Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. LPs Still Believe Strongly in Venture Capital as a Diverse Source of Returns. But there’s no doubt, some will make money.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital LP Silicon Valley Marketing 150

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

A critical stage for most first-time entrepreneurs is getting their idea developed into at least a prototype to validate their technology. Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S.

Early Stage 225

Early Stage SBIR Technical Review Seed Stage 225

Up and Running

MARCH 11, 2015

And, there’s a good reason why; it includes back-to-back essays on mobile, high-growth startups and technology. Probably the grand-daddy of VC blogs, Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson has been posting every day since 2003. From life advice and commentary, to practical know-how for growing a tech startup, AVC is a must-read blog.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Technical Review Silicon Valley Cofounder 60

YoungUpstarts

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

For example, assume you are a seed-stage company that needs $500,000 but you go out looking for $1 million. Further down the financing path, VCs will ask for additional information, known as due diligence materials. Foundry Group invests in technology companies all over the United States.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Term Sheet Technical Review Due Diligence 100

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 “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). From a technology perspective our journey is nowhere near over.

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

It’s not just the competition against the incumbents and the large tech platforms that founders has to worry about, but most importantly is the company’s performance and product market fit. How are we doing? This is a question startup founders ask themselves multiple times a week. The benchmarks are based on the US market.

Retention 109

Retention Conversion Churn Rate B2C 109

Professor VC

JANUARY 27, 2011

How Much Diligence is Due.Or Ive addressed the due diligence question in previous posts, but this came up again in a debate we were having at a recent meeting of the Sand Hill Angels. And in order to increase our groups returns, one of our goals should be to get more people and man hours involved in the diligence process.

Technical Review 31

Technical Review Due Diligence Silicon Valley San Jose 31

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Every Flexible VC structure allows founders to access immediate risk capital while preserving exit, growth trajectory, and ownership optionality. . Our categorization is not a technical one. Additionally, Flexible VC can accommodate all types of companies, not just asset-lite, tech-enabled companies.”. Funder Category.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

View from Seed

JANUARY 13, 2021

But in the grand scheme of things, 10 years is a blip, and one that had a continuous bull market in tech. What has happened is that over the last 10 years, the vast majority of successful startups have raised some sort of a seed round prior to a series A. In some ways, this feels like an eternity. That year, they invested in Segment.

Dilution 399

Dilution Later Stage Portfolio Technical Review 399

Mucker Lab

AUGUST 27, 2014

At the time, LA and Santa Clara were both the epicenter of the technology industry due to the significant overlap between the aerospace/military industry (Los Angeles) and the computing business (Silicon Valley). Given our backgrounds, we often get asked about what makes the tech scene in Los Angeles different from that in the Valley.

Los Angeles 138

Los Angeles Southern California Silicon Valley Technical Review 138

Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

We make a minority of our investments in new technology areas where deep technical innovation is occurring and where we believe there is will be a large future market opportunity. For these companies, we look for deep technology differentiation plus early market validation or clear opportunity for such.

Private Equity 48

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage 48

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

But VC is an “illiquid asset&# so funds didn’t disappear quickly - In 2000/01 the stock market quickly adjusted punishing investors in the NASDAQ and in individual public technology stocks. After all, most people don’t understand that “venture capital is a get rich slowly&# scheme.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

From my perspective it’s a great time to be investing at the post-seed stage – lots of great entrepreneurs looking for smart capital to help them accelerate growth. Cross-border supply of capital. One key difference between the late ‘90s tech scene and now are macroeconomic factors. Technology ubiquity.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

In the early 80’s he left academia to work on venture capital investing with Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. Through his research he helped bring ARPANET to Philadelphia in 1973. and Half.com.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 12, 2010

In the technology world there are a few websites that most startups track to keep up with the latest financings, acquisitions, product announcements and gossip: BusinessInsider, TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, etc. A large part of this is due to Sarbanes Oxley which has made running a public company so much more difficult. o Tuenti.

Seed Stage 232

Seed Stage Valuation Private Equity Venture Capital 232

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

. “Yes&# was given to me by one of my favorite angel investor / seed VC’s to work with – John Greathouse of Rincon Venture Partners and author of the blog InfoChachkie that you should check out because it is filled with great info from a guy who has been a very successful operator. So how does this apply to you?

Silicon Valley 293

Silicon Valley Technical Review Southern California Angel Investor 293

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. Because tech companies are getting bigger more quickly than at any time in history.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

Genuine VC

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

As the venture capital space matures, I see a similar pattern emerging. In many ways, the beer market of the 90’s is like the venture market today. These firms aim broadly – diverse along sector, geography, and stage lines. RMS and ROI will continue to correlate, driving these firms larger and broader.

Seed Stage 191

Seed Stage Belgium Differentiation LP 191

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. The risk here is what I refer to as the curse of over-capitalization.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Up and Running

JUNE 14, 2010

And the beneath-the-surface rumblings were about how it was screwing up the venture capital business model. He cites Seed Deals Account for 26% of Early-stage Web Investments in which Giga Om points out the rise of a relatively new class of angel investors, which they call super angels. No, I don’t have data.

Disintermediation 66

Disintermediation Venture Capital Angel Investor Seed Stage 66

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. Some wait 5-7 years but usually this is because it’s proving more difficult to raise a new fund due to market conditions or the lack of returns in their current fund. Tags: Pitching VCs Raising Venture Capital VC Industry.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Early Stage Software Review 269

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It occurred to me that although we mentioned our new thematic approach when we raised our last fund in 2017, we haven’t really shared a broader manifesto about how we are approaching the early stage market. It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Reid Hoffman

SEPTEMBER 28, 2021

Rapid technological innovation has altered global business patterns and relationships, and left individual workers, companies, and even entire industries wondering what the future holds for them. “It is deeply telling that the vocabulary of venture capital begins with ‘the friends and family round’,” she writes.

Technical Review 28

Technical Review America Silicon Valley Government 28

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

What’s the difference between an angel round and pre-seed round and why do I believe we’ll see more pre-seed rounds taking place in 2024? While the answers are somewhat semantic, the pre-seed funding round is making a comeback in 2024 startup financing.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

Professor VC

SEPTEMBER 26, 2011

Dan Frommer, in Moneyball for tech startups , interviewed Fred Wilson, Chris Dixon, Paul Graham and Ben Horowitz on the topic. And given that four of the most important tech investors in the world seem skeptical of it, if someone can figure out a good formula that works, they may be able to exploit it". How Much Diligence is Due.

Technical Review 38

Technical Review Early Stage San Jose Angel Investor 38

Austin Startup

JULY 29, 2018

Some invest in tech startups and others only do restaurants and office buildings. It doesn’t make any sense to pitch a later stage, “growth” investor with your seed stage idea just like it doesn’t make much sense to pitch a new tech startup to an investor who only does oil & gas. Not all investors are the same.

Angel Investor 59

Angel Investor Technical Review Los Angeles Seed Stage 59

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

VCs are at the forefront of technological disruption, funding many of the latest cutting edge productivity tools. Based on this paper, Blue Future Partners and PEVCTech recently completed a large-scale survey to find out which tools are most commonly used by venture capital firms.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

Startup Company Lawyer

AUGUST 31, 2012

” The theory is that the number of seed stage Series A deals led by venture capital firms is decreasing, meaning that it will be difficult for startups to raise a new round of financing. As a result of this risk, some people like Adeo Ressi, have declared that 2011 will be the “ year of the startup default.”

Convertible Security 73

Convertible Security Equity Security Preferred Stock 73

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 24, 2009

The other revels in the world as we all know it will be someday: limitless distribution enabled by new technologies, the importance of collaborative filters, and on-demand availability of all content for end-users. But the same technologies that make life difficult for traditional marketers also offer them unprecedented new opportunities.

San Francisco 113

San Francisco Lean Technical Review Distribution 113

allthingsd.com

JULY 16, 2012

Venture Capital Has Its Biggest Quarter Since Dot-Com Days. venture capitalists put $8.1 venture capitalists put $8.1 It’s clear that factors like the greater American economy and the bumpy tech IPO market don’t necessarily have a direct and/or timely correlation with venture capital spending.

Venture Capital 71

Venture Capital Technical Review RSS Charlotte 71

Haystack

JULY 20, 2018

Will the next company to raise $100M in financing just poach from decent seed-stage companies and pay triple the amount to lock up talent? Just like Sequoia with their franchise model, or Accel, or the other larger funs, the top-tier venture capital firms have scaled up and out to grab these opportunities.

San Francisco 116

San Francisco Silicon Valley Seattle Venture Capital 116

Agile VC

JULY 11, 2012

AGILEVC My idle thoughts on tech startups. The Rise & Fall of Great Venture Firms [Part 1]. I happen to be fascinated by the history of the VC industry, and one of the things we discussed at a recent offsite are the common threads behind the rise and fall of great venture capital firms. July 11, 2012. Read More ».

Silicon Valley 240

Silicon Valley Carried Interest Cofounder Boston 240

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Working within a network of angel investors also expands the pool of expert resources and helps divide the work of screening companies and investment due diligence. We also have data points for VC investments in seed/startup companies (but not necessarily pre-revenue companies). Product/Technology. TARGETCOMPANY.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

rapidrollout.wordpress.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Web Startup Lessons Advice from a CTO and Entrepreneur Home About Finding a Technical Partner for Your Startup Today I received an inquiry from a student at an Ivy League university who wants to launch a web startup. Or you can find seed-stage investors who will give you the money to hire a developer.

Technical Review 40

Technical Review Fractional CTO Partner CTO Hire 40

Austin Startup

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

The 2013 Joah didn’t realize he was about to run into the buzzsaw that was being black while fundraising in 2014 and 2015, two of the best years for a seed-stage startup to raise funds in Silicon Valley. or were forced to raise too much venture capital?—?something Those were friends and families. But is it correct?

Silicon Valley 48

Silicon Valley Technical Review Venture Capital San Francisco 48

VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2012

The latest IVC report reveals that in 2011, 546 Israeli high-tech companies raised $2.14 Companies have shifted from producing pure technology to producing consumer products. Pure technology companies focus on IP, and need to compete with emerging markets, offering cheaper labor and potentially better economies of scale.

Technical Review 111

Technical Review IPO Seed Stage 111