Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

I’ve heard a lot of people question whether there is too much money in venture capital chasing too few great deals. Others believe that new business models are emerging that could replace venture capital all together. We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced. More on that later.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage IPO 328

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” Having worked through the data with Glenn I am even more optimistic about venture capital than I was even a year ago.

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital IPO LP Jordan 362

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

On the phone … Me: So, you raised venture capital? It’s simply what a market is willing to pay based on a future belief that your company will grow and non-linear rates and be worth much more in the future. We raised a seed round. About $1 million. Me: At what price? Him: It wasn’t priced. Me: With a cap?

Venture Capital 417

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Valuation Term Sheet 417

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

Valuation 466

Valuation San Francisco Ratchet Liquidation Preference 466

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FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It was only a year ago that many in the Venture Capital industry were predicting that “winter was coming” and to be fair the author of this post was chief amongst them. Yet as we enter February 2017 the VC funding markets are booming, Snap, Inc has filed for its IPO, AppDynamics was just purchased for $3.7 Baidu alone raised $3.2

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Saudi Arabia Kuwait Burn Rate 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). The VC market has right-sized (returned back to mid 90′s levels & less competition). On the surface the narratives have been.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. Looking ahead at the next decade I am excited by what I believe will be viewed as one of the best and most rational investment periods for venture capital due to seven discrete factors: 1.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Why do they invest in venture capital? We raised $280 million.

Las Vegas 396

Las Vegas St. Louis Southern California San Diego 396

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. As an industry we’re not always as good as we could be about our own “creative destruction” to create the tomorrow of venture capital. And all the platform stuff.

Partner 361

Partner Management Cofounder San Francisco 361

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2016

They started as an elite black-car service and only once they saw Lyft doing well in the peer driving market did they launch UberX. In picking your market you should focus on “deflationary economics” or lowering the price, functionality and margin of your business but targeting ever-increasing market sizes afforded by Internet scale.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital San Francisco Startup Limited Partner 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. million in team costs to code, launch, manage, market & sell our software.

Venture Capital 334

Venture Capital Software PHP Open Source 334

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Growth will slow, partly due to internal limits and partly because the company is starting to bump up against the limits of the markets it serves.” He talks about making things that people want & going after a big enough market. After all, growth equals high valuations and loads of venture capital!

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Startup Technical Review 390

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social Proof in Action … Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of using social proof and authority in raising venture capital. Many of you have read or at least know the primary thesis of “ Crossing the Chasm &# the seminal book on marketing your products to mainstream consumers by Geoffrey Moore.

Customer 294

Customer Marketing Technical Review Iowa 294

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OCTOBER 20, 2011

Early today I gave a keynote at the VCJ Venture Alpha conference here in San Francisco. I was asked to speak about the topic of “what is going on in the venture capital world and what is the next big thing after social networking?”. Future of VC Internet – Tough topic, but what the heck?

Venture Capital 306

Venture Capital Internet San Francisco Social Network 306

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

Others may not have the experience you want and they fill up a seat that makes retaining founder control more difficult if you ultimately raise large rounds of venture capital in the future. What happens at the A-round of venture capital? With that said, no venture capital firm really wants to replace a CEO.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series of posts and I need to file this one under both Raising Venture Capital and Startup Advice. The last couple of years has also seen the huge initial success of Ycombinator, the Lean Startup and many other product driven approaches to going to market. I care about your assumptions going in.

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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OCTOBER 19, 2009

On December 3rd Brad Feld wrote a one paragraph blog post titled “ Raising Venture Capital &# in which he linked to my blog. The Original Post (after the jump): Venture Capital, By Mark Suster (December 2nd, 2006). I don’t plan to write the authoritative venture capital blog, just some anecdotes.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

Yeah, that was when I changed for me…” “…there was so much positive feedback on demystifying this one element of venture capital. We have a theme we call Protocol, which are technology protocols and markets built around technology protocols like SMTP for email and RSS. Brad’s start in Venture Capital. was starting.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. It turns out it actually takes time to build a high-growth business with differentiated intellectual property and roll out large, enterprise-class marketing solutions. 5 years ago. 5 years ago.

Los Angeles 387

Los Angeles Intellectual Property LP Venture Capital 387

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

With the enormous changes to our economies and financial markets?—?how how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued?

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

This is the market that Wonga serves and they are killing it! Peer-to-peer lending service; started on FaceBook; claim to own 79% of the US peer lending market in March 2010 with a whopping $8,664,750. Investors: Foundation Capital (lead), with existing investors: Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Canaan Partners.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Social Network Angel Investor Chad 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital today with Jason Calacanis talking about the big VC deals at the moment and talking about the VC industry. IPO market is back. Talked about the roles of partners, venture partners, associates and principals in a VC. - We discussed some of the recent IPOs. and much more.

Venture Capital 232

Venture Capital IPO Valuation Deal Flow 232

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too. What’s up with that? Our portfolio companies value us as sparring partners.

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. Tags: Entrepreneur Advice Raising Venture Capital Start-up Advice Startup Advice.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. This is critical to build a cohesive venture capital firm.

Technical Review 314

Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Term Sheet 314

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

Are you raising an appropriate amount of capital relative to your progress, relative to your team size and relative to your needs? VCs want you to raise the “appropriate” amount of capital, which I would define as what is reasonable given your progress to date, your resources and your needs for an 18–24 month period.

Burn Rate 247

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Dilution 247

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 29, 2014

So amazingly you had a company with 350+ sku’s wanting capital to build its eCommerce capabilities and scale sales & marketing and on the other side this other great company with eCommerce expertise and a great product but not a broad enough sku set. Startup Lessons Tech Market Analysis Upfront Ventures'

Merger 296

Merger Southern California eCommerce New Zealand 296

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Back in 1999 when I first raised venture capital I had zero knowledge of what a fair term sheet looked like or how to value my company. Due to competitive markets we ended up with a pretty good term sheet until we needed to raise money in April 2001 and then we got completely screwed. Those options need to come from somewhere.

Valuation 405

Valuation Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet 405

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2009

This is part of my ongoing Raising Venture Capital (VC) series. When people refer to a strategic investor they are usually talking about an investor that comes from the industry you serve as opposed to an independent venture capital investor. The reality is that their core business is not venture capital.

Strategic Investors 279

Strategic Investors Venture Capital Due Diligence Early Stage 279

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

Markets always evolve toward higher resolution. I believe you reward investors who make an early call just like on the public stock market. Tags: Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice Tech Market Analysis Term Sheets. You may not need to use convertible notes to do it.

Finance 286

Finance Term Sheet Technical Review Warrant 286

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

As I like to say, “If you’re really on to an enormous idea then other people in the market are going to spot that and want to compete with you. If you have a market lead then raising capital and making investments now will help you as others enter the market. If you don’t, somebody else WILL!”

Startup 418

Startup Revenue Technical Review Flash 418

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2015

Startups in a world of massive markets can be confusing. The law of large numbers, platforms that can make your company blow up unexpectedly and the trendy nature of tech markets can be deceiving. This is why I loved Brad Feld’s recent post about the “ illusion of product / market fit.”

Product 150

Product B2B Warrant Technical Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). What are your predictions for the road ahead.

Technical Review 241

Technical Review IPO Southern California Venture Capital 241

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets. But markets have changed and I think investors, founders and experienced executives who want to join later-stage startups can all benefit from playing the long game. It literally drove FOMO.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He’s thoughtful about markets, investors, products and is always very well reasoned in his arguments. This week I sat down with Chris Dixon, co-founder / CEO of Hunch and Partner at Founder Collective in the most recent installment of This Week in Venture Capital. I’ve also found him to not be dogmatic either.

Technical Review 281

Technical Review Artificial Inteligence Cofounder API 281

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2013

Companies like DogVacay solve a real need in the market. We got along and shared stories about the startup market. He wanted to work in venture capital and I was new to the industry and in no position to hire anybody. He turned to Mike Jones at Science who was newly set up as an accelerator of sorts or a venture studio.

San Diego 344

San Diego Technical Review Seed Capital Sacramento 344