View from Seed

APRIL 30, 2015

Below, we talk to Glen Mello , Managing Director of Silicon Valley Bank’s accelerator team in Boston. Use good judgment, talk to your co-founders/investors/lawyers, and partner with a bank that values transparency and relationships such as SVB.]. NVV: Let’s talk about the seed stage specifically.

Term Sheet 120

Term Sheet Equity Startup Seed Stage 120

K9 Ventures

JUNE 5, 2015

Almost two years ago, in a private/closed meeting with K9 Ventures’ LPs only, I claimed that: What was being referred to in the press as the “Series A Crunch” was not because fewer Series A deals were being done, but because there were too many Seed deals being done. Seed stage was super tough.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Venture Capital Early Stage Valuation 48

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

How They Make Money: Majority of Kayak’s revenue actually comes from advertising on their site (55%), not lead generation or referral fees to travel suppliers as you might think (more on this below). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $170 million. Revenue growth: 51% YoY (2010), 1% YoY (2009), 131% YoY (2008).

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

We had another solid year filled with learning, growth, laughter, and new projects and partners. Thanks to all of the amazing founders, advisors, co-investors, corporate partners, and others that helped make 2018 an amazing year. The 10 year bull market where every company’s revenue chart is up and to the right is over.

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

They’ve grown from nothing to >$2B in revenue in 30 months time, making the company among the fastest growing businesses in the histroy of the world. How They Make Money: Groupon keeps a share of the coupon value (typically 40-50%) as its net revenue (1). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. to the merchant.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

I spent some time with some startups in San Francisco proper, as opposed to the heart of Silicon Valley (see Note 1). Also all the big anchor companies that a startup might want to partner with at that time (eBay, Google, Oracle, Yahoo!, far more huge companies in Silicon Valley. April 13, 2012. link] Matthew Tagg.

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 11, 2019

Ann Miura-Ko is a founding partner at Floodgate , a seed-stage VC firm. There were none in the firm, so I remember asking him if he knew of any general partners who were women in the Boston area. In a place where there are many, many venture capital firms, he couldn't think of a single female general partner.

Founder 68

Founder Lean Venture Capital Cofounder 68

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 9, 2012

I was here to see one of our LPs (limited partners are the people who invest money in VC funds) called Fort Washington. They’ve been a long-term investor in our fund – GRP Partners – and it was important to me to spend time with them in their home market and meet the people with whom they deal locally. In that sense it felt very LA.

Houston 364

Houston Dallas Los Angeles Chicago 364

pandodaily.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Multiply that by literally a couple thousand, and that’s what 2013 is going to look like in Silicon Valley, and to a lesser degree some other startup ecosystems. “There are so many companies in Silicon Valley that have raised $30 million and done absolutely nothing with it.” Source VentureBeat ]. -

Technical Review 93

Technical Review Silicon Valley Incubator Syria 93

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

As a seed-focused VC fund we invest comparatively small sums of capital at the very beginning of a startup’s life. A company that in time can generate $100M+ in revenue and have an enterprise value measured in the hundreds of millions or more (what some VCs refer to as a “venture scale” outcome). Read More ».

South Korea 124

South Korea Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 124

Agile VC

AUGUST 12, 2011

The simple answer is “be able to convince a partnership of smart investors that your startup has a good probability of being a $100M+ revenue company within 5ish years.” I was in a board meeting for a seed stage company recently and a successful GP at a larger fund said “you know it when you see it” which is true.

Seed Stage 113

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Acquisition 113

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Are Israeli companies on the verge of developing a repeatable playbook to scale their companies and become market leaders, not just acquisition fodder for the Silicon Valley giants? To answer these questions, we built a database of 112 Israeli companies founded between 1996 and 2013 that have met or exceeded $20 million in revenue.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20

Agile VC

JANUARY 12, 2012

When a startup doesn’t match the stage where a particular investor focuses, founders may get a response along the lines of “This is interesting to us, but come back once you get from X phase to Y phase” That could be from seed stage to a larger Series A financing need, or to progress from pre-product to post-revenue.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 100

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

And for those in the coveted in-crowd, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the greater tech community become a world of opportunity where you’re only limited by the quality of your idea and the caliber of your friends. Gordon is also operating director of Zynga and director at Amazon, both sFund partners.

Angel Investor 80

Angel Investor Startup San Francisco Social Media 80

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. Multi-billion dollar valuations for late stage startups like Dropbox, et al. Read More ». Previous Entries.

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Agile VC

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Objective Logistics has created a game layer on top of very sophisticated scheduling algorithms which increase revenue, save time, and improve customer and staff satisfaction. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010.

Silicon Valley 100

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 100

Agile VC

AUGUST 22, 2011

Even Amazon isn’t a platform… yes they have AWS but it accounts for <3% of their revenue and isn’t terribly profitable given the capex & opex currently going into growing it. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC. My partner @ LeeHower looks back: [link] 5 days ago Search.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Startup Syndicate 113

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

E-commerce accounts for the vast majority of LL Bean’s revenue today ( it crossed 50% in 2010 though was as low as 15% in 2000 ), but because LL Bean is over a hundred years old and started as catalog & physical store retailer we typically don’t refer to it as an internet company. . link] leehower. Your welcome. .

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

Some believe that there are “new” revenue models being created by consumer web companies, like virtual goods or “freemium” services. Their first revenue stream is simply inserting affiliate links to e-tailers into the pinboards that users create. Im a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned East Coast VC.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 13, 2012

He is on the board of the Angel Resource Institute, and is a partner with Montlake Capital (a late stage growth capital fund) and with Revenue Capital Management (a royalty based lender). Valuable lessons learned from Andy’s personal experience venture investing in Silicon Valley.

Angel Investor 103

Angel Investor Venture Capital Seed Stage Silicon Valley 103

Agile VC

MARCH 18, 2012

Costolo clearly wants to position Twitter as a complementary part of the media ecosystem (which it is by and large) rather than a competitor, and there remains a chance that Twitter will have other forms of revenue besides ads. Here’s why: Virtually all of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising.

Media 113

Media Advertising Silicon Valley Revenue 113

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

My partner Rob also wondered if Facebook is the next Yahoo! , How They Make Money : Facebook’s primary revenue stream is of course selling advertising on Facebook.com, which in total accounts for 85% of revenue. Financial Snapshot : 2011 Revenue: $3.71 2011 YoY Revenue Growth: 88%. or the next Google.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

For SaaS or other recurring revenue businesses these figures might be on a bookings basis rather than GAAP revenue, but conceptually they’re similar. Bill Gurley’s post last year does a great job analyzing why some businesses are valued at 10x+ revenue and most aren’t. Zynga – 8x+ trailing revenue.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100