I’m pleased to announce the formation of K9 Ventures, L.P. K9 Ventures, L.P. – a seed-stage fund. is a $6.25M fund that is designed to do concept and seed-stage investments in technology companies. The fund will be deployed over a period of 3-4 years, with initial investment in the range of $100K – $250K, while reserving capital to participate in the follow-on round. MORE
That means if your company raised money from USV 2004, LP (the name of our first fund, a $125mm fund), it will be hard for us to invest in your company out of USV 2008, LP (the name of our second fund, a ~$150mm fund). Reserves is the term VCs use to describe funds they “reserve” for follow-on financings of their portfolio companies. MORE
We are really excited to announce the closing of Bull City Venture Partners III, a $26 million venture capital fund. David and I sincerely appreciate the commitment from all of our LPs and the overwhelming support from the entreprenurial community. Now, more than ever, we believe there is a big opportunity in front of us. The region we serve has less capital than in the past. However, the level of activity in entrepreneurship has never been stronger. MORE
Fund Terms gp lp reserves vcFred Wilson has a spectacular post up on how VC funds should think about reserves. It’s even more valuable to entrepreneurs so they can understand how the best VCs think about reserves, giving the entrepreneurs ammunition to ask their investors how they are thinking about reserves. I only noticed one thing missing from Fred’s post which is a statement about cashflow which I commented on. “Fred – phenomenal. MORE
If Acme Ventures III, LP invests in Startup X then typically Acme Ventures IV, LP would not. 1) LP Bases Change Over Time – Most healthy VC firms tend to have stable relationships with the limited partners investing with them. MORE
What’s an LP to do in deciding which funds to invest in? Rolf Winkler wrote a piece in the WSJ about A16Z’s returns in which he says they “lag behind Sequoia, Benchmark and Founders Fund.” MORE
As an LP, I’ve had the good fortune to be an investor in many funds, including some exceptional ones. As a GP I applauded the approach and accepted that as an LP we had to beg and plead our way into to the fund. Investments fg next founder collective LP MORE
This is compounded by the complexity of VC / LP relationships, private company dynamics, and the optimism of many investors that “something good will come in the future”, more formally known as “maintaining option value.” ” Fund Terms fund gp liquidation lp vc fundQ: What is the best path to take if a VC which has invested in my company closes down, but we have not exited and are still operating profitably ? MORE
He was lamenting how much he hated LP meetings and how little he wanted to interact with LPs going forward. I even once met with one very, very well known VC who told me, “I don’t attend LP meetings. I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them. MORE
Yesterday we closed our fifth fund, Foundry Venture Capital 2016, L.P. As with all four of our other funds, it’s a $225 million fund. In 2007 we raised our first fund – Foundry Venture Capital 2007. MORE
“Today’s LP environment remains committed to buying mostly the same products they’ve been buying for 15 years, almost irrespective of recent performance or an honest assessment of likely future performance.” - “ The VC Industry Is Very, Very Screwed Up ” by Brad Svrluga. VC Venture Capital LP investments MORE
And we felt terrible not being able to let every LP in but we were forced to make some hard compromises yet we opened up our fund to Sapphire even though they were a first time LP. We have many LPs who come from industry and this is truly a value-add in a LP/VC relationship 3. MORE
While I’m not an LP, the following post represents my discussions with more than 100 LP firms – specifically ones that do fund VCs – and full survey data from 73 firms , so I’ve tried to capture the essence of what I’ve learned. MORE
I told him that I had observed every LP on their computers doing email and that clearly they were bored, to which he replied, “We like boring Powerpoint presentations. And the more LP money that would pour into LA the better for the entire ecosystem. MORE
The LP Update Meeting. We have around a dozen LP update meetings a year across our four funds and they are the most important moments of contact we have with our investors. My latest column for The Kernel. It was published last Thursday. Everybody answers to somebody, Nic Brisbourne reminds us. What happens when VCs are hauled into the boardroom to justify their investment decisions? MORE
I’ve met many VCs who take fund raising meetings with lots of LPs but struggle to get traction and I believe often the problem is that first meetings are easy but the 28 steps to get each LP to closure take an insane amount of focus, effort, follow through and discipline. MORE
Below is the full deck with a lot more data and insights and if you missed the recently published LP Survey Results you can find them here. Recently Upfront Ventures published its outlook for the technology startup world and venture capital overall titled it “ WTF Happened to Winter ?” MORE
I know most startups (or even VCs) tend not to think about this but when you ask LPs the data are clear: Another trend we’ve noticed in LP opinions is regarding seed funds. MORE
Inflexion had our Limited Partner (LP) Meeting tonight and it was a good one. lp entrepreneur inflexionHearing all of our entrepreneurs share their stories reminded me how much I enjoy building companies with these visionaries and how much I appreciate the LPs who make it all possible. Onward and upward. Let's get to know each other, Join FVB , my venture capital blog community! MORE
Most importantly – this should encourage LP funds to back more local firms and I would hope to see more indigenous funds to develop. There are so many great, young funds in the market and many of them are attracting LP capital. If you’re an LP and want to know who these emerging funds are please call me and/or attend our Annual VC Summit. MORE
Last week we held our first annual LP meeting, when venture funds get their investors together with updates on operations and results. Our seed fund Homebrew celebrated its first birthday yesterday, meaning we’re still in diapers but walking tall. MORE
When I went to add partners at Upfront I called an LP of mine and told him I was trying to recruit a new partner named Kara Nortman. I shot back quickly at my LP “ You’re kidding me, right? It’s hard to feel any positives these days: We’re in the eye of the storm. We’re at peak anxiety. MORE
On my run today I was thinking about GP – LP interactions. I didn’t know the person, but knew a few people who did, and quickly sent emails getting addition info for my LP. I was also able to get some specific one degree of separation feedback for my LP. I’m an investor in about 30 VC funds (so, in addition to being a GP in my funds, I’m an LP in a bunch of other funds.) I tried to come up with a rationale for blowing off an LP. MORE
The nature of LP investors can vary widely, but the bulk of the capital in the VC ecosystem comes from large institutions like pension funds, endowments of universities and hospitals, charitable foundations, insurance companies, very wealthy families (aka family offices), and corporations. MORE
Maybe the next one will be called “I’m an LP.” It’s Sunday and it’s -8 degrees in Boulder. Egads. As I sat in my warm office catching up on email from the week, I sent links to our Foundry Group videos to a friend that had never seen them. MORE
I spoke at Michael Kim’s excellent annual Cendana VC/LP conference today. Today Twitter announced it had laid off around 336 jobs or 8% of its workforce. Nobody should celebrate, cheer or shout, “it’s about time.” MORE
20VC: WHY MANY VCS FAIL TO RAISE, WHY LP COMPENSATION IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM & WHY FUND OF FUNDS WILL BECOME MORE PROMINENT WITH LINDEL EAKMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR @ FOUNDRY GROUP. I’ve become a huge fan of Harry Stebbings, the intrepid entrepreneur turned VC whose age (20) matches the title of his podcast ( The Twenty Minute VC.) Today, at SaaStr at 1:40pm in the Hypercritical section , Harry is interviewing me about – well – whatever he wants. MORE
I know how hard it is myself because I used to vet VCs for a living when I was on the insitituional LP side. Picture this: Your family builds a tremendous business in Nebraska over four generations making black socks. You make more black socks for more people in the western world than anyone. The next generation isn't interested in socks. One daughter is touring nationally with her punk band. The son is off in Africa combating disease with Doctors without Borders, and the other son. MORE
That means that if an LP invests $1 in the fund, they get back $3 over time. I’m an investor in a bunch of VC funds. Some of them recycle their management fees; others don’t. I’ve never really understood why funds don’t recycle their management fees. MORE
This is compounded by the complexity of VC / LP relationships, private company dynamics, and the optimism of many investors that “something good will come in the future”, more formally known as “maintaining option value.” ” fund gp liquidation lp vc fund Q: What is the best path to take if a VC which has invested in my company closes down, but we have not exited and are still operating profitably ? MORE
Up next I’ll publish all of the LP (people who invest in VCs) data we gathered and what we believe this signifies. Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends. MORE
Rather than see LP interactions as a chore or a burden, new fund managers should see this as an opportunity to extend the community around their fund. 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. Just yesterday, I walked out of breakfast with an LP of mine with three or four meaningful introduction offers from this LP who ran a public company for 30 years. MORE
This prompted me to poke around for other content from the limited partner (LP) side of the LP/VC/entrepreneurship universe. I think the first LP blogger was Chris Douvos who periodically puts up an instant classic post at Super LP. OpenLP is a new site moderated by the gang at Sapphire Ventures that seems to be a collection of all the LP stuff floating around the web. As I continued poking around, I found a few LP firms hosting blogs on their websites. MORE
” 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. We surveyed 73 LP firms to get their views on the market. MORE
Last week Homebrew held its second annual LP meeting, coinciding with our second anniversary as a fund. We invite several of the founder teams to present at the LP meeting discussion and all of our founders and advisors to a dinner. The agenda was very similar to 2014’s, which I discussed last year in this post. MORE
In the early spring of 2009, the fundraising nuclear winter of the previous year hadn't yet thawed. It would be months before Foursquare's first round touched off a NYC venture frenzy. I was out trying to save my startup by talking to as many investors as I could. One particular investor pass--from someone we thought we had a good shot with--felt like a punch in the the stomach. Many of you entrepreneurs know that feeling. MORE
Satya and I approached fundraising for Homebrew as if we were building a company, asking ourselves who were the investors that would give us a solid platform, who were aligned with our values and where we learn from them. MORE
This time it's the Top Ten LP Lies. 10: We don't invest in first or second funds, see #1 9: We have committed this years allocation 8: We don't believe in this asset category unless we can get into Sequoia 7: My committee would never let me do a deal outside of the valley 6: Our diligence is very deep (bottomless unless you are about to close and any of my close LP friends are in) Check out Paul's blog for the top 5. paulkedrosky lp vcfaq vc 2.0 MORE
Hunter Walk, one of the two founders of Homebrew , a VC firm started in 2013, just wrote a great post about Homebrew’s first LP meeting. So – if you want to learn what a VC annual meeting is like, go read Investors Updating Their Investors: Inside Homebrew’s First Annual LP Meeting MORE
In addition to being an incredibly supportive investor in us from the beginning, this LP has become an extremely close friend. As I was walking home after dinner, I thought about the person who had introduced us to this LP. This LP is also a long time investor in Union Square Ventures and was one of the first people Fred introduced us to when we started raising the first Foundry Group fund in 2007. MORE
Founders Fundraising Opinion Venture Capital GP LP seed stage Series A VentureHere is the video recording of the talk I gave at 500 Startups ‘ PreMoney Conference in San Francisco on 12 June. . Seed Is The New A: What The Seed-Stage Explosion Means For Founders, GPs & LPs. MORE
The nature of LP investors can vary widely, but the bulk of the capital in the VC ecosystem comes from large institutions like pension funds, endowments of universities and hospitals, charitable foundations, insurance companies, very wealthy families (aka family offices), and corporations. MORE
Venture funding goes ballistic: VCJ : Some people are starting to call the top of the current cycle, at least in the context of flows of LP funds into VC firms. We had our LP Annual Meeting yesterday and I had a vibrant conversation with a few of our LPs about this topic at lunch. I’m bouncing around between a bunch of stuff and have a two board meeting day so I thought I’d just toss up a few interesting things I read this morning along with my thoughts. MORE
Ask The VC
APRIL 27, 2014
Hunter Walk, one of the two founders of Homebrew , a VC firm started in 2013, just wrote a great post about Homebrew’s first LP meeting. So – if you want to learn what a VC annual meeting is like, go read Investors Updating Their Investors: Inside Homebrew’s First Annual LP Meeting
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 6, 2017
I know most startups (or even VCs) tend not to think about this but when you ask LPs the data are clear: Another trend we’ve noticed in LP opinions is regarding seed funds.
Feld Thoughts
MARCH 24, 2017
As an LP, I’ve had the good fortune to be an investor in many funds, including some exceptional ones. As a GP I applauded the approach and accepted that as an LP we had to beg and plead our way into to the fund. Investments fg next founder collective LP
Hunter Walker
MAY 7, 2015
Last week Homebrew held its second annual LP meeting, coinciding with our second anniversary as a fund. We invite several of the founder teams to present at the LP meeting discussion and all of our founders and advisors to a dinner. The agenda was very similar to 2014’s, which I discussed last year in this post.
Hunter Walker
APRIL 27, 2014
Last week we held our first annual LP meeting, when venture funds get their investors together with updates on operations and results. Our seed fund Homebrew celebrated its first birthday yesterday, meaning we’re still in diapers but walking tall.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 6, 2016
This prompted me to poke around for other content from the limited partner (LP) side of the LP/VC/entrepreneurship universe. I think the first LP blogger was Chris Douvos who periodically puts up an instant classic post at Super LP. OpenLP is a new site moderated by the gang at Sapphire Ventures that seems to be a collection of all the LP stuff floating around the web. As I continued poking around, I found a few LP firms hosting blogs on their websites.
K9 Ventures
JUNE 18, 2015
Founders Fundraising Opinion Venture Capital GP LP seed stage Series A VentureHere is the video recording of the talk I gave at 500 Startups ‘ PreMoney Conference in San Francisco on 12 June. . Seed Is The New A: What The Seed-Stage Explosion Means For Founders, GPs & LPs.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 9, 2011
On my run today I was thinking about GP – LP interactions. I didn’t know the person, but knew a few people who did, and quickly sent emails getting addition info for my LP. I was also able to get some specific one degree of separation feedback for my LP. I’m an investor in about 30 VC funds (so, in addition to being a GP in my funds, I’m an LP in a bunch of other funds.) I tried to come up with a rationale for blowing off an LP.
This is going to be BIG.
OCTOBER 5, 2012
I know how hard it is myself because I used to vet VCs for a living when I was on the insitituional LP side. Picture this: Your family builds a tremendous business in Nebraska over four generations making black socks. You make more black socks for more people in the western world than anyone. The next generation isn't interested in socks. One daughter is touring nationally with her punk band. The son is off in Africa combating disease with Doctors without Borders, and the other son.
K9 Ventures
APRIL 28, 2010
I’m pleased to announce the formation of K9 Ventures, L.P. K9 Ventures, L.P. – a seed-stage fund. is a $6.25M fund that is designed to do concept and seed-stage investments in technology companies. The fund will be deployed over a period of 3-4 years, with initial investment in the range of $100K – $250K, while reserving capital to participate in the follow-on round.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
And we felt terrible not being able to let every LP in but we were forced to make some hard compromises yet we opened up our fund to Sapphire even though they were a first time LP. We have many LPs who come from industry and this is truly a value-add in a LP/VC relationship 3.
Florida Venture Blog
MAY 7, 2007
Inflexion had our Limited Partner (LP) Meeting tonight and it was a good one. lp entrepreneur inflexionHearing all of our entrepreneurs share their stories reminded me how much I enjoy building companies with these visionaries and how much I appreciate the LPs who make it all possible. Onward and upward. Let's get to know each other, Join FVB , my venture capital blog community!
View from Seed
OCTOBER 29, 2014
The nature of LP investors can vary widely, but the bulk of the capital in the VC ecosystem comes from large institutions like pension funds, endowments of universities and hospitals, charitable foundations, insurance companies, very wealthy families (aka family offices), and corporations.
Agile VC
OCTOBER 29, 2014
The nature of LP investors can vary widely, but the bulk of the capital in the VC ecosystem comes from large institutions like pension funds, endowments of universities and hospitals, charitable foundations, insurance companies, very wealthy families (aka family offices), and corporations.
Mark Birch
FEBRUARY 5, 2013
“Today’s LP environment remains committed to buying mostly the same products they’ve been buying for 15 years, almost irrespective of recent performance or an honest assessment of likely future performance.” - “ The VC Industry Is Very, Very Screwed Up ” by Brad Svrluga. VC Venture Capital LP investments
Feld Thoughts
DECEMBER 18, 2016
Maybe the next one will be called “I’m an LP.” It’s Sunday and it’s -8 degrees in Boulder. Egads. As I sat in my warm office catching up on email from the week, I sent links to our Foundry Group videos to a friend that had never seen them.
The Equity Kicker
MARCH 19, 2012
The LP Update Meeting. We have around a dozen LP update meetings a year across our four funds and they are the most important moments of contact we have with our investors. My latest column for The Kernel. It was published last Thursday. Everybody answers to somebody, Nic Brisbourne reminds us. What happens when VCs are hauled into the boardroom to justify their investment decisions?
Florida Venture Blog
MAY 3, 2007
This time it's the Top Ten LP Lies. 10: We don't invest in first or second funds, see #1 9: We have committed this years allocation 8: We don't believe in this asset category unless we can get into Sequoia 7: My committee would never let me do a deal outside of the valley 6: Our diligence is very deep (bottomless unless you are about to close and any of my close LP friends are in) Check out Paul's blog for the top 5. paulkedrosky lp vcfaq vc 2.0
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 1, 2016
While I’m not an LP, the following post represents my discussions with more than 100 LP firms – specifically ones that do fund VCs – and full survey data from 73 firms , so I’ve tried to capture the essence of what I’ve learned.
Ask The VC
JANUARY 9, 2017
Fund Terms gp lp reserves vcFred Wilson has a spectacular post up on how VC funds should think about reserves. It’s even more valuable to entrepreneurs so they can understand how the best VCs think about reserves, giving the entrepreneurs ammunition to ask their investors how they are thinking about reserves. I only noticed one thing missing from Fred’s post which is a statement about cashflow which I commented on. “Fred – phenomenal.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 31, 2014
In addition to being an incredibly supportive investor in us from the beginning, this LP has become an extremely close friend. As I was walking home after dinner, I thought about the person who had introduced us to this LP. This LP is also a long time investor in Union Square Ventures and was one of the first people Fred introduced us to when we started raising the first Foundry Group fund in 2007.
A VC : Venture Capital and Technology
JANUARY 8, 2017
That means if your company raised money from USV 2004, LP (the name of our first fund, a $125mm fund), it will be hard for us to invest in your company out of USV 2008, LP (the name of our second fund, a ~$150mm fund). Reserves is the term VCs use to describe funds they “reserve” for follow-on financings of their portfolio companies.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 18, 2016
Up next I’ll publish all of the LP (people who invest in VCs) data we gathered and what we believe this signifies. Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends.
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. We surveyed 73 LP firms to get their views on the market.
Both Sides of the Table
MAY 6, 2015
Most importantly – this should encourage LP funds to back more local firms and I would hope to see more indigenous funds to develop. There are so many great, young funds in the market and many of them are attracting LP capital. If you’re an LP and want to know who these emerging funds are please call me and/or attend our Annual VC Summit.
Feld Thoughts
JULY 30, 2015
Yesterday we closed our fifth fund, Foundry Venture Capital 2016, L.P. As with all four of our other funds, it’s a $225 million fund. In 2007 we raised our first fund – Foundry Venture Capital 2007.
Southeast VC
JUNE 26, 2014
We are really excited to announce the closing of Bull City Venture Partners III, a $26 million venture capital fund. David and I sincerely appreciate the commitment from all of our LPs and the overwhelming support from the entreprenurial community. Now, more than ever, we believe there is a big opportunity in front of us. The region we serve has less capital than in the past. However, the level of activity in entrepreneurship has never been stronger.
Both Sides of the Table
NOVEMBER 6, 2016
When I went to add partners at Upfront I called an LP of mine and told him I was trying to recruit a new partner named Kara Nortman. I shot back quickly at my LP “ You’re kidding me, right? It’s hard to feel any positives these days: We’re in the eye of the storm. We’re at peak anxiety.
Agile VC
DECEMBER 6, 2012
If Acme Ventures III, LP invests in Startup X then typically Acme Ventures IV, LP would not. 1) LP Bases Change Over Time – Most healthy VC firms tend to have stable relationships with the limited partners investing with them.
Feld Thoughts
MAY 28, 2014
That means that if an LP invests $1 in the fund, they get back $3 over time. I’m an investor in a bunch of VC funds. Some of them recycle their management fees; others don’t. I’ve never really understood why funds don’t recycle their management fees.
Both Sides of the Table
JANUARY 30, 2016
I told him that I had observed every LP on their computers doing email and that clearly they were bored, to which he replied, “We like boring Powerpoint presentations. And the more LP money that would pour into LA the better for the entire ecosystem.
Feld Thoughts
FEBRUARY 8, 2017
20VC: WHY MANY VCS FAIL TO RAISE, WHY LP COMPENSATION IS A MASSIVE PROBLEM & WHY FUND OF FUNDS WILL BECOME MORE PROMINENT WITH LINDEL EAKMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR @ FOUNDRY GROUP. I’ve become a huge fan of Harry Stebbings, the intrepid entrepreneur turned VC whose age (20) matches the title of his podcast ( The Twenty Minute VC.) Today, at SaaStr at 1:40pm in the Hypercritical section , Harry is interviewing me about – well – whatever he wants.
Both Sides of the Table
JUNE 19, 2015
I’ve met many VCs who take fund raising meetings with lots of LPs but struggle to get traction and I believe often the problem is that first meetings are easy but the 28 steps to get each LP to closure take an insane amount of focus, effort, follow through and discipline.
Feld Thoughts
APRIL 10, 2014
Venture funding goes ballistic: VCJ : Some people are starting to call the top of the current cycle, at least in the context of flows of LP funds into VC firms. We had our LP Annual Meeting yesterday and I had a vibrant conversation with a few of our LPs about this topic at lunch. I’m bouncing around between a bunch of stuff and have a two board meeting day so I thought I’d just toss up a few interesting things I read this morning along with my thoughts.
Both Sides of the Table
DECEMBER 7, 2014
He was lamenting how much he hated LP meetings and how little he wanted to interact with LPs going forward. I even once met with one very, very well known VC who told me, “I don’t attend LP meetings. I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them.
Both Sides of the Table
OCTOBER 14, 2015
I spoke at Michael Kim’s excellent annual Cendana VC/LP conference today. Today Twitter announced it had laid off around 336 jobs or 8% of its workforce. Nobody should celebrate, cheer or shout, “it’s about time.”
This is going to be BIG.
FEBRUARY 23, 2016
Rather than see LP interactions as a chore or a burden, new fund managers should see this as an opportunity to extend the community around their fund. 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. Just yesterday, I walked out of breakfast with an LP of mine with three or four meaningful introduction offers from this LP who ran a public company for 30 years.
Both Sides of the Table
SEPTEMBER 1, 2016
What’s an LP to do in deciding which funds to invest in? Rolf Winkler wrote a piece in the WSJ about A16Z’s returns in which he says they “lag behind Sequoia, Benchmark and Founders Fund.”
Both Sides of the Table
MARCH 12, 2017
Below is the full deck with a lot more data and insights and if you missed the recently published LP Survey Results you can find them here. Recently Upfront Ventures published its outlook for the technology startup world and venture capital overall titled it “ WTF Happened to Winter ?”
Ask The VC
JANUARY 7, 2013
This is compounded by the complexity of VC / LP relationships, private company dynamics, and the optimism of many investors that “something good will come in the future”, more formally known as “maintaining option value.” ” fund gp liquidation lp vc fund Q: What is the best path to take if a VC which has invested in my company closes down, but we have not exited and are still operating profitably ?
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