Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” From the hyperbolic Jason Calacanis weighing in that “The petty VC’s did everything to deride [Naval, the co-founder of AngelList]” as though the industry was collectively s g its pants that AngelList was going to put us out of business. It’s hard to be a great lead investor .

Syndicate 356

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Early Stage 356

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Although we had a busy summer, I was fortunate enough to take a bit of time off as well, and to step back for a moment and reflect on Nextview’s strategy and market position going forward. . The rest have been companies with some early market validation. Lead investors are few. And by early, we mean pre-traction.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

For early stage VC ‘s, Syndication is the process of sharing investments with other potential co-investors. The classic scenario is when a VC has a signed term sheet to lead a round, but has left room open for another meaningful investor. When I started in venture, syndicating deals was fairly common.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Term Sheet Cofounder 207

View from Seed

JANUARY 11, 2021

The sudden arrival of the global pandemic has shifted the playbook for founders and venture capitalists. Investors previously prone to onsite visits and amassed airline miles, now grapple with how to form relationships and build confidence without having met teams in person. Zoom calls have taken the place of in-person meetings.

Venture Capital 350

Venture Capital Cofounder Early Stage Seed Stage 350

ReadWriteStart

JULY 18, 2011

Clavier began his presentation at the beginning of a company's lifecycle, asking how many co-founders a startup ought to have. Money man and pundit Paul Kedrosky also spoke at the International Startup Festival and offered humorous, blunt advice about how to get what you want from investors and investment bankers.

Investment Bankers 153

Investment Bankers Technical Review Cofounder Due Diligence 153

View from Seed

AUGUST 12, 2015

This investor loved the team and thought the solution they were building was compelling. Ultimately, this firm passed because they couldn’t get comfortable with the “market size” given that they were a big fund and only targeted $1B+ opportunities. VCs pass because of “market size” all the time. It’s very discouraging.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Marketing Angel Investor Term Sheet 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 12, 2015

This investor loved the team and thought the solution they were building was compelling. Ultimately, this firm passed because they couldn’t get comfortable with the “market size” given that they were a big fund and only targeted $1B+ opportunities. VCs pass because of “market size” all the time. It’s very discouraging.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Marketing Angel Investor Term Sheet 120

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

An Investor and a Founder Postmortem a Mistake. And while I passed on leading their seed, I did contribute a smaller amount into the financing, along with three subsequent pro rata/super pro rata investments. The ability for an investor to earn the trust of a founder and maintain that over time. The Four (!!!)

Cofounder 97

Cofounder Lead Investor Founder Restful 97

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 10, 2022

I love working with great people and as a venture capitalist, am fortunate the number of founders I’m impressed by far exceeds our investment capacity. Here’s an example of a founder that I’ve known for a while who recently raised a seed round with different firms than ours. The needs of the lead investor for ownership?

Cofounder 89

Cofounder Founder Acquisition Startup 89

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 4, 2022

For most founders, fundraising is a struggle. The rest have to work super hard to create access for themselves, build trust and win investors over. What’s that investor going to be like in a board meeting when you as a female founder need their support or worse, actually their vote?

Cap Table 163

Cap Table Cofounder Private Equity Finance 163

Pascal's View

JULY 9, 2017

Andrew Krowne and I recently co-wrote an article in Tech Crunch , Why SAFE Notes Are Not Safe for Entrepreneurs. At its core, this issue points to the lack of understanding about the importance of post-money valuation by both entrepreneurs and investors.

Post-Money Valuation 49

Post-Money Valuation Valuation Cap Table Covenant 49

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 30, 2022

The same can be said of startups and their founders, in the sense that so many things can go wrong in the building of a company to an exit, that success almost seems to be a statistical anomaly [more on how bees fly ]. See, it happens to investors too, not just founders. So this is the other side of the coin from above.

Cap Table 67

Cap Table Venture Capital Cofounder Portfolio 67

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

Co-founder Naval Ravikant explains that 18 pilot companies in the program, including Transcriptic, Double Robotics and Tred, received $6.7 million in commitments from 620 investors in the past four months, with about $2 million raised per month on average. Investors included Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Marc Cuban.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. I know that some founders feel uncomfortable with this as though they might somehow be sharing something so confidential that it ultimately hurts you. The “how much have you raised?”

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Previously she was Co-Founder and CEO of SNAZZ, a cloud-based event management platform. Her work included heading Nokia’s location-based services business and app portfolio for emerging markets, which she built from a back-of-a-napkin idea to a 100-person organization with over 10 million users.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Balance Sheet Technical Review Portfolio 60

Hunter Walker

NOVEMBER 21, 2018

One was the result of a cofounder breakup. Only Jason’s was in the “hard pivot” category that Fred describes (“Changing the product, market, and business entirely. At the same time, investors should give the founders some space to figure out if they want to push on or not. As Jason wrote : .

Founder 97

Founder Cap Table Seed Stage Cofounder 97

A Crowded Space

OCTOBER 3, 2018

Very shortly after I joined, Greg Gretsch (now my partner at Jackson Square Ventures) co-led oDesk’s Series A along with Venky Ganesan (partner at Menlo Ventures and lead investor in Rev.com). I remember when we had a candidate join the marketing team and even on the second day, it was clear the fit wasn’t right on either side.

San Francisco 60

San Francisco Bangladesh Ukraine Philippines 60

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

As an entrepreneur, you are most likely spending most of your time building your product and getting it to market. In other words, the acquirer does not want to have an ex-employee or founder come after them once the transaction is completed. 5 years ago, you and a technical co-founder conceived of the idea and launched the service.

Technical Review 60

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Due Diligence 60

www.readwriteweb.com

MARCH 7, 2011

Chris McCann is the co-founder of StartupDigest , the members-only guide to the tech startup world. Index vs. Concentrated Investing In the traditional stock market an index is a small sample of the market that represents the stock market as a whole. s very hard to beat the efficient market.

Technical Review 50

Technical Review Due Diligence Startup Angel Investor 50

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

There are a number of factors that have contributed to the rise of pre-seed rounds, but the strongest have been the frothy late-stage financing market, coupled with both the scaling-up of some of the early winners in the institutional seed ecosystem and the scaling-down of some larger funds that retrenched after the financial crisis.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2010

When I’m on a VC panel, I’m always amused by the answers from my co-panelists as they are usually the same set of “VC cliches” which makes it even more fun when I blurt out my answer. “ The great companies that I’ve been an investor in share a common trait – the founder/CEO is obsessed with the product.

Product 148

Product Cofounder Lead Investor Software 148

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

First, a formal definition: According to Capital Dynamics , “Co-investments are direct investments in a company made alongside and on the same terms as a lead [General Partner]. They are comfortable with others taking the lead. . Hence, if Sequoia is the lead and the valuation is reasonable, it’s near 100% chance.

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 2, 2010

They are: Fred Wilson: Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur. Dave McClure: MoneyBall for Startups: Invest BEFORE Product/Market Fit, Double-Down AFTER. Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur ), and treat them the same way we would with a $10m investment.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cofounder Syndicate Syndication 152

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 1, 2021

As part of The Startup Magazine Founder Interview Series , we interviewed Maha and David Harper, wife and husband co-founders of Atlas Group London, a construction-tech startup that has digitized the building of healthcare facilities. Construction is a trillion-dollar market, but planning remains complicated and inaccurate.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Founder Saudi Arabia Cofounder 110

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Second, more damning is the “signaling problem.&# This means that if a VC invests in your seed round and does not participate in a future round the next round investor will think to himself, “well, if Big VC Co. You were a VP at a company that sold for $200 million making the founder very wealthy. is now a VC.

Venture Capital 265

Venture Capital Term Sheet Early Stage Silicon Valley 265

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

The first panel will focus on public markets and will discuss the use and effectiveness of social media tools and data mining technologies in harnessing the wisdom of crowds to generate investment ideas. Howard Lindzon is Co-Founder and CEO of StockTwits, a social network for traders and investors to share real-time ideas and information.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

Austin Startup

OCTOBER 13, 2010

StoredIQ , a leading provider of Intelligent Information Management solutions for eDiscovery, records and compliance management, today announced that it has closed $10 million in new investment financing and expanded its management team in preparation for accelerated growth. CrunchBase Information. S3 Ventures.

Vertical 59

Vertical Early Stage Cofounder Channel 59

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

He blogs to 10,000 web entrepreneurs at Software by Rob and co-hosts the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us. Before I get into the details for founders, let me talk about options-hungry employees. While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed investors. Dying at 70?

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Rob Go

MARCH 5, 2012

Understand the difference between and a lead and a follower. Lead investors are those that typically write a relatively large check (usually at least 25% of the round or more) and are willing to negotiate with you to come to terms for your round. Parting thought 2: As a firm, we have a bias for leading or co-leading rounds.

Syndicate 49

Syndicate Syndication Lead Investor Due Diligence 49

View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

These funds would regularly share deal flow with one another and could share the work in supporting founders and helping to push the company forward. Today, we are seeing less syndication of seed rounds and sharper elbows among many of the funds in the market. Similarly, the seed market is beginning to look like this too.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 20, 2019

You don’t often hear a founder speak so candidly about this (especially before the final chapter is written) so it’s worth a listen. . We were co-lead investors in Grove’s seed round and actually doubled down in an intermediate round prior to this challenging series A process. The first is super-human resilience.

Founder 153

Founder Cofounder Seed Stage Portfolio 153

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 27, 2021

And What This Means For Founders. In some ways it’s ALWAYS to an investor’s benefit to suggest a potential new investment wouldn’t be competitive to an existing portfolio company, and it’s ALWAYS to the current portfolio company’s benefit to suggest it might be. Why do I care about how investors at other firms get paid?

Early Stage 115

Early Stage Cofounder Vertical Portfolio 115

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Facebook Co-Founder’s Startup Asana Launches Publicly. Joshua Baer is the co-founder and CEO of Otherinbox , a prolific angel investor and the director of Capital Factory , Austin’s seed-stage incubator. Make It Easy for Investors To Write Checks. Look for Your Lead Investor.

Social Media 80

Social Media Startup Angel Investor RSS 80

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

we weren’t the natural leader of a market or technology trend that everyone was paying attention to, we didn’t have substantial organic growth, and. Investors see a lot of pitches. The blue boxes identify the corresponding markets for those products. transformation created value in other markets. we had no revenue.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Revenue Viral Networking 111

David Teten

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

Out of 5,923 investment professionals in our dataset, 916 (15.5%) were focused primarily on origination and marketing. To get access to these investments outside of the major VC centers, you need to proactively market in those geographies beyond bicycle range. Create opportunities, instead of waiting for opportunities to appear.

Private Equity 114

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Equity 114

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2011

I was hanging out the other day with my buddy Jody Sherman, founder & CEO of EcoMom. I was an angel investor in his company, made a bunch of calls on his behalf and then I personally sent it out on AngelList. He noticed their extremely social tendencies and the potential of a very large market.

Valuation 292

Valuation Deal Flow Lead Investor Cofounder 292

Up and Running

JANUARY 25, 2017

We had previously launched a demo of our product to show traction to potential investors, and better define the pain-points for potential clients. My soon to be former co-founder replied, “We’ve seen 400 percent growth, month over month, and after the first 30 days we’re getting very positive feedback.

Venture Capital 60

Venture Capital Cofounder Security Partner 60