This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

I’ve been asked by portfolio companies and plenty of others about how they should be changing their strategy given the stock market pullback and what they’ve been hearing on “VC twitter”. It was super hard to get any kind of financing before, and it will remain so. The incentive is too strong. You should be all good. 9’s and 10’s only!

Stock 97

Stock Marketing Valuation Later Stage 97

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. The more they know your strategic objectives the more laterally they can act on your behalf in key situations. One key board member knows Marissa.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing. I’ve definitely been wrong on market value.

Bankruptcy 294

Bankruptcy Bridge Financing Portfolio Angel Investor 294

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. Your skills are much appreciated later in our business. What price?

Early Stage 361

Early Stage Deal Flow Investment Bankers Technical Review 361

thebarefootvc

JANUARY 27, 2014

I think that later stage valuations are frothy (for reasons I explain below) while earlier stage valuations are starting to stabilize from previous highs (with the exception of the superstar serial entrepreneur) - turns out scaling in a sea of competition (both startup and entrenched) is not so easy. The answer is yes and yes.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Valuation Venture Capital Investment Bankers 63

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? When you are raising a large, later-stage round given by this time you’ve likely got a fairly large business to run. Your skills are much appreciated later in our business. What price?

Deal Flow 347

Deal Flow Early Stage Investment Bankers Technical Review 347

VC Adventure

AUGUST 15, 2018

As is true today, there was a requirement that options be priced at or above the “fair market value” of the underlying stock (otherwise there would be tax consequences to the optionee and sometimes to the company as well). Similarly I assumed that later stage companies would also show a smaller gap. I was wrong.

Valuation 48

Valuation Common Stock Cap Table Software Review 48

VC Adventure

MARCH 17, 2022

With the markets down significantly, financings (at least at the later stages) slowing down, and inflation and interest rates on the rise, perhaps now is a good time to talk about your burn rate. Hopefully, you took advantage of the robust financing markets of the past few years to put some money on your balance sheet.

Balance Sheet 121

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Metrics 121

YoungUpstarts

NOVEMBER 19, 2017

KPMG’s Venture Pulse Q3 2017 reported that the Asian market has raised $12.3 With more money being invested in startups around the region, the barriers to entry that prevent startups from entering the market are reduced. Venture capital fundraising can be divided into three stages: seed, early stage, and later stage.

Venture Capital 196

Venture Capital Asia Artificial Inteligence Later Stage 196

David Teten

MAY 9, 2012

We are in the midst of two great disruptions to American business: the internet’s ongoing disruption of most traditional industries: finance, healthcare, retail, finance, fashion, etc. Founded in 1970, NAIC firms invest in venture (early stage/later stage) and private equity (growth/buyout/mezzanine/distressed/secondary funds).

Venture Capital 154

Venture Capital Programming Accredited Investor New York 154

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Pre-Money Valuation 336

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Silicon Valley Stock 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.”

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Later Stage Non-Compete 309

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

We want to work with people who bring a focused and complementary perspective to investing and were interested in the Founder Collective mantra of being “stage-focused and sector agnostic.”. This means FC avoids trends and relentlessly questions entrepreneurs about how their product enables specific use cases and market opportunities.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Analytics vs. Finance?—?what’s In reality, these two domains require quite different skill sets (more on this later). These are operating metrics because they are not part of GAAP financial statements, even though they are critical for everyone from the CEO to marketers and PMs to make data-informed decision on a daily basis.

Analytics 149

Analytics Hiring SQL Forecast 149

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The second wave of technology investors were Chinese banks, who provided the majority of the later stage investments in the Torch Program. By 1991, 70% of the Torch funded startups were getting bank financing for expansion and later stages of the new ventures, with local governments acting as guarantors.

Venture Capital 271

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 271

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

Like many established finance & media companies, GLG knows that the tech startup sector is a growing part of the economy. I’ve also presented at a range of industry conferences on how institutional investors can use professional networks for research , origination , market research , and value creation. Previously posted at Forbes.

New York 114

New York Technical Review Networking Advisory Board 114

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 10, 2014

So – I’ll start with that – this is not a prediction, rather it’s a hypothesis, which is as long as there isn’t a cataclysmic macro event, Q115 financing activity is going to be insane. The number of large, “later stage” financings are remarkable – both in size and velocity.

Later Stage 142

Later Stage Syndicate Syndication Portfolio 142

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.

LP 150

LP Valuation Burn Rate Pre-Money Valuation 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

I wrote this conundrum and the need to take charge of how the market define your skills in my much-read blog post on “ personal branding.” ” If you don’t create the message about yourself, the market will. And if you want to be a CEO one day you need the messaging to reflect that.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Liquidation Preference Silicon Valley IP 150

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 9, 2021

Over and over, he has gambled on products and product areas where no current market existed. Products like the Kindle and Amazon Web Services created entirely new markets, which Amazon now dominates or leads. In Jeff’s case, Amazon bet hundreds of millions of dollars on the Fire Phone, which the market utterly rejected.

Leadership 42

Leadership Technical Review Cofounder Later Stage 42

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 9, 2017

by Tina Hay, founder and CEO of Napkin Finance. One of the most important factors in becoming a successful entrepreneur is managing finances. Whether early or later-stage, the growth of every company most often depends on how much capital is available to fund its growth.

Burn Rate 100

Burn Rate B2C Finance Later Stage 100

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

Dave’s a great guy with a good sense of humor and a broad knowledge of the market, which is why I was excited that he could be on the show. VC Financings: 1. It is a platform to help brands building viral marketing campaigns. They focus on trying to drive engagbranded social media marketing campaigns (e.g.

Venture Capital 270

Venture Capital Cofounder Spain San Diego 270

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I spend hours thinking about the products, competitors, market opportunities, recruiting and financing of these businesses. Early stage. How else can I begin this multi-year journey if I’m not in love? Maybe some people can be dispassionate financial investors. I feel personally committed and engaged.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Non-Compete LP Later Stage 254

Steve Blank

APRIL 12, 2013

The second wave of technology investors were Chinese banks, who provided the majority of the later stage investments in the Torch Program. By 1991, 70% of the Torch funded startups were getting bank financing for expansion and later stages of the new ventures, with local governments acting as guarantors.

Venture Capital 163

Venture Capital China Offshore SBIR 163

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Perhaps, when things settle down a bit more, those companies will even raise series A capital from traditional institutional sources to expand the product features, beef up the operations team more fully and make progress in finding initial product-market fit. Shift of value from equity holders to token holders. Fuzzy Governance.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

Seeing Both Sides

AUGUST 28, 2017

Perhaps, when things settle down a bit more, those companies will even raise series A capital from traditional institutional sources to expand the product features, beef up the operations team more fully and make progress in finding initial product-market fit. Shift of value from equity holders to token holders. Fuzzy Governance.

Early Stage 20

Early Stage Equity Venture Capital Government 20

VC Adventure

MAY 5, 2022

BUT (and you knew there was a but here given the post title…) it’s a poor way to compare the relative performance of funds early, and even into the mid/later, stages of a fund’s life. A few examples: In an up market, IRR values quick capital deployment. This is a mistake. Recycling hurts IRR.

IRR 116

IRR Metrics Valuation LP 116

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 19, 2017

That is, how much should your company be willing to lose in cash every month as you make investments in staff and equipment that funds technology, sales, marketing and management. How Much Capital You Have Raised / Your Runway In general I recommend that in early-stage startups you try to raise at least 15-18 months of runway.

Burn Rate 212

Burn Rate Startup .Net Venture Capital 212

The Equity Kicker

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

There’s been a lot of talk recently about what will happen to startup financing in 2016, including here on this blog. Mark also notes that startup valuations went up 3x from 2006-2015, and simple supply and demand logic suggests the non-VC cash in the market was important in driving prices up.

Marketing 60

Marketing Institutional Investors Venture Capital Later Stage 60

K9 Ventures

OCTOBER 10, 2017

This post is intended to be a dynamic document, and I will attempt to update it from time to time with new questions that may arise or as financing trends evolve. Q: What amount of financing is considered Pre-Seed? It’s a legitimate stage of financing in the venture eco-system as of this writing (October 2017).

Seed Stage 82

Seed Stage Finance Later Stage Equity 82

Gust

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014

To begin with, it is important to understand some basic facts about the world of entrepreneurial finance: There are many more entrepreneurs than there are investors, with the result that only one company out of every 400 that seeks venture funding actually receives it.

Angel Groups 159

Angel Groups Elevator Pitch Software Review Deal Flow 159

Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2010

Certain VC’s like the new class of Super-Angels and small VC funds specialize in the early stage of a startup where you are searching for a business model. And some larger funds that specialize in later stage deals may have a partner or two who likes to invest at this stage. Is it for your technology? (In

Founder 231

Founder Vesting Later Stage Early Stage 231

Rob Go

NOVEMBER 30, 2015

In addition to reporting on the progress of our funds and the exciting stuff happening with the portfolio, we shared some thoughts on the broader market environment for VC’s and venture backed technology companies. We started our discussion looking at our own market, but it turns out this is tied to VC market and broader capital markets too.

Later Stage 28

Later Stage Marketing Early Stage Ratchet 28

The Startup Magazine

FEBRUARY 6, 2020

Pension funding was above market using aggressive actuarial assumptions. s form of no-holds-barred capitalism, our financial markets were slow to adopt the idea, with the trend really only taking hold during the heady securitization period of the mid-2000’ s. municipal bond market. Unions often cast an outsized presence.

Private Equity 129

Private Equity New York City Chicago Investment Bankers 129

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

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Early Stage Investment (Series A & B) 4. Later Stage Investment (Series C, D, and so on) 5. Mezzanine Financing Most companies that raise equity capital and are eventually acquired or go public receive multiple rounds of financing first. Series B is the round that follows series A in early stage financing.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Much of the VC blogosphere commentary about startups covers venture and angel financing with advice focused on company founders. The first decision, and the most critical decision, of what type of startup to join is based on the current stage of the company. And that derisking is only for 12 +/- 6 months.

Startup 241

Startup Later Stage Angel Financing Seed Stage 241