View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, we’ve been the lead or co-lead investor over 80% of the time. .

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

Or should they look to one of the new wave of Revenue-Based Investors? Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control. But should they?

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue.

Incubator 236

Incubator Exit Strategy Institutional Investors Angel Investor 236

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

This class of investor, once quite disorganized, has become much like the venture capital community, creating a process including due diligence (careful examination of a business before investment), terms of investment that match those of venture capitalists, and a process that sometimes takes months from introduction to investment.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2013

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue.

Incubator 256

Incubator Entrepreneur Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 256

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Long before others, they saw that these applications could have hundreds of millions of users with “off the chart&# revenue and profits. The awareness phase is where other later-stage investors start to notice the momentum, bringing additional money in and pushing prices higher. Filed under: Venture Capital.

Silicon Valley 327

Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 327

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue.

Incubator 120

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

I’ve written on the expert network industry a fair amount in the past: see How to Earn More Consulting Revenue from Expert Networks and How Executives Can Work with Private Equity and Venture Capital Portfolio Companies.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2012

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue.

Incubator 237

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 237

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

Venture debt provides a very cost-effective way to receive capital from a big financial institution if you have liquidity or existing financial backing from a well-known investor. The downsides of venture debt? Why is venture debt desirable? The cost of venture debt capital is very, very low.

Covenant 60

Covenant Institutional Investors Balance Sheet Warrant 60

The Next Web

SEPTEMBER 13, 2013

The final piece of my four-part guide to expanding a business into Asia is tailored more towards local startups and a big issue that affects many of them: raising funding from investors. Asia has far fewer VC firms and institutional investors, each of which invests a far smaller amount of capital.

Asia 132

Asia Silicon Valley India Term Sheet 132

Steve Blank

JUNE 17, 2011

They helped build these struggling ventures into the Facebooks’, Twitters’, and Zyngas’ before anyone else appreciated these companies could have hundreds of millions of users with off-the-chart revenue and profits. Filed under: Venture Capital. Really smart money recognizes it’s a bubble and bets against it.)

Investment Bankers 310

Investment Bankers Stock Valuation Venture Capital 310

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. Of the last 15 investments we’ve made, we’ve been the lead or co-lead investor over 80% of the time. .

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2011

Once you have some traction, you can approach venture capital organizations , with funding amounts of $1-10 million for the real rollout, often referred to as the “A-round,” or first institutional funding. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue.

Incubator 230

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 230

View from Seed

MARCH 26, 2015

Much digital ink has been spilled about what dollar amount constitutes a pre-seed and how that might affect a startup’s ability to go raise a “normal” seed round from institutional investors. ” Those trends increased the typical “institutional seed” round sizes from the previous levels I mentioned to $1.5M-$2M or even more.

Seed Capital 120

Seed Capital Institutional Investors Venture Capital Partner 120

David Teten

APRIL 7, 2017

This is a generalizable principle: you get higher returns where other investors are not. Because of that insight, we co-founded the Venture Capital Access Program , focused on helping women and minority entrepreneurs raise capital from HBS Alumni Angels.

New York 60

New York Africa Cofounder Egypt 60

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

This class of investor, once quite disorganized, has become much like the venture capital community, creating a process including due diligence (careful examination of a business before investment), terms of investment that match those of venture capitalists, and a process that often takes.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . Excel and Google simply aren’t going to cut it if you expect to build a high quality institutional investor base.”. Deer Isle Group has built the D.I.G. 4) Originate investments.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

As Steven Covey said, you'll want to "begin with the end in mind" and not make arrangements with your angel and/or early investors that will complicate later stages of funding. Put everything else on your "wish list" to buy with revenues from sales or additional financing. Series C, D, etc.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Rob Go

JULY 9, 2012

Ownership is a relatively puzzling concept in venture capital. It seems like almost all institutional investors have an ownership target, and many stick to that number pretty religiously. But why and where does that come from? With no rules, you essentially have no strategy. It’s just like running a business.

LP 53

LP Institutional Investors Early Stage Venture Capital 53

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

Actually, growth equity firms I find are best at this, because they have very specific financial criteria that they look for, such as ranges for revenue, ebitda, growth, etc. Here’s a good example from Volition Capital. Introduced by a co-investor: 5. Live Product, Pre Revenue: 6 1/2. This isn’t a quota.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

Pascal's View

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

Clovis Oncology is set to price a $160 million offering, despite having a whopping $0 in revenue. Also on the docket is Lashou Group, which only reports $16 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2011. Today, the threshold for liquidity demanded by institutional investors requires $100mm plus for an IPO.

IPO 31

IPO Term Sheet Marketing United States 31

Gust

MAY 24, 2012

By contrast, venture capital and angel investments normally take the form of Preferred Stock with rights and preferences set forth in the company’s Certificate of Incorporation and other governance documents. Options and warrants, when issued, are also typically exercisable for shares of Common Stock.

IPO 159

IPO Equity Common Stock Stock 159

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

of companies should never raise venture capital. Venture capital, it’s a very particular industry. Venture capitalists are raising money from other investors, institutional investors who expect certain returns from us. Let me say this to you. 99%, maybe 99.8% Does that make sense?

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

Up and Running

MARCH 21, 2016

Some businesses are not a great fit for angel or venture capital funding. But, what if your startup is a good candidate, but you’re having trouble getting meetings and convincing investors that your company is the next big thing? Do it as scrappy as you can, and get users and revenue. Why is this so important?

Cofounder 60

Cofounder Metrics Angel Investor Silicon Valley 60

David Teten

MARCH 5, 2021

What can we learn from the best 40 venture capital investments of all time? BCG (June 2018): “Startups founded and cofounded by women actually performed better over time, generating 10% more in cumulative revenue over a five-year period: $730,000 compared with $662,000.”.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 78

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 5, 2012

This from Kate Mitchell, the former chair of the National Venture Capital Association, and current Managing Director of Scale Venture Partners. "A lot of the noise in the market right now is about bringing back irresponsible IPOs. That is a short-lived strategy, and a wrong-headed strategy."

IPO 118

IPO SEC Silicon Valley Startup 118

Pascal's View

MARCH 9, 2010

This is the second in our series of ten frequently asked questions from investors in venture capital partnerships. To get to the core of your question, providing passive institutional investors with more financial information about illiquid securities isn’t going to make them more liquid.

Government 31

Government Private Equity Institutional Investors Venture Capital 31

Austin Startup

JUNE 4, 2017

Recently I was fortunate enough to have raised a seed funding round from a fantastic group of investors for my pre-product, pre-revenue B2B SaaS startup here in Austin, Texas. Raise enough to get you 12–18 months and hit growth to get you into the larger institutional investors (or profitability if that’s your goal.)

Austin 54

Austin Institutional Investors Angel Groups Deal Flow 54

Ben's Blog

MAY 24, 2021

billion multi-stage venture capital firm focused on IT-related investments… I also serve on various investment committees, including for the St. Jude Children’s Cancer Hospital and the Stanford Medical Center, and teach entrepreneurship and venture capital at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

SEC 36

SEC Accredited Investor IPO Technical Review 36

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

Two, revenue. Give us an answer and let’s move on to finding working capital. If you’re looking for five million dollars, you should be thinking institutional capital. Many business owners today really think of financials as being about the past, how much revenue have we had, how much cost did we have.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

abovethecrowd.com

JUNE 2, 2021

On March 26, SoFi announced that “it will be offering its members (at least those with $3K in their account) the ability to invest in IPOs for companies going public, an investment opportunity that has traditionally been reserved for large institutional investors or ultra-high-net-worth individuals.”

IPO 82

IPO Customer Matching Silicon Valley 82