Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 15, 2020

In his classic book, “ The Leadership Capital Index ,” Dave Ulrich, a best-selling author, business consultant, and business school professor, provides some real insights and metrics on what makes up the elements of goodwill in the minds of top valuation experts. Investing in strong leaders, including entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs, or corporate icons such as Jack Welch, has long been recognized as a key to reduced risk, and the key to high valuation on the side of the seller.

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YoungUpstarts

JUNE 16, 2020

Business valuation is defined as a way to determine the overall economic value of a company , and is a necessary component of a sound business plan and strategy. Reasons for a business valuation run a gamut from selling the business due to retirement or health reasons to financing expansion efforts to adding shareholders to a buyout situation. Any of these situations will demand a valuation to determine current and future projected value. . Three Methods of Valuation.

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YoungUpstarts

MARCH 14, 2016

There are many reasons why you need a current valuation of your business and many business owners assume that it is only necessary when selling but actually, this is not the case. Business valuations and wealth management. A professional business valuation is instrumental in identifying changes that need to happen to make a business more attractive to buyers. Determining a price is part and parcel of professional business valuation services.

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YoungUpstarts

MARCH 11, 2015

With the daily demands of running a business along with the financial pressures and challenges inherent in early-stage companies, a business valuation may not be the first thing an entrepreneur thinks of when he awakes each morning. But it’s an important consideration, especially for companies that plan to offer alternative compensation such as employee stock options, which will usually require a 409A valuation. When does a startup company need a business valuation?

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. A second thing a VC may be trying to determine is whether your last-round valuation was significantly over-priced. I know our last round valuation was too high.”

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Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” How much is NewCo worth to investors at this point (pre-money valuation)? Well, if the parties agree to a pre-money valuation of $1M, then the post-money investor ownership is 50% (founders give up half interest, and lose control). This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach.

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Version One Ventures

JULY 20, 2015

I often get asked about how to determine the valuation for a marketplace startup that is starting to scale. Our assumptions for this valuation: Scale: > $1b GMV. Bessemer offers a good overview of current valuations for different business models: SaaS, marketplaces, consumer, and ecommerce. The post How we determine valuations for marketplaces appeared first on Version One.

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YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 12, 2016

In order to attract investors, you have to know the valuation of your company or how much your company is worth. Many new business owners struggle with valuation because it isn’t as easy as crunching some numbers. In order to make things easier for you, here are some tips you can keep in mind while you are figuring your business’ valuation: Determine Value Carefully in the Seed Round. Take a look at this infographic to learn more about valuation.

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VC Cafe

JUNE 14, 2018

It's not only the media that makes us obsessed about private startup valuations - sometimes the founders and VCs play a role in it too. We take a look at valuations, how to speak with your VC about. Charging Ponies Valuation charging ponies fred wilson Israel mark suster techaviv unicorns valuations yaron samidThis is a content summary only. Click on the post title to continue reading this post, share your comments, browse the website and more!

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ReadWriteStart

JULY 15, 2020

New talk of capital efficiency is gratifying, but there was another lesson from pre-COVID-19 valuation struggles. Venture capitalists and early-stage investors have told all of us, founders are critical to a startup’s valuation. These companies were a signal for founders and their early investors to reexamine their understanding of morality and valuation. Investors saw the enterprise’s nearly $50 billion valuation eroded right as they were headed to the public markets.

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Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

In 2011, the valuation of pre-revenue, start-up companies is typically in the range of $1.5–$2.5 Scorecard Valuation Methodology. This method compares the target company to typical angel-funded startup ventures and adjusts the average valuation of recently funded companies in the region to establish a pre-money valuation of the target. Pre-money valuation varies with the economy and with the competitive environment for startup ventures within a region.

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The Equity Kicker

APRIL 10, 2015

A few of them have done good up rounds and the easiest way to describe the magnitude is to talk about the valuation multiple. From the perspective of existing investors the right way to calculate the valuation multiple is to compare the pre-money valuation of the new round with the post-money valuation of the last round, which is the same as the increase in share price. (As

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Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” How much is NewCo worth to investors at this point (pre-money valuation)? Well, if the parties agree to a pre-money valuation of $1M, then the post-money investor ownership is 50% (founders give up half interest, and lose control). This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach.

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Gust

OCTOBER 18, 2011

This is the first of a six part series on different methods used by angel investors to arrive at pre-money startup valuations. Detailed descriptions will be published over the next few weeks: The Scorecard Method: This method compares the target company to typical angel-funded startup ventures and adjusts the average valuation of recently funded companies in the region to establish a pre-money valuation of the target. The Cayenne Valuation Calculator.

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The Startup Magazine

APRIL 10, 2019

If you have an interest or property in real estate, then here are the 4 things that you need to know about property valuation: Photo by Kevin Wolf on Unsplash. The estimate of the value of real estate property takes into consideration factors such as social and economic trends, environmental conditions, and government regulations that have been set, all of which go a long way in influencing the property valuation.

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The Equity Kicker

JULY 1, 2015

He used this chart as evidence: Second, I read Josh Kopelman’s/First Round Capital’s Open Letter to Investors from May this year which says that seed valuations are up 3x from 2007-2015 without a corresponding increase in exits. Note that we can see a similar increase in Series A valuations in Fred’s chart above. He was asking whether with all the new funds in town valuations are rising and returns are likely to suffer.

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YFS Magazine

DECEMBER 14, 2015

For business owners, startup valuation is a topic that causes lots of angst, raises tons of questions and definitely gets emotions blazing. Finance Grow business valuation company valuation fundraising investors invse money raising capital raising startup capital raising venture capitalBut let’s take a step back.

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YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

Sometimes the list of challenges may feel never ending – from writing the business plan to finding the right partner – but one of the single most important challenges entrepreneurs face is calculating a realistic, defensible pre-money valuation. . What is a pre-money valuation and why should I care? A pre-money valuation (or PMV) is the amount a company is valued at immediately before it receives investment. What valuation methods did you use?

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View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Using NextView as an example, since we both seek to lead the seed round and only lead during this round, I’ve seen this trend manifest in one of two ways: In a priced round, the entrepreneur will often share their valuation ask (or a stated floor) for the pre-money valuation of their company much sooner in the process. Or, in the case of a convertible note, they’ll explicitly state a valuation cap.

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Steve Blank

JUNE 14, 2017

What explains this more than 1,000 to 1 discrepancy in valuation? However, the question shouldn’t be why Tesla has such a high valuation. Automobile manufacturers shipped 88 million cars in 2016. Tesla shipped 76,000. Yet Wall Street values Tesla higher than any other U.S. car manufacturer. The future. — Too many people compare Tesla to what already exists and that’s a mistake. Tesla is not another car company.

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Gust

JANUARY 25, 2016

Early-stage technology company valuations are generally a crap-shoot. This post builds on top of his work, and attempts to shed additional light on the valuation process. New founders may think that startup valuations work like this: I figure out what the value of my existing company is I figure. The post Valuation Part I: Peeling the Onion, or How Top Investors Value the Startups They Invest In appeared first on The Gust Blog.

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Berkonomics

MARCH 5, 2020

So, it is important for the entrepreneur to identify, address and mitigate each of these in order to increase valuation and decrease the risk of ultimate loss of the business. Reduction or elimination of one or more of these risks increases the valuation of the company and certainly improves its chances of survival and growth. Why five risks? In the creation of a young company, there are five principal risks to be addressed by the entrepreneur.

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ithacaVC

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

I have written about startup valuations previously. This morning I was reading one of my favorite daily compilations of articles (called Innovation Daily, subscribe here ) and came across another great short article on startup valuations called “ Seed Rounds: How to Pick a Valuation “ Joseph Walla, who I don’t know, wrote it. There’s a reason it’s so difficult to figure out – valuations have little basis in reality for early stage companies.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 1, 2018

Powered by OpenReel I have to be honest, I'm a little suspect when one of the first questions a founder asks me is about valuation. That being said, you want to feel like you got a good deal--and your lead investor should be able to walk you through how they got to a particular valuation and why they thought it was appropriate.

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YFS Magazine

OCTOBER 12, 2017

Over a course of two years, I bootstrapped a startup to a $15M valuation – while living in a van. After that experience my sense of reality was redefined. Editor Picks Lifestyle digital nomad lifestyle location independent personal development starting a business startup advice

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Gust

NOVEMBER 1, 2011

We recently started a series of posts on establishing the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue startup companies for purposes of investment by seed and startup investors. It is one of the useful methods for establishing the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue startup ventures. The concept is simply…since: Return on Investment (ROI) = Terminal (or Harvest) Value ÷ Post-money Valuation. (in Then: Post-money Valuation = Terminal Value ÷ Anticipated ROI.

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Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 10, 2017

TL;DR: Using a “tiered” valuation cap structure in a convertible note or SAFE can provide flexibility that bridges the gap between (i) what founders expect their company to be worth in the near future, and (ii) what investors are comfortable accepting now. Did you get a “good” valuation? What a valuation cap isn’t. For that reason, pegging an appropriate valuation can be very difficult for investors. Traditional valuation caps: downside protection for investors.

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Gust

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

We recently started a series of posts on establishing the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue startup companies for purposes of investment by seed and startup investors. The High Tech Startup Valuation Estimator is an online tool developed by Cayenne Consulting to assist entrepreneurs and investors in estimating the pre-money valuation of startup enterprises. It is very easy for optimistic users to quickly arrive at unreasonable pre-money valuations for startup ventures.

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Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 4, 2016

So how do you use financial projections as valuation metrics when you know the odds of those being accurate predictors of the future are so very unreliable? Email readers, continue here…] The Berkus Method assigns a number, a financial valuation, to each of four major elements of risk faced by all young companies – after crediting the entrepreneur some basic value for the quality and potential of the idea itself. Well, it had to happen.

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Our Own Start-up

JUNE 16, 2020

Postman is a SaaS-based (Software as a Service) API (Application programming interface) development firm that has raised $150 million led by Insight Partners at a valuation of $2 billion. Fundraising Postman Raises Postman Raises 350 million dollars Postman Raises Funds SaaS company Postman

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Gust

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” How much is NewCo worth to investors at this point (pre-money valuation)? Well, if the parties agree to a pre-money valuation of $1M, then the post-money investor ownership is 50% (founders give up half interest, and lose control). This is the most concrete valuation element, usually called the asset approach.

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ithacaVC

NOVEMBER 28, 2012

On October 17th I posted on seed and early stage startup valuations. This morning I read a post by Marty Zwilling on startup valuations. His post on startup valuations lists the following rules of thumb (i.e., Critically, I am only talking about seed and early stage company valuations as opposed to valuations for more mature companies: Place a fair market value on all physical assets (asset approach) – pretty much a waste of your time.

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The Equity Kicker

DECEMBER 6, 2013

Venturebeat reported yesterday that US startup valuations have reached ten year highs. You can see from the charts above that median valuations have been increasing at all stages from seed through to Series D or later. Series A valuations have increased more slowly than other Series’ which shows that there is a bit of a squeeze at this level, but suggests the ‘crunch’ isn’t that dramatic.

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Andreessen Horowitz

AUGUST 17, 2020

Uncategorized glossaries & terms to know valuation and valuationsOH in South Park, San Francisco (or on Zoom from Big Sky, Montana): “OMG, crazy – that firm just paid 100x revenue to invest in [insert hot startup here] – what could they be thinking?” .

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The Next Web

APRIL 1, 2018

Latin American startups haven’t had the same valuations as Silicon Valley startups. This frustrates many Latin American entrepreneurs seeking investment, as they don’t understand why Latin American VCs aren’t doing deals at Silicon Valley valuations. There are important reasons why Latin American early-stage investment valuations are lower.

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Bryce Dot VC

APRIL 19, 2016

Many of the companies with notes we evaluated had valuation caps on them; meaning, if the new investor priced the round higher than the cap the seed investors would reap the benefits of a lower valuation given the earlier risk they’d taken. The problem we began to run into was that founders believed that these caps were actual valuations. Caps are not valuations, they are aspirational and are designed to be grown into.

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Gust

NOVEMBER 15, 2011

The Risk Factor Summation Method the fifth methodology for estimating the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies we have described in recent posts. Readers may have noted that both the Scorecard Method and the Dave Berkus Method considered a narrow set of important criteria for investment in arriving at a pre-money valuation. For more information on determining the average valuations in your area, see the Scorecard Method. million pre-money valuation.

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ithacaVC

JULY 10, 2013

I have posted on startup valuations a couple of times. On June 27th Fred Wilson wrote a post called Valuation vs. Ownership. Here is the good news: if you read my prior posts and Fred’s post, I think you are about 99% of the way there in solving any mystery behind startup valuations for early stage financing rounds (i.e., Yes, it is more art than science (I still have never used any sort of DCF for a valuation at this stage), but the art is really not that mysterious.

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Hippoland

JULY 24, 2016

Valuation is a nebulous topic amongst early stage startups, so I thought I’d really spell it out in detail. In short: Valuations for seed stage companies are fairly arbitrary and driven solely by supply and demand. Your startup’s valuation is not based on a proforma of your revenue. So, there were significantly fewer active investors at that time, which meant that valuations were really depressed.

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ithacaVC

OCTOBER 16, 2012

Doug’s lecture was on startup company valuations. Here was his key takeaway: the best way to look at valuations of seed or Series A companies is to consider the amount being raised and the fact that the investors will want to own between 20% – 35% of your company after they invest (assuming a priced equity round). So, you want to raise $500,000, well guess what, your pre-money valuation will be between $930,000 and $2mm.

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The Next Web

MARCH 26, 2015

Setting a valuation for an early-stage startup looking to raise money is tough. To help, I asked eight founders from YEC the following: What is one thing I should be thinking about as I come up with a valuation… This story continues at The Next Web. There’s no one right answer or formula to rely on, yet plenty of advice — some of which can lead you in the wrong direction. For starters, do you know where you stand in relation to other companies? In regards to your market?

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The Equity Kicker

JUNE 20, 2014

When companies attract high valuations their investors are predicting the future too – either that the business will trade in M&A at a ‘strategic multiple’ or that they will generate big cash flows. For larger valuations it is the latter. There are no new metrics or valuation methodologies on the horizon, so expect to see more hard to understand valuations. Yesterday Om Malik reminded us that predicting the future is hard.

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Gust

OCTOBER 16, 2012

This summer I conducted our third annual survey of the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies recently funded by angel groups in North America. Access to our 2010 and 2011 surveys can be found at 2011 Valuation Survey of North American Angel Investor Groups. We asked each group for their median (middle) pre-money valuation of pre-revenue deals. 2012 Valuation Survey. pre-money valuation in US$ millions).

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