Gust

SEPTEMBER 29, 2011

Given that convertible debt financing has become the de facto standard for small (<$1MM), early stage deals in recent years, I thought I would write a primer on the elements of a term sheet and definitive documents for entrepreneurs looking at the earliest stage financing rounds.

Finance 178

Finance Term Sheet Preferred Stock Bridge Financing 178

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 5, 2009

I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. It was a great conversation and I thought it would be a good idea to do some visible networking with Aaron to get to know him better. We occasionally get involved with very early stage startups.

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles Southern California Startup SEO 150

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

Today, NextView Ventures is excited to release a pillar project in our Growth Guides series: pitch deck templates for raising seed capital. For context, last year, based on questions from our existing portfolio, we launched two board deck templates for seed-stage startups. Usually, a more human interaction works better.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Startup Seed Capital Audience 120

Up and Running

MAY 2, 2014

I learned this lesson when I raised the first round of seed capital for my startup PopInShop , an online platform that connects brands and boutiques to facilitate short-term, cross-promotional shopping events. I heard about the investing group when PopInShop was still very early-stage. So what’s the takeaway?

Angel Investor 146

Angel Investor Seed Capital Venture Capital Early Stage 146

Gust

OCTOBER 5, 2011

Last week , we gave some attention to the “why” behind convertible note financing for early stage startups. In most cases, an early stage startup will raise seed capital from more than one investor. In this installment, I’ll dig into the “how” by dissecting an example term sheet based on a real deal.

Finance 79

Finance Preferred Stock Term Sheet Early Stage 79

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. You help them on stories, act as a source, develop real relationships, read their stories and eventually when you have news they’re more willing to have a conversation. So be careful.

PR 319

PR Venture Capital Hiring Seed Capital 319

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 2, 2016

” When I go back a decade, we were just making the decision not to raise another Mobius Venture Capital fund. Venture Capital and entrepreneurship was dramatically out of favor. Early stage and seed capital was extremely difficult to find. My partners and I hadn’t yet created Foundry Group.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Seed Capital Early Stage Partner 70

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

Hundreds and hundreds of tweets, re-tweets, likes, Hacker News upvotes, email responses…it was immediately obvious that there is pent up demand for this kind of alternative early-stage startup funding. 2: We Focus on Early Stage SaaS. We’re a SaaS accelerator, and accelerators focus on early-stage companies.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2011

Finance Friday’s gets off the ground with today’s post by introducing you to an imaginary startup, the entrepreneurs that we’ll being following throughout the series, and their first challenges: splitting up the founders’ equity and addressing the case where one of the founders provides the initial seed capital for the business.

Equity 137

Equity Finance Pre-Money Valuation Denver 137

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Angel investors don’t expect to get repaid, nor do they really want to get repaid; the return on their investment, if the startup proves a success, will come in conversion to equity followed by an eventual liquidity event (sale or IPO of the company), with a return of at least 5x or 10x the initial investment if all goes well.

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

The Startup Lawyer

OCTOBER 28, 2010

Whenever a startup considers paying a “finder&# for successful investor introductions, I have the same type of conversation with the founders that goes something like this: – Startup : “Finder&# knows a lot of investors and he’ll introduce us if we pay him [6]% of all capital raised through the introductions.

Finder 72

Finder Private Placement SEC Seed Capital 72

Steve Blank

JULY 20, 2015

Today he is the founder of M34 Capital , a seed capital fund that focuses on early-stage projects being spun out of academic and corporate research labs. It’s evidence-based, it’s the scientific method and when the company has that on Day Zero, the conversations that we have are just that more meaningful. …

Government 120

Government Channel Southern California Lean 120

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. has demonstrated both high user engagement and better than average conversion rates of 1%-3.5% (versus 0.05% for traditional display advertising) for February 2010.

Stealth 285

Stealth SEC Advertising Accredited Investor 285

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

Books that Shape Common Early Stage (Startup) Culture – crowdspring.co/1fLefAN. Raising Seed Capital – crowdspring.co/MX18CE. don’t return investors’ capital” – crowdspring.co/1dhuwIO. Simplifying the UX of Your Sales-Driven Website to Increase Conversions – crowdspring.co/1fdzKta.

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

maplebutter.com

JANUARY 8, 2013

When it comes to early stage investing – it’s all gut. Does it make sense to spend this time speaking about your early stage start-up when your product has not even entered Alpha testing? Typically its way more important to build product, and pull in early users to give you that feedback vs. speaking about it.

Technical Review 44

Technical Review Startup Cofounder Software Review 44

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Here’s an overview: Mitch Kapor: Kapor is founding partner of Kapor Capital , a firm that invests in seed and early stage startups. Brad Feld: Feld is co-founder and managing director of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colorado venture capital firm that focuses on early stage investments ranging from $250,000 to $500,000.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80