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

Haystack

DECEMBER 29, 2018

6/ Venture Capital In Expansion Phase. More and more angels will be minted as the 2019 IPO class emerges. Public investors, cross-over investors, and even traditional private equity firms have taken notice, further blurring the lines of what constitutes true venture capital.

Technical Review 165

Technical Review Venture Capital Russia China 165

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2021

In my experience, here are some of the key elements of that “second-stage” of entrepreneurship: Move from small investors to major venture capital. Then there is the pressure to go public ( IPO ), and open your investment to thousands, maybe millions, of small investors. Switch your focus from product development to sales.

Merger 379

Merger Due Diligence SEC IPO 379

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? two founders in a garage?—?(HP Of course we can’t. dot-com bonanza.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” They raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. One of them is profitability. I don’t want to be beholden to investors.”

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

BeyondVC

APRIL 4, 2018

Look at the Dropbox IPO which priced above its initial value and came out white hot at the end of one of the worst weeks in stock market performance. There will also still be some amazing companies that raise their Series C, D and beyond funding rounds with scaling metrics.

Cloud 60

Cloud Agile Architecture Azure 60

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I’ve decided to take all of my private conversations and subjective points-of-view on the topic and make them public in a keynote speech at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco on June 15th. Another firm we saw tried to raise $15 million at a $60 million pre-money with similar metrics. The risk wouldn’t be appropriate.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

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. — 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.

Founder 252

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 252

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

500hats.com

AUGUST 2, 2012

TL:DR : This post aims to recap significant changes in the venture capital industry over the past ten years, and then make some [biased] predictions as to major forces at play in the next five years. However, all three shifts are related and can be summed up simply as: Geeks are Taking Over Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 74

Silicon Valley Early Stage Venture Capital Valuation 74

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. Wondering how do I get in touch with you - I am founder of a company here in San jose, CA and would like to invite you to be part of our advisor team.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Austin Startup

AUGUST 30, 2018

So while the number of dollars pouring into Austin may be increasing, that metric is only favorable to businesses that warrant those sized-rounds. And second, a more mature company is better positioned for an acquisition or an IPO, giving the investors an “end in sight.”

Austin 48

Austin Early Stage San Francisco Later Stage 48

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 22, 2012

Guest author Arie Abecassis is co-founder of AppStori, a crowdfunding startup for entrepreneurs of mobile apps, and a Venture Partner at DreamIt Ventures. But those metrics don't tell the whole story. Many ventures that work their way through accelerator programs create value in other ways.

Startup 133

Startup Portfolio Metrics Bootstrapping 133

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Scott’s first big foray into industry-changing companies came with CarsDirect, an IdeaLab company where he was the initial founder & CEO. Scott left the company, which eventually IPO’d and became Internet Brands. And finally, Scott demonstrated his internal management tool for managing the metrics of his business.

San Francisco 248

San Francisco Venture Capital Analytics Government 248

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

With this seed capital – more often than not totaling between $100,000 and $1,000,000 - the company accomplishes a number of key technical milestones, gets a beta customer or two, and then goes on a "road show" to venture capitalists around the country for capital to “scale” the business. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Haystack

DECEMBER 26, 2018

This doesn’t even yet account for a bear-case scenario of all the private Bay Area juggernauts which are primed to IPO next year — if those all hit, and assuming local investors and employees own at least a third six months after IPO. Getting capital in the earliest stages continues to get easier.

IPO 76

IPO Private Equity Valuation Acquisition 76

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Luckily, Kia Kokalitcheva followed up with a post titled “ The rise of “pre-seed” venture capital ,” that made me feel just a tad better, but that uneasy feeling still didn’t leave me. I’ll start with all the questions I can think of, from many different perspectives: founders, LPs, the press, and even other VCs.

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Me: So, you raised venture capital? There were no metrics. Him: On metrics. If we priced it based on any metrics your company would likely be worth less than 7 figures at your A round. I know how to structure around that to protect the founders from getting screwed on a multiple liquidation preference.

Liquidation Preference 153

Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet Stock 153

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.] These include: ·       Vesting of Founder Stock.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

Despite all the energy invested in talking to authors about the size of their platform, very few gatekeepers have a rigorous set of metrics for measuring it. The problem is that there are no other metrics they can look at to judge the content of a book to know if it’s worth reviewing. Is that a lot? In that I see opportunity.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

K9 Ventures

APRIL 9, 2014

But scaling is hard, and these companies can suffer from The Curse of Over Capitalization. Threshold for an IPO is higher Ten years ago, if you had $20M in revenue you were ready to go public. They’re starting to use similar metrics and structures as what the old Series A folks used to. The seed round is bigger.

Mezzanine 134

Mezzanine Seed Stage Early Stage IPO 134

Growthink Blog

APRIL 15, 2015

For those in the bubble camp, Domo is “ Tech Unicorn ,” a recent start-up worth, either through a financing, an acquisition or IPO, more than $1 billion usually without any meaningful profits to speak of and thus instead valued via reasonings and justifications far outside of the pale of traditional finance and accounting.

Valuation 48

Valuation Venture Capital Finance Acquisition 48

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 12, 2015

I define #PeakVC as the point in time when the maximum amount of $$s are entering the Venture Capital industry. That is because the venture capital industry operates in cycles. That increases the overall money supply coming in to venture. What does all this mean for founders?

Venture Capital 48

Venture Capital Seed Stage LP Valuation 48

Cracking the Code

FEBRUARY 12, 2007

Attendees included Blue Nile , Postini , LinkedIn , Lifelock , Wize , Sparter , Zopa , Revver , Wikia , Flock , Vimo , Delivery Agent , Gerson Lehrman Group , Pure Networks , Zensys , Summit , T3Ci , Endeca and Nominum - a wide spectrum of companies, both in terms of stage (very early to pre-IPO) and sectors (consumer internet, software, chipsets.).

Software Review 48

Software Review SEM Marketing Las Vegas 48

Austin Startup

MAY 19, 2018

As Bryan stated below, there are no shortage of “How to pitch” or “How to behave” articles by VCs but really very little advice for VCs by founders. Anyone notice there's a ton of VCs giving founder advice, and almost no founder advice for VCs? Lines Not Dots Raising money from a fund is a process, most founders get that.

Founder 75

Founder Early Stage Software Review Deal Flow 75

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 18, 2010

Truth: There’s nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital. Truth: There’s nothing wrong with raising venture capital. Many lean startups are ambitious and are able to deploy large amounts of capital.

Lean 167

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Startup 167

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

If private capital is no longer available in the future, these companies will seek a public offering or acquisition. We basically doubled the number of unicorns in the past year and a half,” says Aileen Lee, the founder of Cowboy Ventures, who has herself become a mythic creature in the Valley after coining the term.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

VC Cafe

JANUARY 14, 2022

There are two main forms of exits for startups: trade sale/M&A or IPO. SPACs had their moment in the sun in 2021, with a record number of companies choosing to go public using the SPACs in favour of traditional IPOs. Anecdotally, one founder complained to me that this has shorten his runway by 30%. SPACs have backfired.

Technical Review 158

Technical Review Lock-up Period South Korea 158

Cracking the Code

JANUARY 19, 2016

They also need VCs capable of financing their entire life cycle — on average, SaaS startups raise between $80 and $100 million before an IPO. SaaS startups need to have a VC that understands the SaaS model, including market development strategies, upsell dynamics, sales incentive plan, etc.

API 48

API Silicon Valley Europe Differentiation 48

David Teten

JANUARY 28, 2013

AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant concludes , “The real winners here are going to be the seed funds and early stage VCs that can write a $1 million to $2 million check. Only one metric showed statistical differences between these deals and others. Those firms are only going to do a few Series A deals a year.”

IRR 114

IRR Angel Investor Angel Groups Cofounder 114

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

For more page-turning corporate drama, including the feud between Intermix co-founders and UCLA college buddies Brett Brewer and Brad Greenspan, Nasdaq delisting, proxy contest and lawsuits by Greenspan after he was fired as CEO, see Stealing MySpace by WSJ reporter Julia Angwin. Part of the deal was bringing in a new CEO, Richard Rosenblatt.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. About this same point in time, the journalists that focus specifically on the venture capital industry noted something quite profound.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 19, 2015

Note: If you’re a founder, stop reading this post now. If you’re even remotely connected to the “industry” of Venture Capital, you need to read Howard Marks’ It’s Not Easy memo. If you build a good company, investors will hunt you down. ”​ .

Venture Capital 48

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Portfolio 48

Cracking the Code

MARCH 28, 2022

The cloud IPO market has also been very active with 32 IPOs vs. 17 in 2020. It’s worth noting though that while the number of IPOs increased, the companies were smaller and raised less capital than those last year. 60% of the cloud IPOs had a market cap of $5B+ vs. only 28% this year. in Sept 2020. In 2020, c.

Global 62

Global Europe Software Review 62

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 11, 2014

While struggling to build companies, some founders also quietly battle depression | BetaBoston – crowdspring.co/1mUNP1y. “38% of venture-backed founders are over 40 years old” - crowdspring.co/1hywYgv. Five Reasons Not To Raise Venture Capital, by Rachel Chalmers | Model View Culture - crowdspring.co/1lIlpYH.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

VC Cafe

AUGUST 3, 2023

As previously highlighted on VC Cafe (based on research by Sapphire Ventures) , while many funds avoid B2C investments, consumer startups can create extremely lucrative power-law returns for venture capital investors. B2C Venture Capital Investments in Israel To the most part, Israeli VCs shy away from B2C startup investments.

B2C 148

B2C Generative AI Artificial Inteligence 148

Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

And so the other reason that I am very interested in delving deep into this space is that it seems like IPOs like Workday, Palo Alto Networks are sort of — they have metrics and analytics that Wall Street understands, more so than a Facebook; like “We are going to sell X number of this in the next year.”

Software Review 22

Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22