View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

Historically, seed rounds were syndicated among several different firms. Today, we are seeing less syndication of seed rounds and sharper elbows among many of the funds in the market. Instead of broadly syndicated rounds, we are seeing much more competition for fewer slots. These two forces go hand in hand.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267

VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2021

billion gamers worldwide will help the global games market generate revenues of $189.3 Disclaimer: we have three portfolio companies in the consumer mobile space, still in stealth). of US social network users) according to Falcon.io’s 2021 digital marketing trends. Fortnite alone made $1.8 billion in revenue last year.

Technical Review 207

Technical Review Audio Forecast Social Media 207

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . 2) Marketing. See How Private Equity and VC Investors Are Using Social Media. See my summary on how lead investors think about building out their syndicate. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2018

Just as with any company, the most important issue is the team; see “ How to Negotiate a Partner Role at a Venture Capital or Private Equity Firm “ . 2) Marketing. See How Private Equity and VC Investors Are Using Social Media. See my summary on how lead investors think about building out their syndicate. .

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Private Equity Management Cap Table 60

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

The venture capital industry is continuing its evolution from an upside-down pyramid (typically 3-10 Partners, plus some administrative support) to a traditional hierarchical pyramid. Out of 5,923 investment professionals in our dataset, 916 (15.5%) were focused primarily on origination and marketing.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114

David Teten

JANUARY 11, 2020

The challenge is that my time and money budget for “influencing”–content creation and marketing– is minimal. Also, since I’m not trying to be a full-time marketer, I can’t use some of the standard celebrity techniques. They’re taking a $1m check from me, or giving $5m to me as a limited partner. Tech stack.

Social Media 60

Social Media Technical Review Media Private Equity 60

Agile VC

DECEMBER 13, 2011

My partners and I would be thrilled to support this founder in general, but we don’t have enough conviction about the market opportunity he and his co-founders are pursuing to proceed with an investment. I’ve always respected Bessemer for publishing their “ Anti-Portfolio ” on their website.

Seed Stage 185

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Cofounder Technical Review 185

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

When I meet with other VCs, family offices, and other institutional investors, the most common question I get is: “What are the highest-potential companies in your portfolio which are raising now?” We see our potential coinvestors in four primary buckets: 1) HOF Capital ’s own limited partners. Fundraising is burdensome.

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

VC Adventure

JANUARY 19, 2024

Over the course of Foundry, we deliberately structured our work in a way that reflected this goal, keeping our organization small and each of the Foundry partners closer to the portfolio (both the companies each of us was responsible for, but also across the portfolio more broadly).

Portfolio 72

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Cofounder 72

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Active angels invest in a diversified portfolio of 10 or more companies, usually spreading their investments over a few years. In the end, such a portfolio might yield the angel investor a total return on investment of 25% per year or more. A local network of angels is critical to achieving a diversified portfolio.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

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.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

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

Hunter Walker

APRIL 10, 2014

But he’s raised the largest syndicate on AngelList , turning himself effectively into a one-man fund for, if not the masses, at least the 270 people who have already committed nearly $3.4m AngelList syndicate has surprised some people, you’ve been angel investing for quite a while, right? He tweets infrequently.

Syndicate 121

Syndicate Syndication Hiring Cofounder 121

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

And if you just want to learn about different types of angels and what motivates each, my partner David has written about that before here.). Maybe you’ll do better as an angel since you are investing smaller dollars which is easier to deploy in this segment of the market, but maybe not. A Primer on Angel Investing. Why Invest?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

And if you just want to learn about different types of angels and what motivates each, my partner David has written about that before here.). Maybe you’ll do better as an angel since you are investing smaller dollars which is easier to deploy in this segment of the market, but maybe not. A Primer on Angel Investing. Why Invest?

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

She had so much insight to share that we broke the interview into two parts, 1) Corporate Venture Capital and more broadly, 2) How the Fortune 500 Can Buy, Invest and Partner with the Innovation Economy (coming soon). . I recently had a chance to interview Mari Joller , an expert on corporate innovation, on this topic.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

thebarefootvc

MAY 8, 2012

The best VCs are the ones that balance their optimism, vision and enthusiasm for startups with realism based on very real constraints (the primary one being his/her own time, but also includes market development and exit timing). Too many pivots, and you can lose the market opportunity, even with the greatest idea.

Venture Capital 78

Venture Capital Syndicate Syndication Bandwidth 78

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

But the emphasis of our program is the direct one-on-one interaction with NextView partners to help push the company forward. The partners at NextView hold sessions more than once per week to push the participants’ thinking and actions to strive towards making significant advances finding true-product market fit.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

Genuine VC

MAY 29, 2014

Yet even today, whether or not to take a (relatively) small check in a seed round syndicate from a multi-hundred million or even billion dollar fund is still a decision which takes quite a bit of consideration and sometimes consternation. So there is an element of (positive) selection bias in the larger VC syndicate cohort companies.

Syndicate 166

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Valuation 166

Agile VC

OCTOBER 27, 2011

InsightSquared is tackling business intelligence software (hardly a sexy market) with an incredibly sexy product that incorporates Facebook style timelines and other features. My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search. RentJuice is doing much the same in real estate software. What’s Your Favorite Future?

Software 100

Software B2B Silicon Valley Acquisition 100

Agile VC

DECEMBER 19, 2013

In addition, investing in startup tech companies turns out to provide only a modest level of diversification… angel investments tend to form a high beta portfolio, with reasonably close correlations to public equity markets. ” But as an angel one can overweight this factor.

Angel Investor 265

Angel Investor Early Stage Syndicate Syndication 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). But they are also a tax on your time with portfolio companies, looking for new investments, running your shop and honestly they are a tax on your family life. I don’t.

Cofounder 374

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Early Stage 374

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Sharing these pricing expectations early with potential lead investors fundamentally qualifies your conversations, but it also runs the risk of prematurely losing a potential financing partner, or else it can reduce options to maximize your fundraise outcome. Lower-Than-Market Value. Market Value. Above-Market Value.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

View from Seed

AUGUST 20, 2014

how large an exit they prefer to see), portfolio strategy, etc. Their aggressiveness sends a signal to the market. Definition: This is a case where two large VCs partner to take a significant portion of the round together, often leaving only a small piece for value added angels or seed investors. The Two-VC-Led Seed.

Startup 301

Startup Syndicate Syndication Boston 301

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

Also, a partner who is transitioning into a non-FT role going forward. The first real institutional funds in this segment of the market are starting to reach the back half of their original partnerships – where some combination of age, wealth effect, changes in personal goals, etc have started the transition.

LP 92

LP Early Stage Syndicate Syndication 92

Genuine VC

JULY 26, 2010

Micro VCs are notorious for building large and friendly syndicates. While traditional VCs sometimes have a love/hate relationship with their syndicate partners (often depending on how well their mutual portfolio companies are performing), it seems as though in the Micro VC arena all of the players speak and act like best friends.

Syndicate 128

Syndicate Syndication Due Diligence Seed Stage 128

Hippoland

MAY 15, 2016

It would’ve been something like: Angels: Uses his/her own money to do investments Writes small checks Mostly sole decision maker VCs: Uses 3rd party money to do investments (from limited partners) Writes large checks Multiple decision makers and a concrete process But today, some of these things have changed. Like I mean a LOT.

Syndicate 48

Syndicate Syndication Limited Partner Portfolio 48

www.allthingsdistributed.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

External Facing Technologist –We see this model often in companies where technology is used to provideproducts and services to customers and partners; the CTO is the intermediarybetween clients and internal development and the main influencer in thedevelopment of the product portfolio.

CTO 40

CTO CTO Hire Syndicate Syndication 40

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

” While the founding team was exploring potential business opportunities that allowed us to make a bigger impact on the world, Silicon Valley Bank and High Alpha Innovation were together envisioning a platform to help VC-backed portfolio companies more effectively navigate the complex world of executive talent needs.

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

This is why I’ve made a habit of profiling our portfolio quantitatively and why we write summaries announcing pretty much all of our new investments. So, here is our annual quantitative summary of our portfolio. This equates to 3-4 investments that are “led” internally by each partner. This isn’t a quota.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

Agile VC

APRIL 27, 2012

My partners and I have blogged about some of these including Invited Guest , Golazo , Authentic , and Tribe. We love meeting entrepreneurs who take this blank canvas approach when thinking about disrupting markets. This is how new markets get created. My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 124

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

While across fund cycles and an entire partnership these sorts of issues normalize out, I can tell you for sure the lead partner might be wishing they had that ‘slot’ back, especially if they are early in their career. Opportunity Cost of Follow-on Capital. Relationship Cost of SPVs/Direct Co-Investment and LP Credibility.

Vertical 48

Vertical LP Syndicate Syndication 48

View from Seed

JULY 9, 2015

It’s a common question that every VC fields from founders — and founders field from other founders, and marketers field from founders, and PR people field from founders. And given my marketing background (Google, Dailybreak Media, HubSpot), I often get this question directly: When should startups announce seed funding? .

Startup 120

Startup PR Cofounder Stealth 120

Rob Go

MARCH 10, 2012

My friend Jordan Cooper wrote an interesting post a few days ago about some of his predictions of the venture market in 2012. Really smart people end up writing thoughtful posts on the future of the venture market pretty much every year – and I often agree with many of them like I do Jordan’s. Syndicate diversification.

Seed Stage 49

Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication Marketing 49

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Four of the portfolio companies have had successful exits: CardMunch was acquired by LinkedIn , BackType was acquired by Twitter , IndexTank was acquired by LinkedIn , and just this week, card.io K9 Ventures II will still be syndicating most investments with other seed and angel investors. was acquired by PayPal.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Four of the portfolio companies have had successful exits: CardMunch was acquired by LinkedIn , BackType was acquired by Twitter , IndexTank was acquired by LinkedIn , and just this week, card.io K9 Ventures II will still be syndicating most investments with other seed and angel investors. was acquired by PayPal.

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

Our investment size may differ slightly from one company to the next, but it tends to be driven entirely by situation-specific factors (needs of the company, syndicate composition, anticipated reserves, etc) … and not based on our belief. We expect that a half to two-thirds will achieve product/market fit and warrant further investment.

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120