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. Many VCs Owned Too Little of Their Portfolio Companies to Begin With. Valuations.

Portfolio 98

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 98

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 5, 2018

And, while founder/market fit is a newer concept, it turns out to be just as important. 9 Questions That Help Get You To GP/LP Fit. In it, Beezer goes through, in depth, the top questions she recommends you ask an LP to determine GP/LP fit. While an LP takes a lot of meetings, they don’t do a lot of investments.

LP 87

LP Portfolio Management Founder 87

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

A few weeks ago, we hosted a small dinner for a number of portfolio company founders, LP’s, and friends of the firm. It’s by far the longest time I’ve spent working on any one thing, and I feel very blessed to have been able to work with my partners, colleagues, founders, and collaborators. This one is controversial.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2021

I counsel first-time VCs (as well as founders) to have mid-funnel strategies to get from first LP meeting to close and to put a disproportionate amount of time into this area (I say more about this on the podcast starting at timecode 27:41). what makes you different and complimentary to all the other funds in their portfolio?

LP 375

LP Southern California Los Angeles Differentiation 375

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

JULY 16, 2010

Consumers pulled their money out of these risky investments, but when LPs make commitments to VC funds they make 10-year, legally binding commitments. So as of 2008 total LP commitments were still at nearly $250 billion. I was at dinner with a large LP and mentioned that I had heard the industry would shrink by 50%.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

David Teten

MAY 20, 2016

As one of the lead engineers at ff Venture Capital , I spend most of my day building custom software solutions that enhance our firm’s process–tools that range from portfolio investment management to co-investor and cap table tracking and more. We posted on our site a more in-depth overview of ff’s Tech Platform.

Private Equity 113

Private Equity Equity Cap Table Venture Capital 113

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 23, 2017

by Joe Duncan, founder of Duncan Capital LP. PC and mobile interfaces dynamically display portfolio valuations and exposures, along with system-generated investment recommendations tailored to a specific client’s financial goals and risk appetite. At least for investment banks the answer is not so clear cut.

Technical Review 154

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Software Review IPO 154

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. Why prorata rights are being guarded by VCs.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Version One Ventures

JANUARY 31, 2024

Since then, I’ve received 200+ inbound leads (and counting). Have backed close to 20 emerging GP's over the past 5 yrs & looking to add 3-4 more to the portfolio this year. The first is the fund that you would ideally raise if LP capital was not a constraining factor. Things are much different now.

LP 73

LP Differentiation Deal Flow India 73

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

Eric Friedman

DECEMBER 27, 2021

Maybe the founders are the micro VCs we have been waiting for? Funds and people are looking to take a set multiple on SaaS companies and provide liquidity to founders and VCs and run the underlying companies for profit with their own infrastructure. There is also a network effect of portfolio companies with early GPs.

Balance Sheet 97

Balance Sheet Stock Private Equity Option Pool 97

Hunter Walker

MARCH 28, 2018

” “We invest in diverse founders.” Why a founder should take their dollars. And why a LP should give them theirs. Your portfolio page. Your portfolio page is your thesis. One challenge for seed investors especially is that your portfolio page is a lagging indicator of your interests.

Portfolio 102

Portfolio LP Differentiation Founder 102

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

But the thing I am most proud of about Rob is that he has taken a company with a uniquely talented founder & CTO – Nick Halstead – and managed to build a very tight working relationship with Nick where we drive world-class product development without having the usual founder / CEO conflicts.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 17, 2019

That said, there are two portfolio modeling/management tips that I do think are valuable exercises for every Fund I. If Your Portfolio Model Assumes Outperformance Across Multiple Metrics, I Don’t Believe It: Every VC fundraise has an Excel sheet that forecasts the performance of the fund.

Portfolio 104

Portfolio Forecast Dilution LP 104

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 26, 2014

But for now … Every year we run a big VC, LP & Tech Summit in Los Angeles (this year downtown) to showcase the best of our community and invite others from around the country. Our event this year will feature many portfolio companies and also emerging LA tech companies such as Tinder & Whisper.

Los Angeles 290

Los Angeles LP Startup Portfolio 290

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

I’ve primarily seen quantitative analytic techniques used in origination , filtering , and in portfolio company recruiting , but technology can be used throughout the nine steps of the private company investing process: The 9 Steps of the Private Company Investing Process. 9% (1 / 12). Source: Knowledge.VC , based on scraping firm websites

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Hunter Walker

APRIL 27, 2014

Last week we held our first annual LP meeting, when venture funds get their investors together with updates on operations and results. Over the first year we’ve seen a steady increase in number of opportunities (thank you founders and co-investors!). We love our founders. Roughly 50% result in a first meeting.

LP 97

LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 97

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Biggest Advice I Give to Portfolio Founders? But when a fund writes checks into a portfolio company it typically “reserves” money to invest in future rounds. Harry asked me whether I thought LP “defaults” (not funding the VC commitments it made) would go up. Paying close attention to the psychology of founders.

Marketing 263

Marketing Valuation Churn Rate Balance Sheet 263

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

This followed the firms founder Don Valentine handing leadership early to Mike Moritz and Doug Leone who then entrusted Jim Goetz. Yves didn’t want to step down — he is still as active as any partner on our team — but he wanted me to take responsibility for: Strategy, recruiting, team development, LP relations, financial planning, etc.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders who have the whole package or as much of it as possible. If your idea is so amazing that it warrants my hard-earned angel money or the money of my LP investors from our fund then why should I take a risk on you if you won’t take a risk on yourself? Few people have it. Why should I be?

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur CTO Hire South America Salary 293

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

3) Rebalancing — we rebalance portfolios monthly. Joshua Baer is a serial entrepreneur and founder/Executive Director of Capital Factory , the largest coworking space and tech incubator in Austin. They helped us establish 2 GP entities, 2 LP entities, and 1 Cayman entity (for international investors) in ~2 months. Factom, Inc.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was speaking recently to the team at NuOrder , an LA-based company we’re an investor in about “realism in startups” — an impromptu talk I have given to any of our portfolio companies who ask. I was asked again in an LP meeting later in the week and then again at a founder breakfast gathering we hosted yesterday.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Non-Compete LP Later Stage 254

Haystack

JUNE 1, 2018

From afar, in today’s environment of 500+ seed funds, SV Angel is held up as one of the canonical examples for its success at getting into superstar breakout companies (from Google all the way to Coinbase) and for its dogged pursuit of helping their founders. Yet for many, it didn’t come as a surprise.

LP 116

LP Global Social Media Portfolio 116

View from Seed

DECEMBER 11, 2019

I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining [New Firm] as a Partner where I will continue to invest in great Founders across the industries I care about.”. “I Bonus points if they’re a Founder of the firm. “I have exciting personal news.”. So why is there so much turnover in Venture Capital? Track record.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

VC Cafe

JULY 4, 2022

Another impact of the meltdown of the public markets is on performance, in LP and VC books which resulted in 68% of funds estimated to have marked down companies in their portfolio. For example, Klarna is rumoured to be raising $650M in fresh capital at $6.5 billion valuation, according to the WSJ, down from $45.6 billion in June 2021.

Venture Capital 167

Venture Capital Valuation Private Equity LP 167

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 17, 2018

and Canada, offering portfolio companies strong networks and resources on both sides of the border. Lastly, we will continue our goal to be the most value-add investor for our portfolio founders as they push to create category-leading companies. And last but not least, we thank our investors, the LPs.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley North America San Francisco LP 127

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 23, 2020

Yesterday, Josh Felser of Freestyle Ventures wrote a post titled For the Love of Founders and their mental health. My founder stress and burnout couldn’t be contained despite my best efforts. To begin, they are underwriting 100% of the cost for two programs – Meru Health and Hoffman Institute , for all of their founders.

Leadership 90

Leadership LP Programming Portfolio 90

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 14, 2017

It was a conscious decision to maintain the fund size at the same level, despite both market pressure (larger rounds at earlier stages) and demand pressure (lots of LP money entering the stage) to raise a larger fund. Founders have a vision of what the world will be like in the future. K9’s last fund, K9 Ventures II, L.P.,

Technology 96

Technology LP San Francisco Portfolio 96

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 26, 2013

LPs, the investors in VC funds, have a difficult job to do, largely because they have to work with poor quality data and only a small fraction of VCs deliver the returns that make them worth investing in. Discipline also helps to keeps a venture fund’s loss ratio low which is important as they are ultimately stewards of LP investment funding.”

LP 154

LP Venture Capital Portfolio Reputation 154

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and. 3) Raise capital. They read reviews of the products of target investments.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. We surveyed 73 LP firms to get their views on the market. “This is the year the tortoise may gain on the hare.” How do I know?

LP 150

LP Valuation Burn Rate Pre-Money Valuation 150

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

They become platforms and the goal/need to look more like a multistage fund plays out in their portfolio model – 20% ownership targets, entering at A round instead of just seed. Not recruiting new Partners, not chasing LPs so that we can raise several hundred million dollars more next time around.

LP 92

LP Early Stage Syndicate Syndication 92

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

Yohei Nakajima, Founder of Untapped.vc , said, “Before pitching LPs and building my firm, I talked with over 50 people I knew to get feedback.” . For example, one LP told me she prefers customized emails from fund principals, as opposed to a bulk-mailed quarterly update. Lastly, gather feedback.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78