View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Below, we talk to Glen Mello , Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank’s accelerator team in Boston. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically. Traction and revenue? As a startup grows, venture debt becomes a viable option to continue that growth. Business model? Previous capital raised?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 12, 2013

Super-angel investors are a new category of investors (like Mike Maples Jr. ), closer to venture capitalists, who are perceived to be more sophisticated, insightful, or well-connected in the startup community, particularly with respect to technology companies in Silicon Valley and other technology centers (also called micro-VCs).

Entrepreneur 274

Entrepreneur Accredited Investor Silicon Valley Angel Investor 274

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

As the check size increases, investors tend to look for more traction, established revenue models, proven unit-economics, and other metrics that were previously associated with later stage companies. In the 80s and 90s a company would go public when it hit $20M in revenue.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Hippoland

DECEMBER 4, 2016

Let’s first establish what the seed landscape looks like today in 2016 here in the Silicon Valley. Part of this is also driven by the fact that as they’ve become successful, many of them have raised bigger funds, which means that they want to deploy more money in startups at slightly later stages.

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley .Net Revenue Later Stage 48

Growthink Blog

JUNE 9, 2011

Last week marked the 6th year for the conference "Launch: Silicon Valley." Bigger companies like Google have tons of cash and are looking to buy early stage companies (so you can get a big payday). The event gives emerging companies the opportunity to pitch and network with investors, executives, customers and the media.

Silicon Valley 107

Silicon Valley Later Stage Early Stage Cloud 107

Steve Blank

OCTOBER 1, 2009

Sloan put in place GM’s management accounting system (borrowed from DuPont) that for the first time allowed the company to: 1) produce an annual operating forecast that compared each division’s forecast (revenue, costs, capital requirements and return on investment) with the company’s financial goals. Order Here. To Order Outside of the U.S.

Silicon Valley 179

Silicon Valley United States RSS Customer Development 179

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

” The word showed up again in Nick Bilton’s Vanity Fair article Is Silicon Valley in Another Bubble. “Indeed, contrary to Kupor’s argument at the Rosewood, it is this later-stage investing—with its shortage of regulation, tremendous envy, and Schadenfreude—that worries many bubble-watchers.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

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. Typically, this caliber of bankers wouldn’t talk to you unless your company had five profitable quarters of increasing revenue.

Founder 273

Founder Technical Review CTO Hire IPO 273

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Silicon Valley and the media industry that surrounds it values youth. 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. It literally drove FOMO.

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Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

If the answer to the question centers around “We will achieve revenue soon so our net will improve and give us more runway,” it means the company is in trouble because no product ever ships on time nor achieves the company’s “conservative forecast.” These days revenue is the best source of capital. Who is on your board of directors?

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

Austin Startup

JUNE 26, 2019

Our venture was selected for competitive accelerator spots & recognition from media and mentors from Austin, Chicago and Silicon Valley to work on this problem and capture the value its solution provided. You might notice what’s not on that list above: revenue, investors. He then called me “a real bone-crusher of a founder”.

Silicon Valley 54

Silicon Valley Startup B2C Sweat Equity 54

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

Ironically, Carreyou is not a Silicon Valley-focused reporter, and the success of the piece served as a wake-up call for other journalists who may have been struck by Unicorn fever. A high performing, high-growth SAAS company that may have been worth 10 or more times revenue was suddenly worth 4-7 times revenue.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Back then Michael Arrington accused some of Silicon Valley’s top seed funds of “colluding” by meeting secretly to talk down the valuation of startups. forward revenue for SaaS businesses when in the years before it had been less than 5x. This is the biggest red herring of them all. What hogwash.

Valuation 150

Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Especially if you aren’t from around Silicon Valley. even something like joining a climbing gym can work – in silicon valley, they’re full of techies!

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

So, I thought it might make sense to take a step back and talk about all the stages of early stage fundraising here in the Silicon Valley. In early stage investing, at least in Silicon Valley, there are basically 4 stages: pre-seed, seed, post-seed (or pre-A), and series A.

Pre-Money Valuation 90

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 90

Hippoland

AUGUST 31, 2018

So, I thought it might make sense to take a step back and talk about all the stages of early stage fundraising here in the Silicon Valley. In early stage investing, at least in Silicon Valley, there are basically 4 stages: pre-seed, seed, post-seed (or pre-A), and series A.

Pre-Money Valuation 48

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Early Stage 48

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Thirty-four VC firms in OpenVC call themselves “early-stage” Yet, 30% of those don’t actually invest in pre-revenue startups. J-Angels “is a community and a VC fund of top American investors (Jewish-American & Israeli-born) in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.”. The phrase is quite ambiguous.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Steve Blank

MAY 9, 2017

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 242

Restful Silicon Valley Puerto Rico San Jose 242

techcrunch.com

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Respondents deemed between 12%-16% of companies generating revenues to be essentially “worthless” and deemed 20%-26% of their pre-revenue investments to be “worthless.” Spend the time raising money yourself, using oblique sources of revenue such as contract work or any one of a hundred others. Add to this that 72.7% Translation?

Venture Capital 62

Venture Capital Technical Review Sweat Equity Valuation 62

Up and Running

DECEMBER 9, 2014

They cover funding for small businesses from the initial funding stage to later stages of growth, and other areas in between. Two, revenue. 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. What do you do? Three, growth rate.

Small Business 95

Small Business Finance Forecast Metrics 95

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Multiply that by literally a couple thousand, and that’s what 2013 is going to look like in Silicon Valley, and to a lesser degree some other startup ecosystems. “There are so many companies in Silicon Valley that have raised $30 million and done absolutely nothing with it.” Source VentureBeat ]. -

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93