Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. Revenue multiple? In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. We raised a seed round.

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Steve Blank

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Over the same 30 years, Venture Capital firms have honed their skills and strategies to match Wall Streets needs to achieve liquidity for their portfolio companies. One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is misunderstanding the role of venture capital investors. What Do VC’s Do?

Silicon Valley 217

Silicon Valley IPO Technical Review Venture Capital 217

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 2, 2021

And even though an LLC is legally required to report its revenues, profits, and losses, it does not have to pay corporate income taxes on profits. Lower tax rates allow an LLC to be more flexible with finances. While LLCs cannot issue stocks, they can sell bonds to investors.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review LLC IPO Stock 78

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

Ah, but today’s Internet companies have real revenue! And this is happening in mezzanine (pre-IPO) deals as well. And post IPO deals, although these tend to correct more quickly. And as you probably guessed the data aren’t any better on IPOs with less than 20 / year average for the past 10 years. and profits!

Saudi Arabia 309

Saudi Arabia Valuation IPO Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1. The Exit Problem.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Up and Running

AUGUST 18, 2014

Startups have some unique struggles, especially in regard to financing. Startups tend to rely on capital that comes via angel investors or venture capital firms while small business operations may rely on loans and grants. Key difference #2 – the relationship with funding. The exit is what gives them a return.”

Small Business 154

Small Business Exit Strategy Cofounder Angel Investor 154

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

Last week, a chart in the Wall Street Journal listed private companies globally that have raised capital at $1 billion-plus valuations from venture capital firms. Both these factors are resulting in higher valuations post money (meaning the company value set prior to financing + the amount of financing).

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

Version One Ventures

JULY 22, 2014

More money is flowing in from a new crop of angels, newly wealthy from a number of tech IPOs. Any entrepreneur trying to navigate the financing landscape should be aware of the over-abundance of angel money compared with subsequent rounds. You need to assess early on if your business is venture-fundable.

Finance 167

Finance Seed Money Bootstrapping Angel Investor 167

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

One is the “denominator problem&# which says that if an LP invests X% (the denominator) into “alternative investments&# such as venture capital and if their total amount available to invest (the numerator) goes down by 30% then the amount they allocate to VC will by definition need to go down by 30% to stay the same percentage.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

I challenge any entrepreneur, for example, to define the difference between "seed-stage" and "early-stage" financing. Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. A micro venture capital firm.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

Early-stage investors in technology startups are only looking for growth-oriented companies that can achieve an “exit&# someday – either via selling your company to a larger company or via an IPO. That’s the deal you get when you’re raising in a good market for startup financing. That’s fine.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Steve Blank

JULY 15, 2010

If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. The collapse of the IPO market and dysfunctional math in the venture capital community has stacked the odds against you.

Venture Capital 297

Venture Capital IPO Liquidity Event Entrepreneur 297

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Helped merge company with Seedling – on track to do $20 million combined revenue in 2015 – will now become Chairman). billion IPO), Envestnet (Chicago, $1.25 billion IPO), HealthDataInsights (Las Vegas, $400 million) as well as LA (Maker Studios $1 billion, TrueCar $1.3 She is a coach and mentor to team members.

Partner 408

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles Baltimore 408

Austin Startup

NOVEMBER 6, 2017

C-Corp largely because (i) VCs have historically favored C-Corps for nuanced tax and other reasons, and (ii) virtually all of the standardized legal infrastructure around startup finance and equity compensation assumes a C-Corp. Everyone is trying to be a billion-dollar company that will eventually get acquired or go IPO.

Delaware 48

Delaware LLC Startup Silicon Valley 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004. The abundance of late-stage capital is good for us all. The virtue of going long.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. For entrepreneurs who want to learn about how to work with investment banks, how to position yourself to be acquired and what the IPO markets look like this is the episode to watch. Venture Financing.

IPO 242

IPO Venture Capital Private Placement Cofounder 242

Steve Blank

AUGUST 20, 2013

Recently, the financing of innovation in medical devices has collapsed even further with most Class III devices simply unfundable. on medical device revenues, regardless of profitability delays or cash-flow breakeven. Venture Capital Issues. Early stage Venture Capital for medical device startups has dried up.

Startup 294

Startup Venture Capital Lean IPO 294

Scalable Startup

AUGUST 26, 2014

the original products can’t generate revenue, so when these OS projects occassionally blow up into phenomenons like Drupal and WordPress have over the past few years, it’s gratifying but also quite frustrating to watch others derive so much value from your baby while you toil away to lead its growth with no financial return.

Founder 42

Founder Los Angeles PHP Open Source 42

Cracking the Code

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

While poised with a limited number of transactions this year, the world of public Cloud Computing and SaaS companies has been marked by two events in the past few months: the acquisition of Omniture by Adobe and the high profile IPO of LogMeIn, a leading provider of PC remote access and support with a very interesting freemium model.

Software Review 48

Software Review Technical Review IPO Cloud 48

Growthink Blog

JULY 2, 2010

That’s a lot of money, particularly considering that Vringo only generated $20,000 in revenues last year. It didn’t raise the money from venture capitalists, angel investors, or any of the usual suspects. Which is particularly surprising since Vringo’s CEO and co-founder, Jon Medved, was formerly a venture capitalist himself.

Venture Capital 85

Venture Capital Stock Options New York Angel Investor 85

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 24, 2017

— Unremarked and unheralded, the balance of power between startup CEOs and their investors has radically changed: IPOs/M&A without a profit (or at times revenue) have become the norm. In the 20th century tech companies and their investors made money through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

Founder 245

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 245

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

  I’ve sat down with entrepreneurs and a copy of a term sheet guide I like [ “Term Sheets & Valuations - A Line by Line Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets & Valuations ” by Alex Wilmerding, Aspatore Press.] and walked through each proposed term and why it is or isn’t important. times the investment.).

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

You see, Dan knows more about venture than most people; and if Dan isn’t aware that “pre-seed is a thing,” then I haven’t done a good enough job of explaining to the world what I and K9 do! Q: What amount of financing is considered Pre-Seed? Typically, Pre-Seed rounds are less than $1M in aggregate capital raised.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Up and Running

APRIL 8, 2013

Also, equity investors usually only see a return on their investment if the company is acquired or IPO s. Common forms of equity investment are friends and family, angel investors and venture capital. Additional resources on angel groups and venture capital firms are available here and here. or greater.

Equity 82

Equity Covenant Venture Capital Finance 82

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Let’s take a few minutes to examine the kind of equity financing available to small or early stage businesses. The strong advantage is that these organizations will stay with a company from acceptance to ultimate IPO or M&A sale, helping financially and with education, encouragement and introductions along the way.

Equity 62

Equity Finance Liquidity Event Angel Groups 62

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

The typical wisdom regarding the appropriate financing course for a new company goes as follows: 1. This venture capital financing - usually between $3 and $10 million - is the first of a number of rounds of outside investment over a period of three to five years. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Haystack

NOVEMBER 24, 2018

venture capital to date (more on this in a separate post), unfortunately relegating billion-dollar exits as “ho-hum” events to the technology crowd. 4/ The Big Winners: Cylance raised around ~$280M in financing, with large equity stakeholders being Khosla Ventures, Fairhaven, and Blackstone. 1/ Cash Is King: The $1.4B

Acquisition 62

Acquisition Artificial Inteligence Balance Sheet Cofounder 62

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public. If you have <$100M in revenue, you’re probably going to stay private. These companies now end up raising more capital in private rounds than they raised in public offerings 10-15 years ago.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

abovethecrowd.com

JULY 10, 2014

On June 18, Aswath Damodaran , a finance professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, published an article on FiveThirtyEight titled “ Uber Isn’t Worth $17 Billion. I find it surprising that a finance professor like Damodaran did not consider the impact of price on demand. Different Economics.

San Francisco 111

San Francisco San Jose Marketing Technical Review 111

Business Plan Blog

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

Companies raising this type of capital typically have been bootstrapped for quite some time, boasting revenues of $10M+ and looking for institutional capital to grow fast with goal of reaching a not too long term IPO. Jumbo Series A deals typically range between $15M and $60M. Average and Media Seed and Series A Deals.

Technology 49

Technology Early Stage Venture Capital Bootstrapping 49

Pascal's View

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Dan Primack posted an article in Term Sheet last week titled Yelp This: IPO Market Is Killing It. equity capital markets for emerging growth companies with market capitalizations below $500 million are structurally broken and systemically dysfunctional. .” Between 1991 and 200 80% of IPO’s raised $50mm or less.

IPO 31

IPO Term Sheet Marketing United States 31

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And from a financial perspective, any investor would be better off buying stock in Amazon than buying and share of a corner bookshop; if you invested $100 in Amazon’s 1997 initial public offering (IPO), those shares would have been worth about $120,000 in 2018. Blitzscaling is a strategic technique for moving faster, not a reckless gamble.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s like we need a finance 101 course for entrepreneurs. Revenue multiple? In finance they call it “terminal value” but the truth is the price is as arbitrary at your A round as it is at your seed round. On the phone …. We raised a seed round. About $1 million. Me: With a cap?

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Fast forward to today; since we founded Taxfyle in 2015, it has earned the support and investment of numerous venture capitalists and is one of the fastest-growing companies in any sector in the U.S. 5000 list , which lists private American companies based on three-year revenue growth between 2016 and 2019. Magazine’ Inc.

CPA 138

CPA Founder Vertical Cofounder 138

Growthink Blog

MAY 21, 2014

There were some great responses to my post last week as to the poor returns experienced by venture capital fund investors. Now Berkshire Model companies, as entities with fundamentally investment vs. operating mindsets more naturally position, language, and network their businesses in finance contexts.

San Diego 72

San Diego Warrant IRR Investment Bankers 72

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

Neither is a particularly good backdrop for trying to raise capital, because. we had no revenue. In a single year, the classic general partner in a venture firm is exposed to around 5,000 pitches; decides to look more closely at 600 to 800 of them; and ends up doing between 0 and 2 deals. Investors see a lot of pitches.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2015

Every successful technology company raises money throughout its lifecycle, perhaps starting with a seed investment and progressing through Series A, B, C, late-stage investments, and, for the most successful companies, an IPO. An unprecedented 80 private companies have raised financings at valuations over $1B in the last few years.

IPO 40

IPO Liquidation Preference Valuation Technical Review 40