Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer]. So VCs started writing some smaller A-rounds. Nobody cares. ” Here’s how all the drama started for me.

Seed Funding 399

Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. Why prorata rights used to be less of a big deal to angels.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

When you first start your career as an investor (or when you first start writing angel checks) your main obsession is “getting into great deals.” When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.”

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

There seems to a perpetual shortage of local venture capital investors in the region, despite the huge growth in startup activity here, particularly along Silicon Beach. Gerard Casale: We''ve been agnostic to the kinds of deals we''ve been making over the last five or six years we''ve been angel investors. Why not Los Angeles?

Seed Funding 220

Seed Funding Santa Monica Funding Startup 220

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 are doing what we do – writing larger checks and playing an active role at the company. Has written a book on venture capital. You betcha.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

” Today I want to talk about how a VC thinks about equity pricing on your round and particularly if you’re coming off of a convertible note. In the old days there usually weren’t convertible notes on early-stage deals and there weren’t party rounds with 20 angels or 6 seed funds. in stead of 20%.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. I recently wrote a post on angel financing covering the topic of convertible notes but I realized I was thinking about the issue more from investor perspective and a very narrow topic of how to price the round. This post is for those who want to raise angel money.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

If you follow the Twittersphere you may have noticed several people weighing in on this recent piece by Mike Isaac of the NY Times, asking “ How Many Angels is Too Many? ” I found myself nodding through all of it with quotes like, “Seed investing is the status symbol of Silicon Valley,” said Sam Altman. Hua of Apptimize.

Angel 150

Angel Startup Seed Funding Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

If you track the venture capital industry it would be hard to miss the conversation going on this week over AngelList “Syndicates.” My favorite new VC blogger, Hunter Walk, weighed in with some thoughtful comments about how Syndicates might actually pit, “ angel vs. angel.” Bowery Capital).

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

In my ongoing quest to get you good transcripts of the wonderful interviews we’ve done in the past, I present you with one amazing interview here with Tom McInerney – a friend, co-investor, former entrepreneur turned angel investor and “wizard of Oz&# behind the scenes at the uber hot startup Klout. In fact, HAVE done so.

Angel 302

Angel Startup Ideas .Net 302

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? That’s less interesting for me as a VC.

Venture Capital 267

Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

Steve Reich

AUGUST 15, 2015

How many Angels do you want in your cap table? Mark Suster wrote a great piece in July giving his answer: “If all else fails, angel-load away! 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.

Angel 40

Angel News Pasadena Angels Seed Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

” Stay lean and only raise a big round if you DO find product / market fit and which point you want to loosen the belt quickly and raise the capital to do so. .” ” Stay lean and only raise a big round if you DO find product / market fit and which point you want to loosen the belt quickly and raise the capital to do so.

Startup 383

Startup Company Companies .Net 383

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

Kelly Perdew: I think you know that, since 2004, I have been an angel in LA. In 2014, a West Point buddy of mine, and also a serial entrepreneur, Craig Cummings started working together to find entrepreneurs we liked, to help them an invest in them, along with Luis Villalobos of the Tech Coast Angels. That was the umbrella.

Capital 164

Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

Whether you’re fund raising from angels, seed investors and VCs?—?as I’d like to repeat, “It only takes one yes to have a successful fund-raising round.” When investors hear that somebody else wanted to fund you it gets their FOMO going and they pile on. as an industry we succumb to “herd mentality.”

Press 232

Press Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 232

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Often when startups who have raised venture capital need another round of financing they will turn to their existing investors to give them money before raising from outsiders. VC’s money comes from mostly institutional investors called LPs (limited partners). These are institutional VCs.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 4, 2019

People say we’re crazy, but we know creators are legit businesses,” Karat writes on its website — the company didn’t respond to a request to chat about what they’re working on. And just like any other business, you need capital to grow faster, services to make you more money, tools to manage it all.”. “And

Platform 170

Platform Marketing Tool Venture Capital 170

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

But the majority of VCs & Angels all speak. When I was fund raising for my second company we had agreed a company-wide deal with Salesforce.com to use our product. I asked every VC not to call Salesforce. How did VCs respond? My advice: Do not mention the other VC firms, angels, seed funds, etc.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

As has been pointed out by Dan Primack based on FLAG Capital data, there are fewer than 100 “real and active” tech VCs in the country. If we count seed funds and large angels maybe that number goes up by 2x? And most VCs are over-whelmed with deals. But here’s the kicker.

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” Of course a group of 10 seed funds can’t fix the prices of a market.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. 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. Upfront Ventures'

Technical Review 418

Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” The punch line from this post was “angel yourself.” I often tell people in this scenario to focus on a VC “fixer upper.” You will learn about running board meetings, setting up the ultimate financial plan, leading a team from the top, dealing with the press, raising capital, etc.

Technical Review 150

Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

As a fourteen-year veteran of the venture industry I have often heard the phrase, “value added investors”, which is usually touted by certain VC’s as their biggest differentiating quality. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 103

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 103

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

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. If they’re only 1 of 5 they might rather just take the write off. And recaps hurt founders so often people just avoid doing them.

Startup 150

Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

As a fourteen-year veteran of the venture industry I have often heard the phrase, “value added investors”, which is usually touted by certain VC’s as their biggest differentiating quality. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 40

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 40

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 17, 2012

Available seed funding, check; another one down for the startup ecosystem checklist. We haven’t actually sought funding prior to now,” says Perez. The Toronto angel and Venture Community tends to be quite a bit different out here, as I could tell from the conversations I had with many of the entrepreneurs.

Startup 56

Startup Incubator Seed Funding Platform 56

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

Pricing models, the freemium myth and why you may not be charging enough for your product - Seth Levine's VC Adventure , August 12, 2010 I’ve been pulled into a number of product and pricing meetings recently (for reasons unknown I’ve become the Foundry pricing and productization guy). We had to write a CRM to keep track of them all.

Startup 191

Startup Venture Capital Blogging CTO Hire 191

Frank Addante

JUNE 4, 2006

► August (3) Venture Capital - What's the rush? StrongMail Systems (Digital Messsaging Infrastructure Software) Status: VC-backed (Sequoia Capital, Globespan and Evercore) Lesson: Trust your gut. . Venture Capital Funding 7. I'm 30, now will you take me seriously? Zondigo, Inc.

Startup 40

Startup Venture Capital Email CTO Hire 40

SoCal CTO

JANUARY 5, 2011

Steve Blank , January 25, 2010 10 Tips for Adding Game Mechanics to a Non-Gaming Service - ReadWriteStart , September 21, 2010 Startups & VCs: Learn How to Design, Market, & Eat Your Own. - First Principles.

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. Angel vs VC? -

Startup 217

Startup Venture Capital Blogging Software Review 217