socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

This morning, Moonshots Capital (www.moonshotscapital.com), led by Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings , announced its first formal fund, a $19M seed stage fund. In October of last year, we did a first close on our first committed fund, which we're announcing. Talk more about the ability to lead investments?

Capital 164

Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds?

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. The trends are well understood: more angels, more seed funds, more crowdsourcing and so forth. We led an investment round in a company a while ago in which we wrote a seven-figure check and have taken a board seat. There is a reason for this.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. Ownership Matters At Upfront we focus our energy on fewer companies where we take meaningful ownership and we continue to invest throughout the lifecycle of the company.

Venture Capital 223

Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

The traditional way that this type of financing is offered is what is known as “convertible debt.&# This means that the investment does not have a valuation placed on it. They trust the judgment of the VCs to source, finance, help manage and then create some sort of exit for the investments that they make.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

” I found myself nodding through all of it with quotes like, “Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley,” said Sam Altman. I save room in literally every deal to invite angels (or seed funds) to co-invest with me. By March, a month after Mr. D’Angelo agreed to invest, CodeFights had raised $2.5

Angel 150

Angel Startup Seed Funding Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Very few people fund individuals. Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more. They know that the money they invest may be lost. The key to getting money is that the people writing the check trust you.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. AngelList 101 : As you know, AngelList is a platform where angels can invest in semi-screened tech deals. Less investments, more active.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 15, 2010

We started this week’s show with a Q&A session where I answered viewer questions about fund raising and the VC industry. Heck, stick around and watch me discuss the seed funding debate that is going on right now and what is happening in the VC industry overall. Google’s investment in Zynga.

Venture Capital 210

Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

There is an important psychology that exists in investments. But psychology DOES play a big role in investment decisions. Well, a down round is even more complicated than having no demand for your investment round. If we count seed funds and large angels maybe that number goes up by 2x? ” What does that mean?

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I have no money?

Press 319

Press Startup Writing Training 319

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

million in funding from Rebecca Minkoff and other unnamed investors. We are in phase three of the influencer economy,” Bain Capital Ventures senior principal Jamison Hill, who led the firm’s investment in the influencer shoutout marketplace Cameo , tells TechCrunch. Last month, the product launched with $1.2

Platform 170

Platform Marketing Tool Venture Capital 170

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-money” valuation. Pre-money ($8m) + investment ($2m) = Post-money ($10m) and the investors now own 20% of your company $2m / $10m. Pre-money ($8m) + investment ($2m) = Post-money ($10m) and the investors now own 20% of your company $2m / $10m. How much is in the option pool?

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? Most VCs fund companies with a degree of traction.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. months for fund raising start to finish and make sure you have at least 6 month’s of cash if it takes longer.

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Brad was openly writing about this and it felt like he was giving the VC playbook away for free! We write about $40 million of first-checks into new deals / year and about $40 million of follow-on investments. I’ll spare you the math and point out that this means we funded 0.104% of the market. This is how VCs feel.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

It’s what signals to existing investors how quickly their teams need to be fund raising and the level of risk the company is facing and also it signals to potentially new investors both how quickly you need to raise (ie you have less leverage if you’re in a rush) as well as how much cash you’ll need if they fund you.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

When I meet with Tom offline it’s obvious that he immediately is thinking about product issues, technology trends, funding rounds, etc. At Sony, he didn’t feel like he could “steer the ship” and get his ideas heard so he left and started GUBA, GUBA had no seed funding. In the angel world you see soft circles a lot.

Angel 302

Angel Startup Ideas .Net 302

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 30, 2010

My original thinking from Oct ’09 was, while I didn’t (and still don’t) have a crystal ball I worried that: consumers were over-stretched with debt (and make up 77% of the economy), unemployment would continue to rise, which in turn would drive the stock market south and cut the rate of M&A activity and VC investment even further.

Entrepreneur 298

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Technical Review Startup 298

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. Tempus Fugit.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

In the startup world, the former happens when a VC makes a bad investment, and the latter occurs when they miss a great opportunity. In contrast, low-volume, high-conviction investors like Rincon only invests in a handful new companies each year, making it much more costly (in dollars and effort expended) to invest in a loser.

Venture Capital 100

Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Steve Reich

AUGUST 15, 2015

If you can’t raise from a few strong angels, from seed funds or from a VC then raising from a ton (let’s say 20+) angels is a perfectly acceptable strategy. ” Everyone has a vision that one or two “Super Angels” will write million dollar checks and all will be well. ” Well said, Mark. .

Angel 40

Angel News Pasadena Angels Seed Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” At Upfront we invested in such a company. And one that you get to write. ” The punch line from this post was “angel yourself.”

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Members can also enhance their expert status by writing informative articles and position themselves as a contact person for other professionals to get information from. Any funding yet? We received seed funding from Investitionsbank Berlin , a state bank investing in innovation and technological advancements.

Networking 71

Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

His main company Providence Holdings has invested in real estate and several small businesses. Many times I think that it would be awesome to have a conversation with them, but typically write off the idea because the process for access is too difficult. Any funding yet? Who are the founders/ background? That’s cool!

Mentor 94

Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

We had to write a CRM to keep track of them all. How I Think About Seed Investing As A VC - Feld Thoughts , August 2, 2010 Last week saw an explosion of discussion around seed investing, including plenty of negative comments around VCs as seed investors. I've funded some myself. twenty in your wallet?

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

► August (1) Invest in Transparency & Active Communication ► July (1) The Fear of Success ► May (2) Optimized for Speed = 30% Waste Happy 1st Birthday Rubicon Project! Venture Capital Funding 7. We invested the first $1 million to develop version 1.0 ► October (1) New Video! Relaxing 2. Incubation 3.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

November 23, 2010 Entrepreneurs, Using Outsourcing to Obtain Capital Efficiency Needs to be Thought Through to be Effective - Robert Ochtel , June 7, 2010 Teen Entrepreneur, Brian Wong, Youngest Founder to Receive Angel Funding - teenentrepreneurblog.com , October 28, 2010 Build Your Own Silicon Valley?

Startup 378

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Coach 378

SoCal CTO

AUGUST 3, 2010

Welcome to the Lost Decade (for Entrepreneurs, IPO’s and VC’s) - Steve Blank , July 15, 2010 If you take funding from a venture capital firm or angel investor and want to build a large, enduring company (rather than sell it to the highest bidder), this isn’t the decade to do it. Yesterday he outlined his investment thesis on his blog.

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217