View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

As the venture capital industry has evolved, more and more seed investors are passing on traditionally “seed stage” startups because there isn’t enough traction. We are also seeing more investors try to be a part of syndicated A rounds for companies that are raising $5M or more and are really not what most would consider “seed” stage.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. But truthfully both Dana and I are more aligned with the lean startup principles and believe you only go FAT when you’ve really proved out your product / market fit. Go Boulder!

Partner 240

Partner New York City Cofounder Syndicate 240

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

In many ways that might be one way to interpret even Facebook where Sheryl stepped in as COO but by all accounts ran much of Facebook for a few years (other than product). I’m excited to see what Nick can product. It now seems that Mark is more firmly in control. I like technical founders so this wasn’t an issue.

Founder 309

Founder CTO Hire Silicon Valley Leadership 309

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Individual accredited investors in typical angel deals put personal capital at risk for an equity share of growth-oriented, start-up companies. In 2011, the valuation of pre-revenue, start-up companies is typically in the range of $1.5–$2.5 As can be seen the average (mean) pre-money valuation for recent pre-revenue deals is $2.1

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job. . Sabena Quan-Hin, Marketing Manager at Flow Capital , wrote, “There are two crucial aspects of marketing that investors often overlook: automation and analytics.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 22, 2020

Typically, individual investments will be less than $100K, but a group of angels may syndicate multiples. Venture capitalists, on the other hand, rarely consider requests below $2M. Since they know that most startups fail, their target return is ten times investment, so be prepared to talk cost vs revenue and product life.

Angel Investor 322

Angel Investor Valuation Syndicate Syndication 322

Austin Startup

AUGUST 7, 2017

Instead of arguing why Dallas might be better than Houston we should be talking about how we can work together to get our share of venture capital dollars more in line with our population size and startup activity by unlocking additional capital sources that have been previously inaccessible to tech.

Texas 97

Texas San Antonio Houston Dallas 97

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

As the venture capital industry has evolved, more and more seed investors are passing on traditionally “seed stage” startups because there isn’t enough traction. We are also seeing more investors try to be a part of syndicated A rounds for companies that are raising $5M or more and are really not what most would consider “seed” stage.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 16, 2015

Most entrepreneurs have found by now one or more of the many popular crowdfunding sites , and have the name and contact information for at least one of the big venture capital firms. Here are eight key insights that will help you find a productive match: Angels want equity ownership, not causes.

Angel Investor 120

Angel Investor Accredited Investor Venture Capital Startup 120

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 5, 2015

Asking for early-stage money before you have customers and revenue will likely kill your credibility with real investors. Seed-stage, meanwhil e, is technically that critical period when you need funding to do solution- and business-model development, to prove that your new product or service works, before you try to sell it to customers.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Finance Early Stage Startup 120

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 14, 2011

Clearly Define Your Business Model While this may sound like a trivial task, young startups often have an exciting and innovative product, but no real plan for monetizing it. In other words, angel investors and early stage venture capital (VC) firms will have different expectations than late stage VC firms. All Rights Reserved.

France 77

France Marketing Social Media Startup 77

David Teten

JULY 23, 2019

See How VCs structure a syndicate and recruit coinvestors for more on this. – Ideally revenues and other financial metrics if we can include that. To make this manual process more efficient, I’ve met with companies working to productize sharing deals with other investors, e.g., Totem * and Signal by NFX.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Elevator Pitch Syndicate Syndication 60

Agile VC

AUGUST 12, 2011

For entrepreneurs seeking to build big companies on a rapid trajectory, raising larger scale venture capital rounds is likely a necessity at some point after the initial seed funding. 5) Plausible monetization – If you’re an e-commerce or B2B SaaS company, it’s harder to raise a Series A as a pre-revenue company.

Seed Stage 113

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Acquisition 113

VC Cafe

JULY 27, 2017

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, podcast industry ad revenue will reach $220 million in 2017, up 85 percent from 2016’s $119 million ( source ). The show starts with the history of Podcasts and ends with where they may be headed. Interestingly, Podcasts are starting to become a big business too. The third wave of podcasting.

Audio 109

Audio Silicon Valley Curation Cofounder 109

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Several of the portfolio companies have gone on to do their Series A (HighlightCam, Zimride, Occipital), Series B (CrowdFlower, DNAnexus) and Series C (Twilio, Lytro) rounds led by top tier venture firms, and the seed-stage companies all continue to track well on building product, team, and/or, revenue (imagine that!).

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

Several of the portfolio companies have gone on to do their Series A (HighlightCam, Zimride, Occipital), Series B (CrowdFlower, DNAnexus) and Series C (Twilio, Lytro) rounds led by top tier venture firms, and the seed-stage companies all continue to track well on building product, team, and/or, revenue (imagine that!).

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

VC Cafe

JULY 27, 2017

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, podcast industry ad revenue will reach $220 million in 2017, up 85 percent from 2016’s $119 million ( source ). The show starts with the history of Podcasts and ends with where they may be headed. Interestingly, Podcasts are starting to become a big business too. The third wave of podcasting.

Audio 60

Audio Curation Silicon Valley Media 60

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

Actually, growth equity firms I find are best at this, because they have very specific financial criteria that they look for, such as ranges for revenue, ebitda, growth, etc. Here’s a good example from Volition Capital. Stage: Pre Product: 12. Live Product, Pre Revenue: 6 1/2. Introduced by a co-investor: 5.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

Is it appropriate to have pre-money valautions of 8 before you even have a product? This investor usually don’t get included in highly competitive syndicates, so when someone smart like you comes along, they’re already excited about the possibility of getting in. Tags: Venture Capital & Technology.

Marketing 115

Marketing Syndicate Syndication Angel Investor 115

Professor VC

JUNE 20, 2011

The business model (OEM through broadband and home security companies for mass distribution) if not specific product functionality has remained largely the same. But of course, the model had us requiring only $10M equity to breakeven and to achieve $185M in revenues in 2008 (the magic Year 5 in all business plans). Steve Bennet.

San Jose 28

San Jose Angel Investor Term Sheet Venture Capital 28

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Then you can gradually transformyourself from a consulting company into a product company, and haveyour clients pay your development expenses. There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. To be a startup, a company hasto be a product business, not a service business. Some angel investors join together in syndicates.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76