Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

He wrote a post this long weekend on how he manages the board of DataSift. Understanding where your VC partner sits in their respective fund and where their fund is in the cycle of its investment lifecycle will help you understand your VCs behavior. Sincerely – he is better at managing his board than any exec I have worked with.

Advisory Board 365

Advisory Board CTO Hire Fractional CTO Los Angeles 365

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

Among the speakers are: Aaron Brown, Chief Risk Officer, AQR Capital Management. Fabio Mercurio, Head of Quantitative Analytics, Bloomberg LP. Head of Portfolio Management, AQR Capital Management. Karl Sprules, Partner & CTO, AllianceBernstein. Katina Stefanova, Founding Partner & CIO, Marto Capital.

New York 60

New York Fractional CTO CTO LP 60

View from Seed

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

After building NextView for almost 10 years now, I’ve been having more conversations recently with first time managers looking for some tactical advice. At first glance, you’d think that all LPs pretty much want to buy the same thing. Every fund pitching an LP is pitching this as a baseline. Are they a principal or an agent?

LP 309

LP Customer Early Stage Portfolio 309

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

It’s why I often advise angel investors to be careful about assuming that being an angel investor is a profitable exercise unless you have the ability to have a wide-enough portfolio to have a few companies doing extraordinarily well plus deep enough pockets to follow your winners. Why prorata rights are now sought out by LPs.

Technical Review 336

Technical Review Later Stage Early Stage LP 336

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 23, 2017

PEVCTech is partnering with Blue Future Partners to run the first large-scale survey of VCs’ technology stack. Johann Kratzer of Blue Future Partners , a fund of funds, observed, “The majority of the hundreds of funds we’ve diligenced rely predominantly on their relationships to source deals. Greylock Partners.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Technical Review 60

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. As two fund managers employing Flexible VC, we think it is a healthy addition to the ecosystem and will yield more predictable and stable healthy returns for investors. Novel Growth Partners, Lighter Capital, Rev Up, Corl, Flow Capital. Of the Inc.

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ). Maybe that’s USV, too.

Leadership 161

Leadership LP Venture Capital Silicon Valley 161

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

Limited Partners or LPs (the people who invest into VC funds) have taken notice as 2014 is by all accounts the busiest year for LPs since the Great Recession began. But it still takes VC to scale a business (thus large capital into industry winners like Uber, Airbnb, SnapChat, etc). Why is this?

Technical Review 398

Technical Review Venture Capital Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 398

The Equity Kicker

MARCH 19, 2012

The LP Update Meeting. I’m just back from our semi-annual update to the LPs in one of our funds, and I thought I would share the experience with you all. As a reminder, LPs, or limited partners, are the investors in venture capital funds. These meetings are the equivalent of board meetings for our portfolio companies.

LP 97

LP Europe Portfolio Private Equity 97

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 3, 2011

For those of you not in the know, they are one of the largest limited partners ( LP's : investors in venture capital funds) in Europe and are basically in almost all the funds throughout the market. Hypothesis 3: Insufficient diversification in European VC managers’ portfolios . This for me is a no-brainer.

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

Version One Ventures

JULY 31, 2018

As a result, we are now a strong partnership of two… and while we have the capacity to do more deals with two partners, we also recognize that we could use some support. Reporting for our investors, including writing quarterly updates and preparing LP advisory board meetings. What are we looking for?

Hiring 166

Hiring San Francisco Advisory Board Due Diligence 166

View from Seed

DECEMBER 11, 2019

“I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining [New Firm] as a Partner where I will continue to invest in great Founders across the industries I care about.”. “I In any professional service industry, there is natural shuffling in the junior roles, as the race up the pyramid towards a Partner title is like musical chairs.

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

Biggest Advice I Give to Portfolio Founders? But when a fund writes checks into a portfolio company it typically “reserves” money to invest in future rounds. Harry asked me whether I thought LP “defaults” (not funding the VC commitments it made) would go up. How Do I Encourage Dissent Between Amongst the Partners?

Marketing 263

Marketing Valuation Churn Rate Balance Sheet 263

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

You've decided to spread that across Z funds and you hope your portfolio meets some threshold. Either way, VC funds aren't really built around creating much of an experience for their Limited Partners. 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.

Limited Partner 60

Limited Partner Venture Capital Partner LP 60

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 14, 2019

If you’re not actually modeling this out with a spreadsheet, I don’t know how you can look an LP in the face and say this. A Time and Attention Model How much time will you be spending on each portfolio company? How long is your partner meeting going to be? I ask the same of new managers. Taking board seats? For how long?

LP 97

LP Due Diligence Portfolio Distribution 97

David Teten

SEPTEMBER 2, 2017

It’s hard enough to get a job at a venture capital or private equity firm; it’s even more complex to join as a Partner. So I would start by sharing with the fund an institutional LP due diligence checklist , and ask them to share their data room with you. Compensation : base salary, share of profits of management company, carry.

Private Equity 60

Private Equity Venture Capital Equity Partner 60

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

But in business, you want a lot of partners. However, in private markets, there is more room to optimize across all 11 steps of the investing process: firm management , marketing, fundraising , origination , manage relationships, due diligence, negotiation, monitoring, portfolio acceleration , reporting, and.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 15, 2016

My partner Lindel Eakman just did a really fun interview with Harry Stebbings on Harry’s 20 Minute VC Podcast. Question from Michael Kim @ Cendana: How is Lindel approaching portfolio construction for Foundry Next? Does Lindel agree with Chris Douvos in stating this could lead to the ‘hybridisation of GP and LP’?

LP 70

LP Portfolio Community Partner 70

David Teten

JANUARY 23, 2021

I’ve been fortunate to be a Partner at two different VC firms over the past 9 years, and we’ve grown AUM 10X both times. Build the firm as much as possible before you solicit limited partners. . The next best move is to build your core team, e.g., recruit an Advisory Board, Venture Partners, and EIRs. Lastly, gather feedback.

Private Equity 78

Private Equity Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review 78

The Equity Kicker

JULY 8, 2019

From around 2000, and perhaps coinciding with the need to work harder to win deals as opportunities dried up after the internet bubble burst, individual partners at VC firms began adding ‘helping CEOs win’ to their job descriptions. . The most visible symptom of this trend was VCs writing blogs to show just how value add they were.

Portfolio 84

Portfolio LP Venture Capital Partner 84

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. If you get into a high-growth company and you have asymmetric information on how the management team is performing?—?this

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital IPO Mezzanine Early Stage 292

K9 Ventures

AUGUST 14, 2017

It was a conscious decision to maintain the fund size at the same level, despite both market pressure (larger rounds at earlier stages) and demand pressure (lots of LP money entering the stage) to raise a larger fund. I would like to thank all the limited partners who entrust me and K9 to invest their capital. was a $40M fund.

Technology 96

Technology LP San Francisco Portfolio 96

Feld Thoughts

JULY 28, 2014

On paper, only one is in positive return territory as a fund, but the SBIC leverage is a substantial negative factor for the LP investors in that particular fund. As a partner in one of the most visible VC firms in Colorado and an LP in many of the Colorado VC firms, I’ve never heard from Matthew or anyone from the SBIC.

SBIC 142

SBIC Venture Capital Colorado SBA 142

David Teten

JULY 12, 2017

When I meet with other VCs, family offices, and other institutional investors, the most common question I get is: “What are the highest-potential companies in your portfolio which are raising now?” We see our potential coinvestors in four primary buckets: 1) HOF Capital ’s own limited partners. Fundraising is burdensome.

Syndicate 60

Syndicate Syndication Institutional Investors LP 60

Hunter Walker

MAY 18, 2015

Over the first two funds we’ve ended up with just that – a group of LPs representing college endowments, foundations and fund of funds who are committed to us and the early stage venture segment. . The James Irvine Foundation joined us in Fund I and has been a great partner since. in nonprofit grants to that extent.

LP 48

LP Portfolio Early Stage Institutional Investors 48

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2018

There is an old management saying, “measure twice, cut once” which refers to the benefit of doing some planning. I literally have a Google Sheet for nearly every portfolio company who is in the process of raising a round. If you’re raising a seed round (say $1.5m) and the firm you’re talking to manages $1.2 Super busy partner.

LP 215

LP San Francisco Minneapolis Partner 215

Hunter Walker

APRIL 28, 2017

For VCs, annual LP meetings are combination Board Meeting + Community Event. Several founders gave 10-12 minute updates on their companies, and then, a dinner with our LPs, Homebrew founders and fund advisors. We spent an afternoon with our investors, providing updates on fund performance, market dynamics and future plans.

LP 70

LP Portfolio Founder Community 70

Hunter Walker

APRIL 4, 2014

Part of our presentation will be portfolio financials, which, because we’re relatively new, aren’t exceptionally volatile (LP speak: most of our investments are still carried at original value since no additional fundraising has occurred). The result has been many new managers, many new funds. family offices.

San Francisco 100

San Francisco Private Equity LP Syndicate 100

Agile VC

JULY 19, 2012

This is true not only in a firm’s dealings with entrepreneurs but also with it’s limited partners and even within the firm among its partners. Back in the 2000-2001 timeframe, a flood of LP capital was coming into the VC asset class given the strong returns of the mid-late 90s tech boom/bubble.

Cofounder 193

Cofounder Limited Partner Early Stage LP 193

David Teten

DECEMBER 12, 2017

(written by Philipp von dem Knesebeck , Managing Partner, Blue Future Partners (bluefp.com, @bluefutureteam ), and David Teten ). Based on this paper, Blue Future Partners and PEVCTech recently completed a large-scale survey to find out which tools are most commonly used by venture capital firms.

Early Stage 60

Early Stage Technical Review Software Review Venture Capital 60

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

(co-written with Jamie Finney, Founding Partner at Greater Colorado Venture Fund. With a portfolio that includes food, tech, and services, the fund is industry-agnostic and focused on the overlooked and underrepresented with high-margin business models. Of Indie.VC’s portfolio, 60% of investments are not in NY, CA, or MA.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

David Teten

AUGUST 21, 2019

not because of LP objections or moral concerns, but because the pool of potential M&A buyers is greatly limited. Requires regular monthly payments and careful cash management. That said, Jim Toth, Managing Partner, Riverside Acceleration Capital, observes, “Actually, everyone is aligned towards growth.

Revenue 60

Revenue Liquidation Preference Equity Cofounder 60

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 23, 2015

Scott Maxwell of OpenView Partners had an awesome post up this morning titled The Truth About VC Value-Add. The next person on the list of supporters is Scott Maxwell at OpenView Venture Partners. Or that how we managed it was ineffective. Go read it – I’ll still be here when you get back.

Advisory Board 70

Advisory Board Venture Capital LP Seed Stage 70

Babbling VC

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Each partner has to bring something to the table and is preferably complimentary to weaknesses of his or her partners. If you need to live month to month from the salary you make via your management fee, you're screwed. This person has to love selling and needs to be a breakfast/lunch/dinner manager. Some people hate it.

LP 66

LP Salary Partner Portfolio 66

Pascal's View

MARCH 8, 2010

It’s that time of the year again– time to send out audited financial statements and K-1’s to your limited partners– which means it’s also a great time to address some of the common questions that investors raise about VC partnership governance and disclosure issues. entitled to receive from a VC fund?

Limited Partner 28

Limited Partner Government Delaware LP 28

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

And I also now have to raise money myself, but this time from bigger institutions that our industry calls LPs (limited partners). Partners make investment decisions. Also recognize that WITHIN a VC you have partners who focus on different areas. I now observes the fund raising process as a profession. Meet in person.

Developer 366

Developer Silicon Valley PR Las Vegas 366

Haystack

JULY 20, 2018

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but I needed the time to digest all the other great posts on the topics by other investors, and to analyze specific portfolio data from Haystack over the last five years. Well, that time has finally come. Over the past two years, however, I’ve felt that something is out of balance.

San Francisco 116

San Francisco Silicon Valley Seattle Venture Capital 116