View from Seed

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

You have 5-10 years of professional experience as a technology operator, founder, and/or investor. You have a deep desire to hone your skills as a venture capitalist and are ready to hustle to meet the next great founder. We have a high-conviction, hands-on approach to seed investing. You are hungry. About NextView.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review North America Seed Stage Bandwidth 156

View from Seed

DECEMBER 6, 2018

Another affinity-based co-working space? As a seed stage VC, I have a unique privilege of confidentially spending time with a number of entrepreneurs throughout their company formation and initial product development process. And it’s amazed me how many times I’ve seen two or more entirely separate groups of founders?—?without

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Cofounder Stealth 120

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably. Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. .

North America 120

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 120

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From RBI, Flexible VCs borrow the ability to reap meaningful returns without demanding founders build for an exit. By tying payments to actual revenues, founders and investors remain aligned around the company’s real-time performance, good or bad.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

ReadWriteStart

MAY 22, 2023

Europe’s Metaverse Market: Niche Operators and Start-ups While the US and Asia dominate the Metaverse market , Europe has yet to establish a major presence in the industry. This article will explore the current state of the Metaverse in Europe and examine the obstacles it needs to overcome to achieve its potential.

Finland 187

Finland Europe Estonia Silicon Valley 187

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. Howard Morgan earned a PhD in Operations Research/Computer Science in 1968. If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital.

Pre-Money Valuation 284

Pre-Money Valuation Technical Review Cofounder Cram Down 284

View from Seed

MAY 18, 2016

The purpose of a board is not simply to be the founders’ friend… it is to help govern the company and provide input into its strategic direction. Here at NextView, we are strong proponents of creating a board at the seed stage. And various stakeholders (investors, early founders no longer operationally involved, etc.)

Seed Stage 216

Seed Stage Cofounder Later Stage Government 216

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. Many of these Founders we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to connect with if we hadn’t launched this program.

Cofounder 177

Cofounder Syndicate Syndication Alabama 177

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

It’s been an interesting several years in the early stage venture eco-system, and the sands have shifted considerably. Amidst the rise of new funds, new technologies, and potentially disruptive late stage players, I thought it was important to share what we consider to be our core operating principles here at NextView. .

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Hearpreneur

MAY 4, 2019

Existing corporations are focused on operational excellence and incremental improvements through process and efficiency. It is, literally, the toolkit for operating what we call the Big to Bigger machine. It is the ecosystem created by the two that fuels world-changing innovation. How do you help clients?

Cofounder 66

Cofounder Founder Entrepreneur Venture Capital 66

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Kayak was started here in my backyard of Boston… co-founder & CTO Paul English and the product/engineering team is based here in Concord MA. Co-founder & CEO Steve Hafner and the business team are based in Norwalk, CT. 2010 Operating Income: $16 million. 2010 Net Income: $8 million. Author howerl.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

View from Seed

NOVEMBER 18, 2014

Of the NextView-backed founders have have tried to raise this round, over 70% have done so (compared to a mean success rate in the industry of around 27%, according to some sources ). However, large, lifecycle VCs who invest in a seed round seem to correlate to an increase the size of the Series A raised by a given startup.

Syndicate 333

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Startup 333

View from Seed

AUGUST 5, 2014

This is a guest post from Ben Rubin , co-founder and CEO of Change Collective , which offers courses for behavior change with world-class experts. For seed-stage startups, when resources are tight, trying to consciously build startup culture can feel wasteful. My co-founder Derek had the opposite communication style.

Cofounder 307

Cofounder Startup SCRUM Seed Stage 307

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

Even for those who don’t care to dive into the numbers, it’s worth a quick glance because co-founder/CEO Andrew Mason wrote a letter which forms the preamble of the full document. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Filed under Uncategorized. Read More ».

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

YoungUpstarts

MAY 8, 2018

All entrepreneurs want to demonstrate that they’re competent, courageous, and bold, however, always take a co-founder or trusted advisor along. However, investors who demand a board seat, and then want options for being on the board or ask for extensive veto rights over certain operational matters, may be pushing the ask too far.

Seed Stage 133

Seed Stage Due Diligence Cofounder New York 133

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

In the next post, I’ll talk about how we think about pre-seeds at NextView. 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.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 25, 2016

So, we actually don’t think most new funds or seed investors are competitive with Homebrew in the traditional sense of “we’re all looking at the same deals and need to ‘win’ deals away from new funds.” And it’s probably one of the biggest differences in seed investing when you compare 2006 vs 2016.

Seed Stage 74

Seed Stage Cofounder Engineer Reputation 74

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 ]. There’s also many wonderful angel/operators and smaller supporting funds with large portfolio strategies.

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 Investors included Founders Fund, 500 Startups and Marc Cuban. This is just the next phase of AngelList’s evolution into a one-stop shop for seed-stage companies and their backers.

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

View from Seed

JULY 9, 2015

As an operator, not an investor, I’m amazed at how many casual, throwaway comments that happen inside a VC’s office would be genuinely useful to entrepreneurs building their businesses. And given my marketing background (Google, Dailybreak Media, HubSpot), I often get this question directly: When should startups announce seed funding?

Startup 120

Startup PR Cofounder Stealth 120

Ben's Blog

JANUARY 31, 2012

That excitement took a sharp downhill turn when one of the top partners said to me, in front of my co-founders, “When are you going to get a real CEO?”. As we set out to design a venture capital firm that would enable founders to run their own companies, we began by asking: In what ways are professional CEOs superior to founder CEOs?

Venture Capital 78

Venture Capital Portfolio Cofounder Partner 78

Genuine VC

JULY 8, 2010

With the support and encouragement of my Venrock colleagues, I am pleased to share that I am moving on to co-found a new Micro VC firm focused on seed internet investments. In addition, I will also continue to independently operate the Web Innovators Group.

Silicon Valley 154

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Cofounder Venture Capital 154

Genuine VC

AUGUST 3, 2010

During the seed stage where Micro VCs invest, there are three primary diligence factors: Team and individuals – The information discovery here involves conversations with former coworkers, cofounders, partners, investors, and customers. partners); or a multi-stage, a multi-sector, or a multi-country investment strategy.

Seed Stage 123

Seed Stage Cofounder Metrics Forecast 123

Hunter Walker

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

When Homebrew launched two years ago, Satya and I knew that smart hardware was going to be important to our Bottom Up Economy thesis but also that neither of us yet had meaningful experience working alongside the best hardware entrepreneurs at the seed stage where we invest. Then Make Investments. Write Lead Checks 2014-15.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Cofounder Incubator Leadership 48

Agile VC

APRIL 27, 2012

As many of you may know, we have a section on the NextView website called “Ethos” where we describe five key principles to how we operate. We try hard to bring our own blank canvas into these meetings so that we can better conceive and appreciate the vision of founders we meet with. April 27, 2012. Author howerl.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 124

Agile VC

MAY 16, 2012

At NextView we’ve intentionally taken an approach which combines both thematic and opportunistic investing for a couple reasons: 1) Our Overall Strategy is Highly Focused - We’re a dedicated seed VC fund, so we invest in startups exclusively at the seed stage. Pingback: watch toy story 3 free online. Read More ».

Seed Stage 124

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Syndicate 124

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

That happens most when the LPs represent a diverse group of industries and perspectives who want to be helpful to portfolio companies and founders. The GP-LP relationship shouldn't be so one dimensional around returns, and I would argue that, in the seed stage, it's sub-optimal.

Limited Partner 60

Limited Partner Venture Capital Partner LP 60

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2020

What most founders don’t realize is: Every stage of a startup requires a different set of metrics and milestones and founder skills. Knowing these will help a founder position her pitch to get investors’ attention. Founders need to keep their eye on the prize — not just the next funding round. Business Model.

Cofounder 429

Cofounder Seed Stage Valuation Metrics 429

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I would point readers to Martin Kleppmann’s useful blog post with graphs illustrating the effects of a valuation cap on entrepreneurs, seed investors and later-round (typically VC) investors. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

Jeff Hilimire

AUGUST 30, 2013

and The Coca-Cola Co., While Atlanta has B2C “operational talent” — evident by the city’s cluster of major media and marketing companies — it lacks B2C “entrepreneurial talent,” Cummings said. “We To launch the mobile venture, Cummings is collaborating with Jeff Hilimire , co-founder of digital marketing agency Engauge Marketing.

Atlanta 77

Atlanta B2C Georgia Los Angeles 77

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 13, 2013

But if that same VC is operating out of a $400M fund, those exits are HALF as meaningful. The large fund may say to the founder,” wouldn’t you rather just raise $8M instead of $5M for the same (or marginally more) dilution?” If that same VC were able to produce 5 exits of this scale, that would return 2X on the fund.

Dilution 61

Dilution Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder 61

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2009

A few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding. With open source software (LAMP stack) and cloud computing infrastructure it just wasn’t that expensive to get your company going and founders just wanted to raise less money. Many VCs who do lots of seed stage deals are very supportive and active.

Software Review 283

Software Review Term Sheet Due Diligence Southern California 283

The Next Web

OCTOBER 23, 2013

There aren’t a tonne of funds focused on seed-stage funding worldwide, but we can add a new one to the list today. SparkLabs , the company behind the accelerator program in Korea , is expanding its scope with its first seed-stage fund that will “help great startups go global.”. Asia Entrepreneur Insider News sparklabs'

Seed Stage 139

Seed Stage Asia Silicon Valley 139

View from Seed

MAY 29, 2019

Many of us in the seed stage ecosystem have noticed a shift in the way seed rounds are coming together. Historically, seed rounds were syndicated among several different firms. Today, we are seeing less syndication of seed rounds and sharper elbows among many of the funds in the market.

Syndicate 267

Syndicate Syndication Cofounder Cap Table 267

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. She’s also a founding member of All Raise, a non-profit committed to improving diversity in both funders and founders. I was working on putting together dinners with potential female operators who were interested in becoming venture capitalists.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

In his white paper How Private Equity and Venture Capital Investors Are Eating Their Own Dogfood , PEVCTECH.com founder David Teten explored how private equity and venture capital investors are trying to automate more of their job. I’d expect a similar shift in venture over the next decade or two.”.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

Angels typically invest in companies operating in industry sectors with which they are familiar. Diversification across industry sectors is not as easily achieved for angels as could be accomplished in public markets, but can be achieved by co-investing with trusted angel colleagues in a broader set of businesses. — Unwilling.

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146