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

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

At our mid-year offsite our partnership at Upfront Ventures was discussing what the future of venture capital and the startup ecosystem looked like. But I thought a better way of thinking about how we manage our portfolios is to think about it as a funnel. So it’s about 20%. This translates to about 12–15 investments.

Technical Review 416

Technical Review Pre-Money Valuation San Francisco Valuation 416

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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. Our portfolio companies value us as sparring partners. What’s up with that?

Los Angeles 343

Los Angeles Las Vegas San Francisco Baltimore 343

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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 overall trends in our industry have breathed a new life into the venture capital industry. The iPhone was released.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

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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. Morning in VC.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

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DECEMBER 7, 2014

Who else can provide context if your portfolio isn’t growing as quickly as your peer group, if they believe you paid too high a price on a deal, if they question your due diligence in a given situation or whatever critique they might offer? They are sometimes the only people who can tell you hard truths about your business or yourself.

Software Review 341

Software Review Customer Technical Review LP 341

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. portfolios. Many of these businesses were what First Round Capital called FNACs (features, not companies – this acronym has always stuck with me).

Business Plan 334

Business Plan AJAX Venture Capital Technical Review 334

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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. Brad’s start in Venture Capital. Venture Capital in Boulder and other smaller communities. “So National Venture Capital Group endorsed it. was starting.

Technical Review 288

Technical Review Venture Capital Silicon Valley Software Review 288

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MAY 24, 2018

Find a portfolio company or two that they’ve invested in. This is critical to build a cohesive venture capital firm. It’s pretty easy since nearly every VC lists its partners on the website. Some firms are trickier since they artificially call everybody “partner” but they’re not all “investment partners.”

Technical Review 314

Technical Review Due Diligence Partner Term Sheet 314

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APRIL 20, 2011

One example is that they introduced a program where their founders can pool together shares from their company and exchange them for a small portfolio of other First Round Capital companies. In the early 80’s he left academia to work on venture capital investing with Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

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NOVEMBER 19, 2015

The biggest difference I cite is that Venture Capital often feels like an “individual sport” while startups are a “team sport.” It was more hedge fund than venture capital. We took it because we want to provide a work space for our portfolio companies or people considering working with us.

San Francisco 150

San Francisco Jordan Los Angeles Technical Review 150

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JUNE 27, 2021

When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.” So if you truly want to be great at investing you need all the right skills and access AND a diversified portfolio. You’re thinking about one bullet at a time.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

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JULY 16, 2010

You’ll notice that Harvard lost 30% of the entire value of its portfolio. After all, most people don’t understand that “venture capital is a get rich slowly&# scheme. He then profiled his portfolio company FourSquare who started with a very small investment. Fred Wilson wrote a great piece on this.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

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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

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MARCH 21, 2013

So when I meet with GRP portfolio companies that do enterprise sales I try to emphasize the following: 1. Another rule I outline with our portfolio companies who sell enterprise solutions is that I don’t want them to become a distraction for management. [it's all in this article if you want the details].

Software Review 321

Software Review Software IP Technical Review 321

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JUNE 8, 2010

Greycroft is Alan’s venture capital firm that recently raised its second fund ($130 million) with offices in both New York and LA. We’re here for Greycroft’s CEO Summit – a gathering of the CEO’s of their portfolio companies with guest speakers covering topics including how to build your team, PR, customer development, etc.

PR 279

PR Technical Review Portfolio Customer Development 279

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APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. So look at the latest portfolio of your VC (not prior funds) and see whether they’ve had exits and how many of their non-exited companies are likely to exit in the near future. We also took one of our large portfolio companies, Ulta, public.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

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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

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JUNE 28, 2021

The Denominator Effect I recently wrote a post about funding for investors to think about having a diversified portfolio , which I called “shots on goal.” This is Venture Capital. Get lots of shots on goal (completed deals, which is the numerator) in order to build a diversified portfolio. On Funding?—?The

Angel Investor 301

Angel Investor Deal Flow Portfolio Forecast 301

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JANUARY 22, 2014

I would call their portfolio companies and ask how helpful or not they’ve been. And so is venture capital. look at their portfolio list. In my experience 90% of VCs fall short on their promises of how helpful or not they can be with intros. I’ll let you decide which you’d want. Commitment.

Portfolio 364

Portfolio Chicago Sales Incubator 364

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OCTOBER 29, 2010

Background: GRP Partners is a Los Angeles based Venture Capital firm with additional operations in London and Paris. Responding to portfolio company requests. We like to get a flow of applicants in before processing. When the process has closed I will update this post to say so. Position: Analyst.

Los Angeles 290

Los Angeles Technical Review Due Diligence Venture Capital 290

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AUGUST 8, 2009

But many Series A firms tell people they have a “revenue rule&# and then you look at their portfolio and see many exceptions. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice startup technology vc venture capital. Now there are some firms that have strict rules about not funding pre-revenue companies – that’s different.

Technical Review 309

Technical Review Term Sheet Venture Capital Revenue 309

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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.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

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FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Lindel is no stranger to thorny venture capital issues — he was arguably amongst the most successful LPs of his generation.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

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OCTOBER 1, 2009

Check out this interesting piece on PEHub talking about how Stanford is discreetly looking to sell it’s asset portfolio ! It’s my job to invest wisely in entrepreneurs who are capital efficient, who innovate in ways that pay off economically in good markets or bad and who plan for worst-case scenarios.

Technical Review 269

Technical Review Stock Hawaii Early Stage 269

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MAY 24, 2021

Since funds were driven by extreme successes in their portfolios where just one deal could return 5x the entire fund while 95% of the fund may have done well but not amazing, not missing out on deals was critical. The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

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SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Matt Blumberg, who runs one of Fred’s portfolio companies, Return Path, follows up with an additional three : Don’t be a bottleneck (make sure you aren’t holding up people’s work). I have been involved as an investor in many CEO / founder disputes including many that are not in my portfolio.

Ireland 319

Ireland Sales Bankruptcy Germany 319

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SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. Periodically we do portfolio reviews to evaluate whether we have enough diversified risk across the fund. If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns.

Technical Review 362

Technical Review America Partner United States 362

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SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

If you have raised venture capital and you feel your runway (number of months cash left) is looking low have a conversation with your VC. Ask other portfolio companies how your VC acted when / if they got in a cash pinch. Would they be willing to put a bridge loan in place if need be?

Burn Rate 383

Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net Valuation 383

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FEBRUARY 18, 2020

Sometimes that’s venture capital generally (like last year’s conversation with Reid Hoffman ) and sometimes it’s in a space where I’ve invested (like mobility and city innovation with Bird’s Travis VanderZanden , one of our portfolio founders.)

Los Angeles 244

Los Angeles Silicon Valley Mobile Video 244

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MARCH 25, 2016

Marketing with long payback is precisely what requires venture capital. Our portfolio company Ring had a new “security doorbell” which is truly a new market. That’s why Ring is amongst the fastest growing company in our portfolio. Most products have substitutes and it’s worth knowing. Competition.

Startup 150

Startup Seed Money DC Software Review 150

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APRIL 27, 2013

Just ask the people of Portland, Seattle, Boulder, Iowa, Princeton, Dallas or countless other cities that don’t have enough venture capital. If you don’t live in a major VC zone, I have some tips for how to make it easier to raise Venture Capital. Ask SuperCell. Or UrbanAirship. Take me for example.

Kansas City 365

Kansas City San Diego Kansas Dallas 365

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MARCH 12, 2013

So I started introducing him to portfolio companies. And we’ve designed the economic incentives so that Greg is aligned with the overall performance of GRP in addition to his investments so I’m excited to get him involved across all of our portfolio companies helping provide fresh perspectives on the important topic of growth.

Partner 360

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles San Francisco 360

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NOVEMBER 11, 2013

We have a few portfolio companies going through brand changes. We are trying hard to live up to the guidelines we laid out for our investors, our portfolio companies and our community. And over the past 4 weeks I’ve worked on 6 transactions (2 brand new fundings, 4 portfolio events).

Ireland 324

Ireland Jordan Portfolio Flash 324

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APRIL 13, 2013

Perhaps they believe it isn’t a good use of time for each portfolio company to spend time with each partner. Raising Venture Capital Startup Advice' Is there any reason a VC would not want you to meet with his or her partners? I question this logic but I’m sure some firms operate that way.

Management 309

Management Venture Capital Partner Boston 309

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NOVEMBER 13, 2014

As I like to say (and as Kara humbly hates when I do so in front of others) … she has a much better resume to a venture capital partner than I do. Her network from her educational institutions alone has friends in all of the top tech, media & banking institutions. But she also has the temperament, which is important.

Partner 408

Partner Las Vegas Los Angeles Baltimore 408

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

But there are many zombie VC’s with no more investments left in their portfolios so it’s hard to know which trend has more impact. So what is driving the new energy in the remaining venture capital firms when we kept hearing how much the whole industry was “against the ropes?&# … 1.

IPO 255

IPO Investment Bankers Venture Capital Marketing 255