View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. Pre-seed investing should be super simple, so any signs of pro-rata rights, tranched financings, charging the company for value-added services, etc.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

View from Seed

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

For investors, this dynamic means that we actually have much less ability to influence the nature of the round. The founder may lean on us to help choose between a couple finalists, but they usually won’t want to waste time opening up the funnel, even if that may lead to some better partners.

Syndicate 207

Syndicate Syndication Term Sheet Cofounder 207

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

If you’re raising a round where a new lead investor would invest $5 million the VC fund must have no less than $100 million and if you’re looking for them to write $15–20 million as the lead their fund realistically should be at least $400 million. To be clear?—?your your list never stays static. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

Term Sheet 332

Term Sheet Due Diligence Campaign Sales 332

Hunter Walker

APRIL 20, 2018

Like we do at the seed stage, USV almost always plays the role of “ lead investor.” ” And later: “The truth about these situations is a few seed investors will massively over deliver and the rest will massively disappoint.” But it often is not.”

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Lead Investor Portfolio Reputation 48

Hunter Walker

APRIL 4, 2015

This traditionally means entering at the seed round stage (an initial financing of < $3m, lead or co-lead by us), but we’ve got access to these Straight to A rounds as well via pre-existing relationships with their founders or the lead VCs.

Cofounder 48

Cofounder Lead Investor Valuation Framework 48