Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. Enter Amazon.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? With the enormous changes to our economies and financial markets?—?how

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). They worry too much about missing out on a deal.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). On the surface the narratives have been. Where are we today?

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TechCrunch LA

APRIL 22, 2019

Beyond Meat , the meat replacement company whose packages of Beyond Burgers line grocery store aisles across America, has priced its initial public offering. Another winner from the Beyond Meat public offering is the corporate investment arm of Tyson Foods. The meat processor and marketer invested in Beyond Meat back in 2016.

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Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2023

The subject of raising money is critical to many businesses and a passing option to others, depending upon the capital efficiency of the enterprise. Bootstrapping: This term describes your ability to start a business with little investment and grow it using internally generated funds. How important is this issue for your business?

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. For anything that would be considered a normal investment for the partnership most firms try to make sure every partner has seen the deal and has a chance to weigh in.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 15, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital (TWiVC) again this week with Jason Calacanis. I won’t belabor this – I have an investment in this space ( ad.ly ) so I’m biased. I think this classifies as a “crack filler&# and I’m not sure I would have done the investment for that reason.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 8, 2010

I was on This Week in Venture Capital today with Jason Calacanis talking about the big VC deals at the moment and talking about the VC industry. Also in the video: - Is it a good idea for VC’s to pay stratospheric prices? - Tags: VC Industry. IPO market is back. and much more. . -

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. That means that they likely raised money at a particularly high price relative to 2010 prices.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. I keep meaning to get him drunk to spill the stories.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 30, 2011

This is the final part of a 3-part series on the major changes in the structure of the software & the venture capital industries. The result was a massive increase in startups & a whole group of new funding sources: both angels & “micro VCs&#. But … Downsizing Venture Capital.

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Berkonomics

MARCH 28, 2019

Some businesses just can’t fit within the angel capital or friends and family model for raising funds. Sooner or later you may need to seek venture capital and accommodate the needs of the venture community in negotiating the terms of an investment. What VC’s can and cannot do.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Let me explain: 1.

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Berkonomics

OCTOBER 5, 2023

And professional investors often penalize the company with lower-priced down rounds or expensive loans as a result. Growth before the VC arrived was not a problem. And we were able to secure that investment along with a partner from that firm joining our board. All investors, including the VC firm, lost everything.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. If you truly believe that you, your company and your products are exceptional and your company will be valuable then you’re actually doing them a FAVOR by helping them invest in your startup. an investment in your company.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

.” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.

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socalTECH

MAY 16, 2014

Santa Monica-based TrueCar has priced its IPO, saying last night that it will sell 7.8 The pricing was below the company''s earlier, estimated IPO range of $12.00 The company offers up online pricing of news cars as well as powers affiliate car buying programs. million shares of its stock at $9 per share. in the IPO offering.

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InfoChachkie

MAY 22, 2012

The steps outlined below represent an ideal approach to raising capital from sophisticated investors. You might be at Step 2 with one VC and Step 3 with another. Step 2: Get Personal & Give Freely – Once you identify a handful of potential VC partners, stealthily cyber stalk them. Subscribe to their blog.

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TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Most of the venture capital firms covered in TechCrunch and other tech publications compete for a spot on the cap table of the hottest Bay Area, New York or Los Angeles companies of the moment. Since Revolution launched in 2005, venture capital activity in underrepresented markets has grown significantly.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

When I was new at Venture Capital I was trying to figure out the business. What price? As a VC you want to feel like you have “proprietary sources” of deal flow. There is one source that was always problematic for me – intros from investment bankers. What kind of deals should I be doing?

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Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 11, 2021

Many, many companies accepting venture capital lost it all following this instruction. VCs have a goal of creating extraordinary value for their investors. The cost of each exercise was dramatic, far beyond what a founder-entrepreneur would order to be spent when using their capital or reinvesting cash flow from operations.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

 —  @jasonlk How the Long Game Has Benefitted Upfront I was thinking about it this morning in particular and thinking about my own personal investment history. sold to Disney for $670 million and since our first investment was at < $10 million valuation we did quite well. Entrada Ventures? —?that

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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

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Xconomy

OCTOBER 27, 2016

Prices for agricultural commodities such as corn, soy, and wheat are at their lowest levels in years, but investment in agricultural technology has never been better. They also queried 15 VC firms. Just 10 percent of corporate investments were made to build new technological capabilities, the report says.

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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. Don’t.

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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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Berkonomics

JANUARY 28, 2021

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from deals where the entrepreneur insists on a start-up pre-money valuation that is so high, no angel could expect to make a return upon the investment, even with a reasonable sales price for the company down the road. And here’s the “why.”. Let me tell you two stories that are linked.

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socalTECH

DECEMBER 12, 2013

Santa Monica-based online car buying technology provider TrueCar said this morning that it has raised $30M in a new round of funding, from Vulcan Capital, the venture funding arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. TrueCar''s other investors are Upfront Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, USAA, and Allen & Company.

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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. Pre-money ($8m) + investment ($2m) = Post-money ($10m) and the investors now own 20% of your company $2m / $10m. So how DOES a VC think about financings at early stages?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

Every tech or major news journal in the country is preparing to write their Snap, Inc (creators of Snapchat, Spectacles, etc) stories and many of them seem to want a “How does it feel to have missed this investment story.” My job as a VC isn’t to beat myself up or any other partner up for the one deal we didn’t do.

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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!).

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SoCal CTO

MARCH 20, 2007

His work in social media, e-Learning and Performance Support has won awards and has led him into engagements at many Fortune 500 companies including Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Canada, Citibank, Lexus, Microsoft, Nissan, Universal, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Fidelity Investments, Symbol Technologies and SHL Systemhouse.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on the skills I’ve developed in my career. To some extent Keith Rabois agreed with me about domain knowledge and argued that most of his investments are in the consumer Internet space as a result. Always have been.

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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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