Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 17, 2022

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according to a classic Crunchbase article. Individual angel investors and crowdfunding have been adding to the momentum, some say exceeding VCs in total amount invested.

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Guide Venture Capital Funding Class 136

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

I love how transparently Danielle lives her startup (& encourages other to join in) because it provides much needed transparency to other startups. . ” I highly recommend reading it. But what IS the right amount of burn for a company? Turns out like most things there are no simple answers. Let’s set up a framework.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I divided success into the phases of venture capital and 18 months into writing my first check here was my view (details on each in the link above).

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Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

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.

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Venture Capital Funding Technical Review Startup 396

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. They see how hard she does her job. “This essay is dedicated to the great VC’s on my board who I am lucky to work with: Sameer Gandhi from Accel, Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed, and Kirsten Green from Forerunner. .” Their data looks at tech VCs. Because they know him or her.

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Venture Capital Entrepreneur Invest Funding 374

Berkonomics

JUNE 8, 2017

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. But few businesses grow into the sweet spot of $20 million to $30 million in worth to an ultimate buyer without the injection of outside capital.

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Venture Capital Class Invest Equity 266

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

How founders get screwed on convertible notes. How party rounds can burn you if it takes time to find your groove. Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more).

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 14, 2016

years at Upfront has been both a pleasure and also has taught me a lot about venture capital. Watching Kevin play this role side-by-side with me at companies like MakeSpace, DataSift and uBeam has been very instructive of how valuable he would eventually become as a board member and investor. I mean this seriously.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Startup Invest Course 150

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

So I hope y’all understand (Especially the chap who sent me a private message saying how frustrating he found my typos to be. So I hope y’all understand (Especially the chap who sent me a private message saying how frustrating he found my typos to be. Thank you to anybody who sent Jason a note on Twitter on my behalf.

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Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 10, 2014

One of the interesting things about being a VC is that you often see companies in transition. In a VC business when you raise additional capital you need to “level up” and act the round you are. But you do need to find a way to do activities that are more scalable.

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Startup Resource Venture Capital Activity 381

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

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Venture Capital Platform Startup Resource 150

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

Because my role as a VC requires me to take and endless stream of meetings I long ago decided I need to learn as much as I can from the meetings I attend so I often just ask tons of questions and assimilate knowledge. He always had an angle for how he could acquire better, faster, cheaper than others. You won’t regret it.

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Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 19, 2020

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according the Crunchbase. Institutional venture capital dispensed in 2019 was down a bit from record highs the previous year, but up significantly over the last few years.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Class 125

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

We have significant VC commitments (listed below) – every entering company will get $50,000 in funding, mentorship from top VCs and successful entrepreneurs plus free office space. To provide an opportunity for VCs and senior executives to engage with the community by giving back rather than just attending more cocktail parties.

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Venture Capital Funding Startup GRP Partners 287

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Now that he’s become a VC he’s promising me he’ll provide way more public information and discourse so please welcome him by following him on Twitter and better yet welcoming him with a Tweet of your own linking to his Twitter handle or this post. Vision for how to change the industry. Startup DNA.

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Invest Venture Capital Startup News 340

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

When you first start your company and raise initial venture capital your board probably consists of 1-3 founders and 1-2 VCs. Most experienced VCs won’t push you to give up founder control at this stage of the business nor should they. In the Early Days. Offering a sparring-partner function on strategic decisions.

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Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting. I wrote the summary notes in this blog post. I funded them 8 weeks later.

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socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

Despite the increase in startup activity in Southern California, local venture capital funds are still few and far between, and a large chunk of the funding here is still from Sand Hill Road. Plus, as I''m sure it won''t surprise you to hear, it''s pretty tough out there for VCs to raise money. Tell us about the new fund?

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Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2017

It's already a great technology center for lots of different areas, but when compared with Silicon Valley, the activity level needs to go way up in order for Southern California to be on par with Silicon Valley. There are many gaps to fill, and ways we can make a difference by encouraging more entrepreneurial activity in Southern California.

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Southern California Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 170

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.

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Venture Capital Startup Seed Funding Rustic Canyon 311

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. So it was fun to turn the cameras on him for 45 minutes for a special “NY edition of This Week in VC&# and hearing his views. Such that during that time, Chris “learned how to learn.”.

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Technical Review Venture Capital Startup Artificial Inteligence 281

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”). Of course, both are impressive, but still small compared to over $300 billion from VC investments annually.

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Funding Startup .Net Invest 144

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Recently I wrote a post arguing to make the definition of a Startup more inclusive than that to which Silicon Valley, fueled by Venture Capital return profiles, would sometimes like to attach to the word. You can read Brad’s views of how to do it in his book. You can read Brad’s views of how to do it in his book.

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Startup Venture Capital Press San Diego 378

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. We also talked about Elevation Partners who invested in Palm and how this deal really salvaged their investment, which was a VERY big bet on Palm.

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Clearstone Venture Capital ReachLocal Google 236

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

If you take a snapshot during an extraordinary surge in valuations, M&A activity, IPOs and thus wealth creation you’d echo John Doerr’s famous quote from 1999 that, “The Internet is the greatest legal creation of wealth in history.&# That’s how it felt then and a bit how it feels in May 2011.

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Startup Blogging Venture Capital Writing 391

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising.

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Venture Capital Marketing Startup Social Network 255

SoCal CTO

JUNE 9, 2010

Draw Your Ideas - A VC : Venture Capital and Technology , May 16, 2010 I saw Jack Dorsey give this talk at The 99% Conference last month. But founders need to know how to ask for their advice and when to ignore it. You could just outspend. You could use brute force to get the word out. There is a much better technique.

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Startup Venture Capital Conference Social Media 248

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. Far from it.

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Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 11, 2015

It’s even more rare for VCs to talk publicly about other VCs, so I thought it would be fun to break rank and tell you about Matt. In this capacity I can tell any entrepreneurs raising early-stage capital that I would have Matt on my short list if I were raising. What did I learn in working with Matt? He’s committed.

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Venture Capital Gogii Course Activity 150

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures).

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Venture Capital Google Web Sites 225

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

I don’t think that Google would have become the success story we all know without the leadership of Eric Schmidt through the years he led the company. and Microsoft had become. Much less has been said about when the technical CEO is the best person to run the company. So why did Larry need to return?

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CTO Hire Organization Google Course 309

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

One of the great joys of doing the web series This Week in VC every week is that I get to spend time with great people debating the issues of our day including how our industry is evolving as well as insights into how companies got started, got their initial traction and dealt with adversities. I’m used to that refrain.

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Startup Venture Capital Web Ideas 286

InfoChachkie

JULY 23, 2012

Rejecting the paint-by-numbers approach to corporate communications deployed by most marketing executives, Brad has embraced unconventional guerilla marketing tactics to help establish his venture capital firm, Foundry Group, as a thought leader in early-stage tech investing. companies should… focus on building amazing products.

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Marketing Blogging Startup Venture Capital 233

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

While many of my friends bragged about their 5 condos in Florida I kept talking about how the real estate market was in a bubble – their gains an illusion. I pointed to several Economist articles I had read that mapped historical prices of real estate for 400 years and how on average property values grow at no more 1.5%

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

socalTECH

AUGUST 20, 2018

Nichols is a former Kauffman Fellow and investment director at Intel Capital, and tells us how his fund--which he co-founded with Atom Factory's Troy Carter--is looking to find companies solving large problems outside of the typical Silicon Valley bubble. Marlon Nichols: We are a three year old, early stage venture capital firm.

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Venture Capital Invest Capital Startup 100

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

As I have pointed out in previous posts , 91% of VCs surveyed believe prices are declining (30% believe substantially) and 77% believe that funding will take longer than it has in the past. The earlier the round, the less capital you need and the more reasonable your valuation the less time that is needed generally to raise capital.

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Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

socalTECH

DECEMBER 30, 2010

Earlier today, we talked with Greg Martin at Archer Venture Capital. Facebook now accounts for a staggering 25% of all display impressions (up from 9% last year), and Facebook and its advertisers are finally beginning to understand how to leverage the platform's unique capabilities. 2010 was very good to us.

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Technical Review Southern California Cloud Computing Venture Capital 160