Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 118

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 118

View from Seed

DECEMBER 11, 2019

“I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining [New Firm] as a Partner where I will continue to invest in great Founders across the industries I care about.”. “I In any professional service industry, there is natural shuffling in the junior roles, as the race up the pyramid towards a Partner title is like musical chairs.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 2, 2014

Like inside bridge rounds where investors want to protect themselves from the company getting sold prior to the next financing and leaving the bridge funding without adequate returns. But in the case of my good friend I remember the moment that I took the circumstances back to my partner Steven Dietz for advice on how to play it.

Cap Table 346

Cap Table Cofounder Stock Acquisition 346

Hunter Walker

MARCH 14, 2019

Across town a different CEO is having a breakfast with her Series A Board partner. You almost spit out your coffee when she lets you know that she’s leaving for a Tier 1 firm but that her partners John, John Jr or Robert will be great stewards of your startup until she has the pull at her new gig to lead your next round.

Cap Table 95

Cap Table Dilution Silicon Valley Portfolio 95

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Cautionary note: No competent VC is actually fooled when you show up after raising $6M in seed financing and say you’re now raising an A! 5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007. It is less about actual money and more about structure of your Cap Table.

Cap Table 136

Cap Table Silicon Valley Term Sheet Non-Compete 136

OnlyOnce

MAY 26, 2022

Do you spend a lot of your time dealing with finance-related issues like fundraising, debt, investors, or cap table questions? Are you on the hot seat during board meetings on finance-related questions, metrics, runway, cash burn, or other issues? Do they spend time in-market with customers, partners, or vendors?

Cap Table 62

Cap Table Forecast Finance Metrics 62

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

Many entrepreneurs lose track of what they have been cooking up in the cap table. When it comes time to convert the notes, these entrepreneurs face ‘sticker shock’ about their post-financing ownership. They do not recognize that they may have already contractually sold a meaningful portion of equity in their company.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Covenant 49

www.readwriteweb.com

DECEMBER 29, 2011

While certainly not every business needs to raise venture financing, it is the path for many high-growth technology startups. If you're early in the investment process, a small angel round or partnering with an accelerator may be the best approach. Next, if you are going to raise a round, find one or two partners to do it with.

Cap Table 47

Cap Table Term Sheet Liquidation Preference Technical Review 47

View from Seed

OCTOBER 15, 2014

This is pulled from NextView’s board deck resource, which was compiled using a combination of real startup board decks and input from NextView’s founding partners: Rob Go , David Beisel , and Lee Hower. Finance is mission critical, for instance – it just appears on a recurring basis.

Seed Stage 331

Seed Stage Cap Table Metrics Burn Rate 331

www.informationarbitrage.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Home About Press IA Capital Partners Archives After 17 years in M&A, Derivatives and Trading, Im spending my time with young entrepreneurs in and around financial technology and digital media. So why do inexperienced (as entrepreneurs), ultra-skilled CTOs fall into the trap of engaging a business partner too early? Lack of confidence?

CTO Hire 40

CTO Hire Founder Cap Table Vesting 40

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

Our goal was to be the best first check partner for enterprise founders, bringing the value add of a VC firm while moving with the speed and conviction of an angel investor. Most importantly, we wanted to thank our amazing group of founders that we have had the privilege to partner with over the years.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Dividend Institutional Investors 60

OnlyOnce

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

On the heels of the announcement we made last month about our Series B financing , we are now announcing the launch of a new program called Bolster Prime and a new venture capital fund called Bolster Ventures. The one our team was particularly excited about was a concept we were calling at the time “Venture Acceleration Partners.”

Silicon Valley 62

Silicon Valley Venture Capital Cap Table Early Stage 62

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder can self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 106

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 106

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 3, 2020

The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc. Access to the partner. If you’ve put money into a fund, I think it’s reasonable to expect that partner to check out the deal flow that you find on your own, and let you know what they think.

Portfolio 134

Portfolio Syndicate Syndication Deal Flow 134

genylabs.typepad.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

Steve and Carolyn are partners at Emergent Research and Senior Fellows at the Society for New Communications Research. I wont bother going into details on start-up financing terms ( see this post for an overview of typical VC terms) except to say if you dont know and understand: the firms cap table and valuation.

Equity 40

Equity Technical Review San Jose Stock 40

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Last week I spoke with a partner at a large VC firm whose firm has been around for a long time. The partner that I talked to told me that they are doing 30 seed investments out of their newest fund. &# ) Without naming names he explained three situations in the past two years where they’ve done this.

Cap Table 134

Cap Table Reputation Finance Programming 134

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 26, 2022

My boss, Jen Grant , was an incredible manager, and Aaron Levie, the co-founder and CEO, was a fantastic partner on all things communications. The first was in July of 2014, when we made the unusual move of raising and announcing another round of private financing while on file to go public. Two additional moments stand out to me.

IPO 91

IPO Cofounder Early Stage Portfolio 91

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 20, 2013

Additionally, funds such as Foundry Group and Google Ventures have taken their own approaches – the former creating a separate early stage entity , the latter encouraging their seed stage partners to create standalone personal syndicates. While these are all credible let’s be honest – it’s a little boring.

Syndicate 99

Syndicate Syndication South America Seed Stage 99

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. A company with that mindset is dramatically less risky, because it’s not dependent on the financing markets for continued viability. Most founders who are raising capital look first to traditional equity VCs.

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

But in business, you want a lot of partners. In the private equity universe, most Partners have primary training as deal-makers, not as managers. See Bessemer Venture Partners’ A comprehensive guide to security for startups. Cobalt for General Partners helps GPs to optimize their fundraising strategy. 1) Manage the firm

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Version One Ventures

MAY 22, 2018

If you find yourself in the fortunate position of being oversubscribed, you’ll likely look to build the best investor base and find the right partners for your journey. How do you decide who you should have in your cap table? How do all the partners of the fund feel? What is important to you? What’s the investor’s thesis?

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 60

VC Adventure

OCTOBER 24, 2018

These can be event driven – for example discussing an M&A opportunity or an upcoming financing. Also include your cap table, any board minutes you’re asking the board to approve as well as option grants and any other board business you’re planning on asking the board to consider in the meeting.

Design 91

Design Cap Table Email Operations 91

Berkonomics

JANUARY 20, 2010

Some businesses require very little capital and the founder is able to self-finance the enterprise and retain 100% of its ownership and control from ignition through liquidity event (startup through sale). And even with the significant cost of credit card debt, many entrepreneurs aggressively use existing cards to finance a startup.

Private Equity 69

Private Equity Valuation Cap Table Accredited Investor 69

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

Cap tables sound intimidating. In a CTO Salary and Equity trends report by Safire Partners, it finds non-founder equity compensation to settle out below 2 percent. As stated earlier, investors will dilute ownership upon nearly every round of financing. percent to 3 percent range for engineer #1s.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

blog.simeonov.com

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Most partners, be they lawyers or VCs, tend to tweak the standard with their own language. However, founder agreements are not set in stone and it is common for them to be tweaked by a little or a lot during the first financing by professional investors. Every major law firm and every VC firm tends to have some type of template.

Founder 44

Founder Vesting Agile Startup 44

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. There were none in the firm, so I remember asking him if he knew of any general partners who were women in the Boston area. In a place where there are many, many venture capital firms, he couldn't think of a single female general partner.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Genuine VC

MAY 20, 2013

Compared to most other areas of finance, venture capital is practiced as more of an art, as opposed to a science. VCs who swear publicly that they’ll never make an investment with less than 20% ownership show up on cap tables in the teens… the 20% pronouncements are just posturing for negotiation.

Venture Capital 244

Venture Capital Cap Table Portfolio Early Stage 244

venturehacks.com

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

Two founders works because unanimity is possible, there are no founder politics, interests can easily align, and founder stakes are high post-financing. The best sellers can sell to customers, partners, investors, and employees. Partner with someone who is irrationally ethical, or a rational believer that nice guys finish first.

Cofounder 101

Cofounder Founder Technical Cofounder Technical Review 101

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

I understand the appeal of having many VC firms on your cap table. You may feel as I did in 1999 that the more smart people around the table the more intros you’ll have, the more sage advice you’ll receive and the more impressive you’ll seem to outsiders. The Perils of Many.

Dilution 314

Dilution Cap Table Due Diligence Option Pool 314

abovethecrowd.com

APRIL 20, 2016

Why the Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous…For All Involved. All Unicorn participants — founders, company employees, venture investors and their limited partners (LPs) — are seeing their fortunes put at risk from the very nature of the Unicorn phenomenon itself. By January of 2016, that number had ballooned to 229.

IPO 40

IPO Term Sheet Silicon Valley Valuation 40

Rob Go

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

This tends to make LPs happy and make the lead partner look good among his or her colleagues. This financing probably came out the Sequoia US Venture fund and Growth fund, which are separate entities, but I believe represent a pool of capital somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2B. Also, $60M in capital is not chump change.

Cap Table 78

Cap Table Valuation Finance Institutional Investors 78

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

Reading on, the term sheet states, “The $8 million pre-money valuation includes an option pool equal to 20% of the post-financing fully diluted capitalization.&# Update : Check out our $9 cap table which calculates the effect of the option pool shuffle on your effective valuation. share to $1.00/share:

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68

David Teten

MARCH 18, 2021

Avataar Ventures invests exclusively in companies which fit these criteria: “$15 Million + in Annual Recurring Revenues; Strong Tech-Led B2B & SaaS Companies; Core Operations in India/ South East Asia; Open to Active Partnering.” As such, there are 3 stakeholders when building a thesis: the investing Partners, the LPs and the founders. .

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Cofounder Venture Capital Deal Flow 78

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 4, 2021

So I've been able to move to another location with my partner and another city, I should say. And of course, I wasn't really interested in the finance side of it to me. And so, all of a sudden, you have finance, and compliance, and bankers, and folks like that. I'm curious. What was your first reaction when you saw it?

IPO 113

IPO Cofounder Technical Review Government 113