View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

90% of the airtime around ownership and valuations is focused on what happens when the first check is written. Effective post money is the effective valuation of an investor’s dollars at any one time. It’s conventional wisdom to say that it doesn’t, and that startups should keep their head down and execute. How can this happen?

IRR 205

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 205

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Or is there a major disconnect between a portfolio’s valuations and the actual dollars returned to LPs? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. How have more recent vintages performed?

Valuation 295

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 295

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

90% of the airtime around ownership and valuations is focused on what happens when the first check is written. Effective post money is the effective valuation of an investor’s dollars at any one time. It’s conventional wisdom to say that it doesn’t, and that startups should keep their head down and execute. How can this happen?

IRR 156

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 156

View from Seed

APRIL 5, 2016

Rachael is enrolled at the Startup Institute , an eight-week program that teaches its pupils the nuances of web development, web design, technical marketing, or sales and account management. The startup industry is in need of driven contributors who come from less traditional career paths to bring new creative perspectives to the forefront.

Founder 120

Founder Web Development Web Community 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 17, 2021

90% of the airtime around ownership and valuations is focused on what happens when the first check is written. Effective post money is the effective valuation of an investor’s dollars at any one time. It’s conventional wisdom to say that it doesn’t, and that startups should keep their head down and execute. How can this happen?

IRR 136

IRR Dilution Founder Portfolio 136

View from Seed

JANUARY 2, 2024

Admittedly, I stopped blogging a few years ago because of the proliferation of content around VC and startups. Likewise, institutional seeds are all over the map both in terms of round profiles, valuations, and the players involved. One of my goals in 2024 is to start blogging again. Some go pre-seed straight to A.

Early Stage 177

Early Stage Valuation Distribution Founder 177

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

It’s almost exactly 5 years since Aileen Lee first coined the term “unicorn” in reference to startups with $1 billion+ valuations. A few of these had previously raised private rounds at $1B+ valuations like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but a good majority of them only reached unicorn status upon exit. Realized Unicorns.

IPO 120

IPO Valuation San Francisco Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 10, 2022

We’re running our new and improved accelerator program back, we’re doubling our offering and raising the valuation cap (hello $400K) , and we’d love for you and your team to apply. The journey of every startup is so different. Startups pioneering the future of remote work. There will be 6-8 startup teams in this cohort.

San Diego 156

San Diego San Francisco Alabama Valuation 156

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

From the public markets to the private markets, everyone is feeling valuations and optimism contract. In other words, while lots of things floated up with increasing frothiness they are going to be harder to drive down quickly the same way valuations and invested capital has collapsed in the last three months.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup Valuation 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 14, 2021

Or is there a major disconnect between a portfolio’s valuations and the actual dollars returned to LPs? Both early- and late-stage startup valuations are currently elevated. For context, seed-stage pre-money valuations are up 24% from H1 2020 to H1 2021. How have more recent vintages performed?

Valuation 156

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Distribution Early Stage 156

View from Seed

MARCH 24, 2015

I’m not the first person to say that the proliferation of startups valued at $1 billion or higher is a signal of an overheated late-stage market. There is a shocking disconnect between public market valuations and private market valuations. Unicorns are a great metaphor and a brilliant meme – just excellent marketing.

Valuation 120

Valuation Startup IPO Finance 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

When someone goes to work for an early startup, the compensation package general includes an annual salary, health insurance, and, instead of fixed-cost performance upside, a percentage of unvested options to purchase equity in the company. The reasons behind this sentiment are many. Everyone deserves his or her privacy.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 6, 2015

When someone goes to work for an early startup, the compensation package general includes an annual salary, health insurance, and, instead of fixed-cost performance upside, a percentage of unvested options to purchase equity in the company. The reasons behind this sentiment are many. Everyone deserves his or her privacy.

Equity 120

Equity Employee Cap Table Stock Options 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 20, 2014

If the company is doing really well, the VC will have an incentive to try to do more of the next round at perhaps not the highest possible valuation. The post How Various Types of Startup Investors Affect Your Seed & Series A appeared first on The View From Seed.' Their aggressiveness sends a signal to the market.

Startup 301

Startup Syndicate Syndication Boston 301

View from Seed

JANUARY 7, 2020

For this analysis, I focused on the four largest startup ecosystems in the U.S. – One way to think about this is how many high potential startups are in each market that have a chance of becoming a significant company and driving outsized return. SF/Bay Area, New York, Boston, and LA.

New York 207

New York Boston Marketing Aggregator 207

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2019

2019 is off to an exciting start for IPOs of VC-backed startups. In the last decade or so, high profile consumer IPOs have often gotten lofty valuations. I don’t follow the Chinese startup market as closely as I follow the US, but Alibaba’s 2014 IPO was a similar watershed moment.

IPO 180

IPO B2B B2C Institutional Investors 180

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

The flood of seed-funded companies coupled with proliferation of seed funds willing to underwrite incremental capital into new and existing portfolio companies, has yielded a broad backlog set of “seed startups” with wild variations across the following three dimensions: 1. Effective) post-money valuation. 100K in MRR was cited).

Seed Stage 136

Seed Stage Post-Money Valuation Valuation Startup 136

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 19, 2015

Below, he gives an honest take about what he’d do differently and what he’d do again as a startup CEO. Now that Backupify has had a nice exit and my life is in a different place, I agreed to write this post, full of my own advice based on my experience as a startup CEO. Startups are incredibly hard. Keep at it.

Founder 120

Founder Startup Cofounder Business Model 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 20, 2015

The startup ecosystem is often full of hyperbole, which is perfectly understandable when you think about it. Not every startup is going to “crush” their original milestones and financial projections. Not every round of funding is closed at a “monster” valuation. Do No Harm. Don’t Blindside Them.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Startup Employee PR 120

View from Seed

JUNE 10, 2020

of teams’ online pitch decks and recorded videos, as well as loved the dozens of second-round video conversations which we had with Founders working on quite compelling startups. But the emphasis of our program is the direct one-on-one interaction with NextView partners to help push the company forward.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

View from Seed

MARCH 31, 2015

Editor’s note: Unlike the Ubers and Airbnbs of the tech startup world, seed-stage companies don’t typically have the valuations, awareness, or traction typically associated with press coverage. NVV: Tactically, what’s the best way seed-stage startups should reach out to journalists? What was the worst?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage PR North Dakota Startup 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

A few potential slides which can be included in the Appendix: Exit Analysis: Not always as important during the early startup stage since an exit event is presumably in the distance away. Other Questions: Every startup is different. Which is why each investor pitch is going to yield questions which are specific to that company.

Seed Stage 166

Seed Stage Retention Restful Valuation 166

View from Seed

MARCH 8, 2016

He and his firm are widely applauded for their work with high-growth startups, particularly those with a consumer focus. Unfortunately, too many startups come to us way too late. Who owns the brand at a startup? His firm has worked with companies like Warby Parker, lululemon, Oscar, and more. They’re malleable.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Conversion Startup PR 120

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Over the summer, based on feedback from our portfolio and the broader startup community, NextView created pre-formatted board deck templates for seed-stage startups — part of our Growth Guides series. A seed-stage mobile startup’s housekeeping section might look something like this: Section 3: Core Metrics.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

View from Seed

JUNE 11, 2019

I’ve found that the lead investor will end up doing 90% of the work for a startup (or will cause 90% of the pain if you get the decision wrong). I believe it’s more important to optimize on the right lead investor vs. the highest valuations at the seed stage (within reason).

Syndicate 202

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Lead Investor 202

View from Seed

APRIL 2, 2020

The process of getting to know a new team and getting to know a startup is just different when all you can do is talk through Zoom. Massive bull markets in the public equity markets in recent years translated to very bullish markets in the private VC markets, which translated to really big rounds and really high valuations.

Partner 156

Partner Marketing Portfolio Early Stage 156

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2017

A startup can benefit in various ways from having a strategic investor involved in their company, but there are plenty of drawbacks too, both commonly known and more subtle. On the flip side, simply taking strategic investor capital because it’s there or it’s easier or cheaper than other capital rarely works out well for startups.

Strategic Investors 120

Strategic Investors Post-Money Valuation Seed Stage Cofounder 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are known as “pre-seed” (or “genesis”) and institutional seed rounds. The entire funding progression of startups pushed out to the right.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

As of January 20, 2016, based on the “CrunchBase Unicorn Leaderboard,” there are 157 unicorns (companies with $1 billion+ valuations) which have not IPOed or been acquired—and more start-ups reaching unicorn status every day. Unicorns have been over-hyped during the past few years, and nowadays frequently attacked by skeptics. Key Insights.

Programming 120

Programming St. Louis Cofounder India 120

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2020

One of the most highly anticipated startup IPOs of recent years, we now get a peek inside Airbnb’s business. Uber is an $85B+ market cap company today but is essentially flat to its IPO price and late private round valuations. Airbnb’s public S-1 dropped Monday afternoon.

North America 401

North America IPO Prospectus Europe 401

View from Seed

JANUARY 28, 2016

This is the best time to fundraise because that’s when you are able to command a meaningfully higher valuation for your next round to minimize your own dilution. Above all, we frame pre-seeds as a natural part of our singular focus on being your first outside investor and helping startups gain initial traction.

Cofounder 120

Cofounder Finance Founder Syndicate 120

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2023

We will leverage the standard YC post-money SAFE document with a valuation cap, no discount , and a pro-rata side letter. And of course, we never charge startups participation fees. Startups getting funded out the wazoo. All startups receive $400K for 10% of the company upon acceptance into the program. Let’s do this! .

Programming 156

Programming Sacramento San Francisco Founder 156

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

These startups completed an intense 10-week program featuring hands-on, personalized engagement from NextView partners to push the company forward, peer communications, expert education sessions, advisor introductions, and more. THE DEAL : All startups receive $200K for 8% of the company upon acceptance into the program.

Seed Stage 285

Seed Stage Programming Finance B2B 285

View from Seed

APRIL 20, 2020

We at NextView Ventures are sensitive to the challenges which all startups face during these times brought upon us by the current Coronavirus crisis. Starting today, we will begin accepting our first cohort of startups into the program: WHO : Pre-Seed & Seed stage startups located anywhere focused on the U.S.

B2B 436

B2B Seed Stage B2C Programming 436