View from Seed

MAY 11, 2016

Investors love the idea of backing second-time founders, especially if they have had success in their last company. etc… In addition, first-time founders I speak to often talk about how much they have learned and how they resolve to do things differently and better the next time. Is there a sophomore slump to avoid?

Founder 159

Founder Cofounder CTO Hire Early Stage 159

Steve Blank

APRIL 26, 2022

They offered desperate founders more cash but insisted on new terms, rewriting all the old stock agreements that previous investors and employees had. For existing investors, sometimes it was a “pay-to-play” i.e. if you don’t participate in the new financing you lose. W hy would any founder agree to this? They’re Back.

Cram Down 404

Cram Down Founder Venture Capital Recapitalization 404

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 26, 2019

Unlike many other aspects of personal finance, student loan is incredibly complex. When I first met Will Sealy , co-founder and CEO of Summer , two things jumped out to me – his knowledge and his passion. The post Meet Summer: Our Portfolio Company Changing The Student Loan Landscape appeared first on NextView Ventures.

Portfolio 295

Portfolio Cofounder Government Finance 295

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2021

David is still one of the most active angel investors in New York, and also the CEO of Gust , which is an online platform for startup financing used by 800,000 entrepreneurs over the years, providing access to 85,000 angel investment professionals. Rose, according to his classic book, “ Angel Investing.” What ends up, usually went down first.

Angel Investor 361

Angel Investor Accredited Investor IRR Angel Groups 361

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

Foundry Group is best known for our investments in startups, but our vehicle currently investing in other venture funds, Foundry Group Next, is off to what we believe to be a great start and I wanted to share an update about it by talking about our new investment in a fund managed by Founder Collective.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2018

I left the meeting and had to attend a 3-hour board meeting where two founders have been fighting and each want the other one fired. After my board meeting I had to do an interview with a CFO candidate that one of my portfolio companies asked me to speak with. Wednesday I have 4 companies coming in to talk about their companies.

Software Review 381

Software Review Churn Rate Due Diligence New York 381

VC Adventure

JUNE 14, 2022

Indeed, many firms even institutionalize the practice of providing help to portfolio companies through extensive platforms that may include PR, talent, marketing, technical, and other help (sometimes offered for free, sometimes offered ads a pay-for-service, but often at below-market rates for those services). The answer may surprise you.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Due Diligence Portfolio Venture Capital 150

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 12, 2017

by Andriy Skoropad, co-founder & CEO at Perfectial. Some claim that all possible interactions of finance and technology, which I guess includes credit cards – the 1950’s invention, are FinTech. “Why There’s no longer a need for aspiring entrepreneurs to visit banks or even seek for investors to get financed.

Ruby 210

Ruby Cofounder Finance Campaign 210

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

Obvious caveats to my POV here, most specifically: exposure is limited to largely the US/SiliconValley ecosystem, driven by our own portfolio, my friends and co-investors, the funds I’m a LP in, and our institutional LP relationships. ” That is, for the class of funds institutional LPs tend to back, on average, where was bottom?

Portfolio 98

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 98

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 9, 2021

Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. The founders of each company talked and, in between efforts to decimate the other, agreed it might be worth merging to survive. It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000.

Fractional CTO 195

Fractional CTO Cofounder Startup Lead Investor 195

View from Seed

DECEMBER 4, 2019

One or two of the best companies may continue to appreciate, but most of a VC’s portfolio has probably been realized, written off, or has maxed out its value. The longer the portfolio maintains the same value without distributing back cash, the worse the fund’s ultimate IRR. This would suggest that TVPI would be performing well.

LP 256

LP IRR Distribution Portfolio 256

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

why the hell has seed financing declined so much in the past 3 years?? And this era ushered in by Amazon changed everything from the age of founders to the skill sets required to the structure of the VC industry and even to the layout of cities (yes, I would proclaim that boldly that Amazon AWS affected city development).

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 1, 2022

We recently wrote about why we’re so excited about Bikky and Abhinav Kapur (a mission-driven founder!). . Lolli was honoured by Fast Company as one of the best-designed finance apps of 2022, as chosen by Fast Company editors and an expert jury of design professionals as part of Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Phoenix Portland Europe 60

Hunter Walker

JUNE 7, 2014

And my sense is the trend carries outside of our portfolio these days. Founders are building small, focused teams based on people they worked with previously and referrals from their networks. Not because they’re all operating in stealth or pre-product – in fact some already are earning $1m+ in revenue per annum.

Technical Review 117

Technical Review CTO Hire Finance Stealth 117

Hunter Walker

MARCH 3, 2022

Maybe there’ll even be a screencap of their pass email, or similar ‘proof’ that they were in conversation with the founders during their fundraises. Then you talk to said founders and they’re like, yeah, we never really engaged with that firm and probably wouldn’t have taken their money anyway given the options we had. Oh wait, I did.

Portfolio 87

Portfolio IPO Email Founder 87

Version One Ventures

MARCH 3, 2021

Over the past eight months, many companies in the Version One portfolio have released funding announcements including Uniswap , Jam , SilviaTerra , Patch , Premadonna , Cap Hill Brands , Opyn and Cape Privacy. Founder’s announcement. Arguably, the most powerful piece of content that can be written is by you, the founder.

Social Media 147

Social Media Technical Review Term Sheet PR 147

David Teten

AUGUST 19, 2019

RBI normally requires founders to pay back their investors with a fixed percentage of revenue until they have finished providing the investor with a fixed return on capital, which they agree upon in advance. For background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. Bigfoot Capital.

Revenue 60

Revenue Technical Review Software Review Equity 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

I first met Andrew Stalbow , the founder & CEO of Seriously in August of 2013. On August 26th I had an equally effusive intro from Ynon Kreiz, also a friend, trusted source and also the CEO of portfolio company Maker Studios. But I’m guessing the narrative is similar elsewhere. He hit me from two very trusted sources.

Technical Review 373

Technical Review North America Los Angeles Cofounder 373

Version One Ventures

APRIL 6, 2021

Despite the obvious challenges, we ended 2020 on a strong note and, so far, our portfolio family has been riding a huge momentum wave. 2021 is proving to be an incredible year across our portfolio – from big funding announcements to significant product developments. Preemadonna raised over $5M in seed financing. A strategic $2.7M

Portfolio 60

Portfolio SEC Common Stock Angel Investor 60

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 20, 2020

insert founder number] of the founders dropped out of [insert Ivy League school]. Construction, utilities, transportation, retail, finance, insurance and real estate startups are industries that hit hardest on startups with an average failure rate among them of 40%. Why We Are In Love With Startups?

Sweat Equity 107

Sweat Equity Non-Compete Startup Azure 107

Genuine VC

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

When Chad Pytel introduced me to Bryan Helmkamp , CEO/Co-founder of Code Climate , I knew that I had to pay attention. I shared a link to Code Climate with a number of CTOs/VPs of Engineering in my network, both inside and outside the NextView portfolio, just asking for their quick opinion. It’s indispensable.”

Software Review 191

Software Review Chad Ruby PHP 191

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

I have interacted with a lot of founders who funded their initial business expenses through credit cards. If you are facing any problem you can always check out this: Business Loan vs. Equity Financing. Investors usually carry a portfolio of startups. So do your research into the investor’s portfolio before pitching.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 21, 2013

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the unsung hero of many start-ups: the other founder. A lot has been written about the founder/CEO and her growth and evolution as a company grows. Larry Page is the other founder. The other founder usually begins with a particular range of responsibilities that comliment the founder.

Cofounder 45

Cofounder Founder Part-Time VPE Portfolio 45

David Teten

MARCH 14, 2018

Managers of VC funds typically want to grow their business aggressively, just like the founders we back. Among the sites we have found most helpful with practical guides for founders: Biztree , First Search , Foundersuite , Goodwin Founders Workbench , Guides.co , Inc.com , and StartupRocket. .

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

It’s why I often advise angel investors to be careful about assuming that being an angel investor is a profitable exercise unless you have the ability to have a wide-enough portfolio to have a few companies doing extraordinarily well plus deep enough pockets to follow your winners. Thus begins the dance.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 16, 2017

David is one of the most active angel investors in New York, and also the CEO of Gust , which is an online platform for startup financing used by 500,000 entrepreneurs over the years, and funding over 1800 startups in just the last 12 months. Rose, according to his latest book, “ Angel Investing.” What ends up, usually went down first.

Angel Investor 190

Angel Investor Accredited Investor IRR Angel Groups 190

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 3, 2020

The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc. Having a better overall portfolio of venture capital by adding funds into the mix. One way to measure that is to imagine the theoretical $500-$1mm angel round that a founder is looking to raise.

Portfolio 134

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Deal Flow 134

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 20, 2020

We wish we were the founders, experiencing this testosterone-fueled melodrama of success. It’s one of the main reasons startup founders often shy away from reasonable SEO pricing models, opting instead for the riskier, cheap, outsourced route or the DIY approach —which are both fraught with their own perils.

Sweat Equity 78

Sweat Equity Non-Compete Startup Azure 78

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. ” The Cost of Financing. In a Series A financing, companies must pay the investors’ lawyers as well as their own.

Convertible Security 100

Convertible Security IP Technical Review Software Review 100

View from Seed

JUNE 24, 2020

After operating quietly for the past year, our portfolio company Jumbo made a couple big announcements yesterday, including the launch of Jumbo 2 as well as their $8M series A financing led by Balderton Capital.

Portfolio 227

Portfolio Internet Business Model Finance 227

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. . Flexible VC 102: Variations.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Sharing these pricing expectations early with potential lead investors fundamentally qualifies your conversations, but it also runs the risk of prematurely losing a potential financing partner, or else it can reduce options to maximize your fundraise outcome. But, also by definition, that just can’t be the case.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 9, 2021

Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. The founders of each company talked and, in between efforts to decimate the other, agreed it might be worth merging to survive. It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000.

Fractional CTO 70

Fractional CTO Cofounder Startup Lead Investor 70

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.” Almost every successful company is a mixture of very hard work by the founders mixed with a pinch of luck, good fortune and perseverance. You’re thinking about one bullet at a time.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

BeyondVC

JANUARY 6, 2018

2017 was another year of growing, learning, investing and partnering with amazing founders. Once again, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many amazing founders, advisors, co-investors, and other collaborators to bring the boldstart family together. 2017 Recap. 2 exits including yhat (sold to Alteryx?

Cloud 60

Cloud Cofounder Portfolio Advisory Board 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2014

David is also the CEO of Gust , which is an online platform for startup financing used by over 50,000 accredited angel investors, 1000 angel groups and venture capital funds, and 250,000 entrepreneurs. This is called the “portfolio approach,” which counts on hitting only a couple of big winners, while the others return very little.

Angel Investor 278

Angel Investor Angel Groups Accredited Investor IRR 278

Haystack

MAY 4, 2019

Today, I am excited to share some data on the Haystack portfolio as it relates to geography. And then, after a few years, I started to wonder — with all these new startups forming while all these huge growth rounds were happening, how would a founder even be able to recruit after raising a couple of million bucks?

United States 87

United States Portfolio San Francisco New York City 87