup founders some liquidity during their company’s first few years, perhaps as early as Series A financing when appropriate. At Homebrew we’ve backed many first time founders, many of whom have struck out on their own and are putting lots at risk.

Founder 108

Founder San Francisco Liquidity Event LP 108

Small Business Force

AUGUST 31, 2013

Picking a partner or co-founder isn't like finding a new friend. I came to find that they had differing ideas about timing, valuation, to whom they should sell and how long or whether they would stay with the company. Picking the right partner or co-founder for your business can portend whether that business succeeds or not.

Cofounder 40

Cofounder Partner Technical Review Founder 40

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Low supply of companies with traction drove the valuations and deal sizes up. So while the infrastructure cost and startup costs may have declined, the operating costs have increased. In that presentation, I said that Seed is not the first round of financing any more and that K9’s investments were mostly “pre-seed”.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds. Read on for a fuller explanation.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

I don’t know how it operates behind closed doors. Her background includes senior roles in both the banking and tech sectors, and she has launched four data businesses—including her current firm, New Frontier Data , which boasts a $20 million valuation and has received $5 million in funding. And if I tried to find out?

Venture Capital 82

Venture Capital Lean Cofounder Technical Review 82

Hunter Walker

MAY 4, 2014

Not every company is raising money at the valuation you modeled. We were always earnest in our interest and since our default engagement mode is to give feedback, I’d like to think that these meetings were of some value to the founders, but in more of these cases the initial partner should have applied more rigor and conviction.

Software Review 100

Software Review Vertical Seed Stage Portfolio 100

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

One of the questions I get, more often than not, is what is the appropriate valuation of my business. This is typically in conjunction with an upcoming financing or pending takeover offer. multiple interested investors competing for the deal, and driving up your valuation in the process). The more scarce a supply (e.g.,

Valuation 167

Valuation Forecast Seed Stage .Net 167

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 9, 2018

With “cash flow” obligations, investors receive a percentage of your operating cash flow (if any) until they have been repaid in full, or have achieved a specified percentage return on their investment. Offering debt is better than offering direct equity, especially in early stages when you have no valuation for setting equity percentages.

Cram Down 148

Cram Down Angel Investor Equity Dividend 148