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. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

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

My Partners at HOF Capital are younger than I am, which means that we have a half-century horizon for the franchise we are building. First Round Capital’s forum for portfolio executives is a powerful example of a scaleable resource. – Hire more non-Partner staff. So we think about scaling a lot.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Cofounder 60

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. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

Lindel joined Foundry Group as a partner to lead the fund investing activity of Foundry Group Next. We’ve had the opportunity to work with Founder Collective’s partners – David Frankel, Eric Paley, and Micah Rosenbloom – over the years on several companies. We also know many of the entrepreneurs in their portfolio.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

Fabio Mercurio, Head of Quantitative Analytics, Bloomberg LP. Head of Portfolio Management, AQR Capital Management. Karl Sprules, Partner & CTO, AllianceBernstein. Katina Stefanova, Founding Partner & CIO, Marto Capital. Among the speakers are: Aaron Brown, Chief Risk Officer, AQR Capital Management.

New York 60

New York Fractional CTO CTO LP 60

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. Patience is a virtue.

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 14, 2023

Once it became clear that payroll accounts needed to be funded on Monday to make Wednesday’s payroll, we focused on the immediate short-term to ensure our portfolio companies’ thousands of employees got paid on time. Foundry is supporting it as a firm, and I’m supporting it personally along with my partner Jaclyn Hester.

Founder 168

Founder Silicon Valley LP Portfolio 168

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. VCs crave the ability to help portfolio companies. That role as sparring partner can be useful if for nothing else than to test your resolve.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

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 now sought out by LPs.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

At first glance, you’d think that all LPs pretty much want to buy the same thing. Every fund pitching an LP is pitching this as a baseline. And yet, LP’s get to “yes” in a few cases and get to “no” in most cases. In addition to thinking about the LP overall, it’s important to think about the decision-maker.

LP 309

LP Customer Early Stage Portfolio 309

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. Access to the partner. Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. Access to other investors.

Portfolio 134

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Deal Flow 134

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

PEVCTech is partnering with Blue Future Partners to run the first large-scale survey of VCs’ technology stack. Johann Kratzer of Blue Future Partners , a fund of funds, observed, “The majority of the hundreds of funds we’ve diligenced rely predominantly on their relationships to source deals. Greylock Partners.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

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? He and his partner told me about this new idea over the course of nearly a year. I run the recruiting process for my VC firm, GRP Partners.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur CTO Hire South America Salary 293

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 19, 2012

The LP Update Meeting. I’m just back from our semi-annual update to the LPs in one of our funds, and I thought I would share the experience with you all. As a reminder, LPs, or limited partners, are the investors in venture capital funds. These meetings are the equivalent of board meetings for our portfolio companies.

LP 97

LP Europe Portfolio Private Equity 97

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ). Maybe that’s USV, too.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Limited Partners or LPs (the people who invest into VC funds) have taken notice as 2014 is by all accounts the busiest year for LPs since the Great Recession began. But it still takes VC to scale a business (thus large capital into industry winners like Uber, Airbnb, SnapChat, etc). Why is this?

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. Similar to the explosion of seed funds in the past decade, we (and some limited partners too ) believe these Flexible VCs are on the forefront of what will become a major segment of the venture ecosystem. Of the Inc. 5000 companies, only 6.5% return cap.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 3, 2011

For those of you not in the know, they are one of the largest limited partners ( LP's : investors in venture capital funds) in Europe and are basically in almost all the funds throughout the market. Hypothesis 3: Insufficient diversification in European VC managers’ portfolios .

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

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. I wrote about the two we lost last year to firms that have been around longer and proud to say that since that time, we’ve been able to beat out and/or partner with many great funds.

LP 97

LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 97

Version One Ventures

JULY 31, 2018

As a result, we are now a strong partnership of two… and while we have the capacity to do more deals with two partners, we also recognize that we could use some support. Reporting for our investors, including writing quarterly updates and preparing LP advisory board meetings. What are we looking for?

Hiring 166

Hiring San Francisco Advisory Board Due Diligence 166

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

You've decided to spread that across Z funds and you hope your portfolio meets some threshold. Either way, VC funds aren't really built around creating much of an experience for their Limited Partners. The GP-LP relationship shouldn't be so one dimensional around returns, and I would argue that, in the seed stage, it's sub-optimal.

Limited Partner 60

Limited Partner Venture Capital Partner LP 60

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 In any professional service industry, there is natural shuffling in the junior roles, as the race up the pyramid towards a Partner title is like musical chairs.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 17, 2018

With Angela’s promotion to General Partner , we now have investment partners located in both the U.S. and Canada, offering portfolio companies strong networks and resources on both sides of the border. It is a true honor to be a partner of yours! And last but not least, we thank our investors, the LPs.

Silicon Valley 127

Silicon Valley North America San Francisco LP 127

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. How Do I Encourage Dissent Between Amongst the Partners?

Marketing 263

Marketing Valuation Churn Rate Balance Sheet 263

Haystack

JUNE 1, 2018

Perhaps because of this success and the unique elbow grease they supply to their portfolio, it was shocking to many to see that one of the storied seed franchises would contract, become its own sole LP, and scale back its operations. Yet for many, it didn’t come as a surprise.

LP 116

LP Global Social Media Portfolio 116

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 14, 2019

If you’re not actually modeling this out with a spreadsheet, I don’t know how you can look an LP in the face and say this. A Time and Attention Model How much time will you be spending on each portfolio company? How long is your partner meeting going to be? I think the results will surprise you how hard it is to be successful.

LP 97

LP Due Diligence Portfolio Distribution 97

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 2, 2017

It’s hard enough to get a job at a venture capital or private equity firm; it’s even more complex to join as a Partner. So I would start by sharing with the fund an institutional LP due diligence checklist , and ask them to share their data room with you. Contact : to existing portfolio, to internal team resources, to LPs.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Partner 60

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 15, 2016

My partner Lindel Eakman just did a really fun interview with Harry Stebbings on Harry’s 20 Minute VC Podcast. Question from Michael Kim @ Cendana: How is Lindel approaching portfolio construction for Foundry Next? Does Lindel agree with Chris Douvos in stating this could lead to the ‘hybridisation of GP and LP’?

LP 70

LP Portfolio Community Partner 70

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

But in business, you want a lot of partners. 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. 1) Manage the firm .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

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. I would like to thank all the limited partners who entrust me and K9 to invest their capital. was a $40M fund.

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. If you want the whole deck you can find it on SlideShare but I’ve written up a short summary with commentary below.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

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

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

I’ve been fortunate to be a Partner at two different VC firms over the past 9 years, and we’ve grown AUM 10X both times. Build the firm as much as possible before you solicit limited partners. . The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. Lastly, gather feedback.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

From around 2000, and perhaps coinciding with the need to work harder to win deals as opportunities dried up after the internet bubble burst, individual partners at VC firms began adding ‘helping CEOs win’ to their job descriptions. . The most visible symptom of this trend was VCs writing blogs to show just how value add they were.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

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. Limited Partners (LPs) who invest in VC funds have continued to pour money into venture – with the market returning to pre-recession levels.

LP 150

LP Valuation Burn Rate Pre-Money Valuation 150