YoungUpstarts

APRIL 7, 2016

A Startup Lab invests guidance, strategy, and takes equity in a carefully selected collection of early and seed stage startups. Depending on what a startup needs, the cost and equity share will vary — ranging from a full scope of projections, a business plan, and modeling, to a simple consulting partnership.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Incubator Asia 100

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. From traditional equity VC, Flexible VC borrows the option to pursue and reap the rewards of an outsized exit. Flexible VC 101: Equity Meets Revenue Share. Equity Ownership. Yes, typically preferred equity. Of the Inc. Example VC.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

The Equity Kicker

DECEMBER 5, 2013

As I’ve written before here at Forward Partners we work with entrepreneurs to help them launch and scale their companies in two different ways. Both sides are free to walk away. Whilst cash is important what really sets us apart is that we offer more than just investment.

Partner 117

Partner Software Review eCommerce Due Diligence 117

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. “The

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

Austin Startup

MAY 11, 2017

645 Ventures: A New Era of Venture Capital Investing Arena Growth Partners We help great leaders build great businesses. Our unique approach to investing, coupled with a pioneering spirit, provides the vision to guide early stage growth companies beyond today and toward future success. That drives every decision we make.

Private Equity 48

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Seed Stage 48

View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Glen Mello: Venture debt is a good complement to equity. It’s generally got a lower cost compared to equity capital and can help support growth. Use good judgment, talk to your co-founders/investors/lawyers, and partner with a bank that values transparency and relationships such as SVB.]. What are some pros and cons?

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. Partners leave the industry. Here’s my take: 1.

LP 311

LP Technical Review Early Stage Silicon Valley 311

SoCal CTO

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

And from my perspective as an engaged seed stage venture investor, this makes them unfundable. So why do inexperienced (as entrepreneurs), ultra-skilled CTOs fall into the trap of engaging a business partner too early? . … Lack of confidence? Camaraderie? Perhaps all of the above.

Technical Cofounder 150

Technical Cofounder Cofounder CTO Hire Founder 150

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. “The

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Agile VC

SEPTEMBER 15, 2011

But if you read the whole article you glean more insight… the entire public equity markets have sunk in the last 3-4 months. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search. What will happen for the startup IPO market?

IPO 100

IPO Marketing Silicon Valley Private Equity 100

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2019

*This post is part of our “pitch deck” series where we dissect the seed stage pitch deck and discuss the ideal flow for a pitch. To provide relevant perspective, listing past convertible note(s) and/or equity financing(s) including total round size and valuation (caps) is helpful. Here we are, at (one of) the final slides.

Cap Table 211

Cap Table Seed Stage Valuation Dilution 211

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 24, 2013

The big news in my corner of the world is that after nine good years I’ve left DFJ Esprit to join Forward Internet Group where I will be Managing Partner at Forward Investment Partners (FIP), responsible for early stage investments and Forward Labs. Labs companies include Drop Wines and Makers Academy.

Partner 111

Partner Seed Stage Early Stage Portfolio 111

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. “The

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 26, 2014

One of the exciting things about Forward Partners is that we’re blazing a trail in the investment world. We invest in 1-2 companies per quarter that join us for a year long programme, and we invest in late-seed stage companies too. I like that about us.

eCommerce 98

eCommerce Partner Incubator Early Stage 98

Haystack

JANUARY 18, 2020

Beyond location, these firms accepted they need to view their access to talent like Facebook or Google would — for certain entrepreneurial talent, price didn’t matter as much as access does, so they’ll invest earlier (seed) and raise funds later to go big into winners and/or defend their best positions.

Seattle 130

Seattle Seed Stage Deal Flow Vertical 130

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

Obviously most of these employees are working hard primarily for equity upside compensation, but Kayak’s personnel costs are roughly $200K/head so the company is highly productive on a per employee basis. Led by Oak Investment Partners with participation by General Catalyst, Sequoia, & Accel and others. Series D Preferred.

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. “The

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

What’s the difference between an angel round and pre-seed round and why do I believe we’ll see more pre-seed rounds taking place in 2024? While the answers are somewhat semantic, the pre-seed funding round is making a comeback in 2024 startup financing.

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

Instead, if you’re a seed-stage startup taking that first step in anything (and at the seed stage, you’re going from zero to one in everything), it’d be great to have a place to go for support, inspiration, and practical resources to make the process easier and clearer. – Why raise seed vs jump to Series A?

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Seed Capital Syndicate Syndication 120

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 16, 2020

As a seed stage investor, I know the math. It was a last resort that means that existing investors will get wiped out and some partners the company owes money to will not get paid, which is a devastating thing for the founders who have always been generous partners to the larger community around them.

Bankruptcy 95

Bankruptcy Private Equity Seed Stage Dilution 95

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

Sure, if you’re Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, you can dictate your terms, but last I checked, most of the entrepreneurs First Round and most of the seed stage firms back don’t have that same kind of track record. We negotiated fair deals—all equity—in a timely manner. Many, if not the majority, are first time CEOs.

Equity 104

Equity Term Sheet Seed Stage Angel Investor 104

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

Investors call this the seed stage , where money is required to build a market and a real product. Government grants and industry partners are you best bet here, but Angel investors might give you $250,000 to $1 million, if you have the right business case and credentials. “The

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

The Next Web

FEBRUARY 27, 2014

George Deeb is the Managing Partner at Chicago-based Red Rocket Ventures , a startup consulting and financial advisory firm based in Chicago. your equity in a hot new patented technology business), the higher the demand (e.g., Sophomores are beta site to full production site with initial users (seed stage angels—raise $500K to $1MM).

Valuation 167

Valuation Forecast Seed Stage .Net 167

Gust

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

How to finance a new seed-stage startup? Convertible equity? ” Ressi in particular seems to be passionate about removing the “debt” component from convertible debt seed financing transactions. .” Convertible debt? It doesn’t bear interest or require repayment upon maturity.

Finance 134

Finance Convertible Security Equity Seed Stage 134

Startup Company Lawyer

MARCH 14, 2010

After the recent announcement of the Series Seed Financing documents by Marc Andreesen, Brad Feld points out that there are now four sets of “open source&# equity seed financing documents: TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley). Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR).

Finance 70

Finance Software Review Term Sheet Liquidation Preference 70

The Equity Kicker

JUNE 23, 2016

The exceptions come for a myriad of reasons, common ones include experienced founders are able to raise seed or even Series A size rounds at the pre-seed stage, companies in hot markets or sectors (e.g. Forward Partners invests at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages, with slightly over half of our deals coming at Pre-Seed.

Seed Stage 97

Seed Stage PR Portfolio Operations 97

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

– I spoke about GRP’s recent exit of Ulta in which we returned $320 million to our limited partners. Convertible debt is a loan to the company that doesn’t typically get paid back but rather “converts&# into equity when you raise a larger round at a later date. Great exit. -

Southern California 210

Southern California Venture Capital Seed Stage Angel Investor 210

The Equity Kicker

APRIL 21, 2016

We’re all happy in the Forward Partners office this morning because one of our partner companies has just sent an update showing they’ve been growing at 30% per week for the last fourteen weeks. But it got me thinking about the trade off between short term clarity and long term upside in seed stage investing.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Venture Capital eCommerce Partner 60

The Equity Kicker

JULY 26, 2013

Benhmark Partner Bill Gurley, for my money one of the smartest VCs around, and and author of the amazing Above The Crowd blog did an interview with Sarah Lacy last night which is partially written up here. Amongst other things he was talking about why Benchmark hasn’t copied many other VCs and started making seed investments.

Seed Stage 99

Seed Stage Due Diligence Venture Capital Reputation 99

K9 Ventures

MAY 14, 2011

The incubators invest usually for an equity stake and buy equity at a extremely low valuation (for example, 7% for $15,000, which implies a pre-money valuation of less than $200,000). The companies go through a 3-6 month long startup bootcamp and then typically try to raise angel/seed funding. 1-2 per partner. Deals/Year.

Preferred Stock 125

Preferred Stock Seed Stage Incubator Early Stage 125

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

We rarely do convertible debt at Foundry Group – we much prefer to do equity rounds, even at the seed stage. However, many of the seed rounds done in TechStars are done using convertible debt as are many financings of less than $1m.

Term Sheet 125

Term Sheet Seed Stage Angel Investor Valuation 125

The Equity Kicker

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Some very early stage investors go as far as to say that for them team is everything. At Forward Partners we don’t go that far. With seed stage investments and later it’s usually obvious how value will be created – by maintaining current growth in revenues or engagement.

Seed Stage 60

Seed Stage Later Stage Early Stage Partner 60

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2016

Most importantly from my frame of reference, the amount of activity at the early and seed stage seems to be extremely robust. If you want hints, my partner Jason and I wrote 200 pages of them in our book Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer or Your Venture Capitalist * (*unless they are from Cooley…). Decide to do it.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Private Equity Early Stage Valuation 70

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 19, 2011

The latter seems like a silly thing for an early/seed stage entrepreneur to be trying to maximize over other factors. If you’re talking about a quick close—I get that, but you can do that with an equity round, too. Techstars does it with their seed docs. Are you optimizing for price? Thx Doug! ).

Paraguay 110

Paraguay Dilution Valuation Seed Stage 110

Agile VC

JANUARY 18, 2012

2) The Pyramid Scheme of Startup Equity - Just like multi-level marketing schemes, in startups it pays to get in on the ground floor. But founding entrepreneurs typically own an order of magnitude more equity than early hires (who themselves will have disproportionate ownership relative to later hires). Author howerl. Read More ».

Entrepreneur 100

Entrepreneur Cofounder Silicon Valley Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

There’s lot of anecdotal evidence for this: Seed stage investors (including NextView and many of our peers) are seeing more startups progress from seed to Series A stage in 6-9 months rather than 12-18. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

View from Seed

OCTOBER 22, 2015

My partner Rob has a great piece on understanding and optimizing towards value inflection points at a seed-stage startup here.) Yet the next round of capital is going to be based on what was accomplished, certainly not by how much time elapsed. For instance, are you anticipating that big, key customer in less than a year?

Seed Capital 120

Seed Capital Seed Stage Demand Finance 120