Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. VC Partnerships Start by understanding how many partners are at the firm you are approaching.

Venture Capital 314

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2020

Struggling entrepreneurs are often so happy to get a funding offer that they neglect the recommended reverse due diligence on the investors. Taking on equity investors to fund your company is much like getting married – it is a long-term relationship that has to work at all levels. It’s no fun for either side.

Technical Review 124

Technical Review Funding Innocal Offshore 124

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. It goes something like this … VC: “How much money are you raising?” Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” A VC is looking for reasonableness.

Venture Capital 247

Venture Capital Capital Funding Demand 247

socalTECH

JUNE 15, 2020

The Tech Coast Angels says it has launched a new, annual fund, and is continuing to invest--despite the pandemic. The angel group, the largest in the nation, said it invested over $19M in 2019, in part due to a similar fund created by its San Diego chapter, the TCA-San Diego, last year. READ MORE>>.

Tech Coast Angels 113

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Los Angeles Angel 113

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. If you want to understand how the VC industry is changing there is a great primer in the link.

Venture Capital 396

Venture Capital Funding Technical Review Startup 396

socalTECH

DECEMBER 23, 2020

Every year, we feature the year end reflections of founders, CEOs, investors, and others in Southern California's high tech community. Here, we have Greg Martin, Founder and Managing Partner of Archer Venture Capital (www.archervc.com). What are you most looking forward to in the technology/startup world in 2021?

Venture Capital 124

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Brentwood 124

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). We feature a prominent speaker at every event.

Venture Capital 241

Venture Capital Technical Review Southern California Company 241

TechCrunch LA

MAY 20, 2021

Builders VC led the round, which included participation from Celtic, Newfund and Wish co-founder Danny Zhang. Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar As more people spent time at home last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup saw its contract revenue spike by 5x, Wu says.

Technical Review 185

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital Software Review 185

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. LPs Still Believe Strongly in Venture Capital as a Diverse Source of Returns.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? billion fund. What happened?

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

One the most frequent questions asked of me by entrepreneurs is, "How can I become a Venture Capitalist?" The inquiry is common because being a VC is (to an entrepreneur, at least) a sexy job. I define a "VC" as, "a professional investor who deploys third-party funds into relatively early-stage companies."

Venture Capital 242

Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

InfoChachkie

AUGUST 29, 2011

The Three Enthralling Factors Of Venture Funding. Naval Ravikant, Co-Founder of AngelList and Venture Hacks, details a variety of factors that influence your chances of raising venture funding in this informative interview. Thanks Mr. Big Firm VC. It is also somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Venture Capital 233

Venture Capital Capital Funding Technical Review 233

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. I’m not a doomsday guy, but just believe that we won’t see a V shaped recovery, which could make VC funding more difficult for tech start-ups (don’t shoot the messenger!).

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Startup Funding Technical Review 269

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. In fact, far better if you haven’t raised venture capital.

Venture Capital 282

Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2009

The post is part of a series called “Pitching a VC&# – the outlines is here. You’ve been trying to raise VC for months. You’ve obviously talked with several funds to hedge your bets. What about all the other VC’s I’m talking with? You finally get your first term sheet.

Venture Capital 197

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Technology 197

socalTECH

MAY 2, 2011

William Quigley , a venture capitalist at Clearstone Venture Partners, is making the argument that venture capital returns are set to return superior returns in the coming years, due to the disinterest of institutional investors.

Venture Capital 160

Venture Capital Capital Clearstone Technical Review 160

Berkonomics

JANUARY 14, 2021

If you seek funds from an organized investment group such as an angel fund, venture capital entity, or even an investment club, the first thing you want to do is to find one person to buy into your vision, become excited by your enthusiasm and be willing to become the internal champion for your fund-raising effort.

Technical Review 156

Technical Review Tech Coast Angels Summary Email 156

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 28, 2013

The Tech Coast Angels , Southern California's most active , organized angel investment group, has a goal: cut down the time it takes to fund a startup presenting to the organization.

Tech Coast Angels 168

Tech Coast Angels Technical Review Angel Funding 168

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 11, 2022

A nonprofit organization is generally defined as an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals. In the US, a nonprofit is technically any company who qualifies as tax exempt through IRS Section 501(c). Individual and institutional philanthropy.

Funding 130

Funding Equity Technical Review Organization 130

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 10, 2020

Some firms have said that they’re going to turn to HBCUvc , a nonprofit organization that helps students from historically Black colleges and universities enter venture and tech. It held a city-based internship program with Los Angeles, which connects students to venture capital firms in the area.

Equity 220

Equity Technical Review Venture Capital Blogging 220

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. But I’m guessing the narrative is similar elsewhere. Domain Knowledge.

Funding 373

Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 21, 2023

The average length of a funding pitch to angel investors is ten minutes. Even if you have booked an hour with a VC, you should plan to talk only for the first fifteen minutes. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation. Or they get sidetracked by a technical glitch due to poor preparation.

Slides 147

Slides Funding Technical Review Startup 147

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. Unfortunately your advisers are wrong.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. When Fred Wilson funded Twitter I guarantee you it wasn’t obvious that it was a billion dollar idea.

Funding 362

Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review ! This writeup from industry analyst Karl Guttag showcases how Magic Leap has turned away from several of the key technologies it raised billions of dollars to develop with its latest hardware which he nevertheless believes will “blow away” the HoloLens 2 in image quality.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

Venture Capital 312

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

Lots of discussion these days about the changes in the VC industry. The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion.

Venture Capital 311

Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 19, 2020

While there have been a number of statements on Twitter from various investors about how they’re doing deals and open for business, Grill is making sure the community can be coordinated so companies no where to turn and investors can find businesses to back in an age of Zoom diligence.

Venture Capital 135

Venture Capital Capital Technical Review Los Angeles 135

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 24, 2015

I recently interviewed Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital. By now most of you know that Chris Sacca invested in what is now thought to be one of the best performing VC funds of all time having invested an $8.4 million fund in: Uber, Instagram, Docker and Twitter, amongst others.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Funding RSS Technical Review 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

I am super excited to announce that today is a day of lots of new things for my partners & me: A new fund, a new office and a new brand. Let’s start with the fund. We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). This month we closed our 4th fund of $200 million.

Funding 343

Funding Santa Monica Venture Capital Startup 343

SoCal Tech Calendar

JUNE 7, 2019

Thursday, June 13, 2019 -- Orange County FundingPost VC and Angel Investor PitchFest + Pitch Workshop. Due to the overwhelming demand to pitch at our last event in Orange County, we're throwing an exclusive PitchFest speed dating event where you will be pitching to over 20 investors one-on-one! We're doing it again!

Orange County 100

Orange County Venture Capital Angel Tech Coast Angels 100

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2022

For example, Bill Gates founded and grew Microsoft, and Michael Dell built a great technology company, both with no outside funding until they went successful enough to go public years later and sell shares to common stockholders. Explaining actions to investors takes time you don’t have. It also may just mean taking less money later.

Funding 107

Funding Startup Satisfaction Venture Capital 107

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

And of course I’ve sat on the other side of the table: As a VC. I now observes the fund raising process as a profession. This is not just the perspective of a VC although I can’t say I have zero VC bias. This is not just the perspective of a VC although I can’t say I have zero VC bias.

Develop 366

Develop Development Funding Venture Capital 366

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2021

Entrepreneurs who require funding for their startup have long counted on self-accredited high net worth individuals (“angels”) to fill their needs, after friends and family, and before they qualify for institutional investments (“VCs”). Here again, the entrepreneur will be the one hurt most, by having fewer funding sources to access.

Funding 144

Funding Startup .Net Invest 144

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Let’s review all of our existing investments. Let’s help get their funding get finalized or the company sold if it’s already in play. And VCs scrambled to raise their own funds. VCs hate downrounds to even good companies struggled to raise money. But I guess you could say the same about VC.

Marketing 305

Marketing Venture Capital Funding Technical Review 305