View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

One of the most highly anticipated startup IPOs of recent years, we now get a peek inside Airbnb’s business. Uber is an $85B+ market cap company today but is essentially flat to its IPO price and late private round valuations. Airbnb’s public S-1 dropped Monday afternoon.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

View from Seed

MAY 31, 2023

For example, in the Lerner’s and Scharfstein’s study the “success” benchmark was completing an IPO. It is worth noting, that success and failure are interpreted differently in the studies referenced. Ash was NextView’s 2022-2023 MBA Associate. He is currently finishing a joint degree MBA and MS in Engineering Sciences at Harvard.

Silicon Valley 156

Silicon Valley Cofounder Term Sheet Founder 156

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

And I’ve been fortunate enough to witness their startups scale from ideas to $1B+ businesses (and even an IPO in the case of Poshmark). At the seed stage and as companies scale, helping the founders I work with identify and reach their goals, personally and professionally, gives me energy and purpose.

North America 156

North America San Francisco Cap Table Cofounder 156

View from Seed

MARCH 5, 2019

2019 is shaping up to be the year the dam broke for decacorn IPOs, with Lyft, Uber, AirBnB, Pinterest, et al in the queue. It appears they will beat Uber to IPO, so helpfully they can frame this new category of “transportation as a service” in the minds of public equity investors. Lyft’s S-1 dropped on Friday.

Aggregator 120

Aggregator IPO .Net Revenue 120

View from Seed

MAY 16, 2019

I have friends who are execs or shareholders of the company, but I have no stake in Slack nor intent to invest in the IPO. A somewhat unique thing about the Slack IPO is that they’re pursuing a direct listing on the NYSE. But now we have a chance to really dig in and understand Slack’s business a bit better.

Lock-up Period 168

Lock-up Period Retention Azure .Net 168

View from Seed

OCTOBER 10, 2017

years, and lead them towards their recent IPO. Melody was instrumental to the hyper-growth phase of Blue Apron. She joined the company when it was about 20 people at their NY headquarters, helped the company scale revenue 25X in 3.5

New York 120

New York Cofounder IPO Early Stage 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2015

So The View From Seed is not for broad, sweeping statements, theoretical ideas, or debating IPO-ready companies. All we do is seed — we focus on it, we want to be the best seed partner, and we obsess over helping startups through that first, formative 18-24 month period. Instead, The View From Seed is all about traction.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Seed Capital IPO Startup 120

View from Seed

JULY 24, 2015

The tweet that really spoke the most truth to this discussion (just check the replies for proof), was from Mike Troiano, a well-known marketer and CMO of Actifio, which is considered to be IPO-bound in the next year or two. Here’s Mike’s comment: Boston’s B2C problem is one of values. Too much math, rational value, Excel.

Boston 120

Boston Cofounder B2C PR 120

View from Seed

MAY 28, 2020

Beyond Meat’s successful IPO last year proved that plant-based meat companies can thrive in the public markets, leading to massive funding rounds in other alternative animal product companies. Plant-based meats have leveraged several innovations to mimic the look, feel, and taste of meat using plants.

Memphis 256

Memphis Distribution Bankruptcy Operations 256

View from Seed

JANUARY 14, 2016

The primary dimension on which startups differ is stage: Two people in a garage is definitely a startup, but so is a 30-person company growing with a second round of financing … and so is a 250-person company preparing for an IPO.

Startup 120

Startup IPO Portfolio Matching 120

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2015

These are private sales of a minority position in these companies, not IPOs or acquisitions. In particular, I feel a few things really strongly: 1. $1 1 billion private financings do not equate $1 billion of company value. It’s what one investor was willing to pay to have a small position in a company, not a measure of true underlying value.

Valuation 120

Valuation Startup IPO Finance 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 24, 2018

He was previously VP Product at Runkeeper (sold to Asics), a General Manager and Director of Product at Zynga (IPO), and Director of Product at Conduit Labs (sold to Zynga). He was part of the founding team at HubSpot for 8 years, where he helped grow the company from $0 to $150m in revenue and through a successful IPO. Back to Top).

Operations 176

Operations Cofounder Technical Review Angel Investor 176

View from Seed

JUNE 13, 2019

I know some of the investors in Chewy prior to the PetSmart acquisition, but I am not a shareholder nor do I intend to purchase shares in the IPO. Much of the press on the company’s IPO highlights this fact, which is easy to discern from a casual read of the S-1. I’ll break down Chewy’s business based on their recent S-1 filing here.

Leadership 214

Leadership .Net Revenue Acquisition 214

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

Fortunately we proved skeptics wrong and every one of these strategic investors made a tidy 2.5 – 3x return once PayPal IPO’d in 2002 and then was acquired by eBay later that year.

Strategic Investors 120

Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 7, 2019

Companies are retrenching, VC firms are going through their own upheavals, and IPOs are non-existent. But overall this is a period where the IPO market remains largely closed to VC-backed startups. And even Facebook has a shambolic first day of trading and trades below its IPO price for over a year. Rowe Price, hedge funds, etc.

IPO 202

IPO Early Stage Cofounder B2C 202

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

For a pursuit that largely revolves around silent time spent at a computer by one person then, slowly at first, a few more people, a bit more talking, and on and on until failure, acquisition, or IPO, it may seem inconsequential to consider where it all goes down.

New York City 120

New York City New York Entrepreneur Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

For a pursuit that largely revolves around silent time spent at a computer by one person then, slowly at first, a few more people, a bit more talking, and on and on until failure, acquisition, or IPO, it may seem inconsequential to consider where it all goes down.

New York City 120

New York City New York Entrepreneur Seed Stage 120

View from Seed

JUNE 17, 2015

We were a profitable company at that point with nearly $200M annualized revenue, one of the first tech companies to IPO after the dot-com bubble. But the first real time we had a big celebration and folks felt like we’d “made it” was the party we held in the parking lot on February 14, 2002 when PayPal went public.

Startup 120

Startup Cofounder Seed Stage IPO 120

View from Seed

APRIL 14, 2015

But if you look at the companies in that group of HBS classes, there are a number of companies heading towards an IPO and others that will be good acquisition candidates. At the end of the day, success means building lasting companies. David: It’s a proxy for early indications that something might be working.

Entrepreneur 120

Entrepreneur Boston Seed Stage Founder 120

View from Seed

JULY 28, 2015

At the late stage, Wayfair’s recent IPO and continued rapid growth is a great example of exceptional, homegrown talent. Why is it so poor, as the popular refrain goes? A couple observations: First, contrary to public opinion, consumer tech in Boston is having a pretty remarkable resurgence.

Boston 120

Boston Marketing Early Stage Startup 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

As of January 20, 2016, based on the “CrunchBase Unicorn Leaderboard,” there are 157 unicorns (companies with $1 billion+ valuations) which have not IPOed or been acquired—and more start-ups reaching unicorn status every day. Unicorns have been over-hyped during the past few years, and nowadays frequently attacked by skeptics.

Programming 120

Programming St. Louis Cofounder India 120

View from Seed

APRIL 23, 2015

Additionally, if you’re talking to VCs, it’s implied that you’re thinking big and thinking about a large acquisition or IPO, as well as generating hundreds of millions in revenue. Their business models are, in many cases, focused on outlier exits within the portfolio.

Founder 120

Founder Distribution Viral Seed Stage 120