Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Picking a VC is hard. So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Most VCs are book smart. VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. You want a VC who will spar with you but then STFU and let you get on with things.

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Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. So why does a VC ask you?

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2021

Newport Beach-based Ankona Capital, a new, venture capital company founded by Josh Harmsen, Brian Mesic, Newth Morris, and Jared Smith, has raised $66M in its first, venture capital fund.

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Venture Capital Capital Funding Invest 203

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. Today we’re in a world where 10 accelerators are bombarding you with emails to meet their 10-15 companies. Products that ship late and place entire companies under serious stress.

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Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 10, 2018

Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. The SaaS VC gap: China & other markets trail the US. Early-stage SaaS VC slip snaps recovery as public software stocks soar. But how do these cities stack up as clusters for companies raising supergiant rounds? Contributor.

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Venture Capital SaaS News Los Angeles 231

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

Teams that I’ve backed have sold their companies to Disney, Apple and AOL for substantive amounts of money. Founders have done very well, our fund has done well. But the truth is that selling a company doesn’t always feel like a celebration as a VC. Still: I hate selling companies. VC Industry'

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Company Companies Venture Capital Funding 306

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2014

I was at a dinner recently in Chicago and the table discussion was about building great companies outside of Silicon Valley. It’s not the great companies you build, it’s the silent killer of those that should have been build locally and weren’t. Klout was an LA company – sold for $200 million to Lithium.

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Company Companies Startup Snapchat 369

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

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Funding Venture Capital Santa Monica Invest 287

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

One of the hardest things to know when you’re new to fund raising is what you’re supposed to send to an investor, when and will they keep your information confidential. As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. This is part of a series on how to improve your fund raising game. The key is WHAT you send.

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Venture Capital Slides Email Startup 261

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.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

What you’ll see if you watch the video is an unscripted and unfiltered look into how Scott Kupor & I see some of the changes and challenges of the venture industry. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.” tl;dr version.

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Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to think the role of a VC is to have strong opinions about markets, trends, tech dynamics and so forth. The role of VC is sparring partner.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Capital CTO Coach Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

My view: “Spending any time or energy trying to game the ‘definition’ of your round of fund raising is a total waste. 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].

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

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.

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Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel. Lemons ripen early, great companies take time.” I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months.

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Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

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.

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Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

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. Few seek out companies in Indianapolis, Milwaukee or Tampa. Today, Washington, DC-based Revolution is announcing its latest fund.

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Venture Capital Funding Seed Funding Activity 211

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. So I recommend a high-level “state of the company” email a couple of times a year but a message that you assume might get shown to others.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

TechCrunch LA

JULY 3, 2019

Upfront Ventures , a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise its third growth-stage investment fund. Though the firm typically invests at the seed and Series A, capital from Upfront Growth III will be used for follow-on or late-stage deals.

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Venture Capital Funding Los Angeles Invest 193

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

On Funding?—?The The Denominator Effect I recently wrote a post about funding for investors to think about having a diversified portfolio , which I called “shots on goal.” If you funded 30–40 deals perhaps just 1 or 2 would drive the lion’s shares of returns. This is Venture Capital. to start their next company.

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Funding UCSD Netflix CalTech 301

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

On Funding?—?Shots 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.” billion When Ring started, even the folks at Shark Tank wouldn’t fund it. the sale of the company for $1 billion. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

Funding 294

Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15

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Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We

Venture Capital 284

Venture Capital Coach Ideas Startup 284

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. They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business.

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Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). Helped merge company with Seedling – on track to do $20 million combined revenue in 2015 – will now become Chairman). People often ask me what VCs look for when we hire partners and many have asked how to become VCs themselves one day.

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Venture Capital Startup Outsource Development CitySearch 408

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

You have cash in the bank, a monthly burn rate and a “cash out” date that few in the company truly comprehend. Fund raising is hard for everybody. Fund raising is like a funnel where you need a bunch of potential leads in the top end and only a few will reach the bottom. When you run a startup you’re always on borrowed time.

Funding 238

Funding Venture Capital Startup Course 238

socalTECH

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Pasadena-based Thin Line Capital announced this morning that it has launched a brand new, energey and sustainability fund, which will invest in cleantech investing. The new firm, led by serial entrepnd investor Aaron Fyke, said its seed stage fund has had its first close of over $5 million.

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Capital Funding Idealab Venture Capital 213

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Not all of these products & companies came from Silicon Valley but the overwhelming majority did. Changes in the Software World & in Venture Capital. But notably you had the following changes: Horizontally scalable computing & storage systems, which meant you required less capital up front for hardware.

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Startup Venture Capital Capital Funding 390

L.A. Business Journal

MAY 15, 2019

Burbank-based Shag Enterprises Inc, an artificial intelligence company that’s created a predictive platform for online ordering, announced on May 15 it raised $1.4 million in seed funding led by New York-based E&A Venture Capital.

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Seed Funding Artificial Inteligence Platform Burbank 221

socalTECH

JUNE 17, 2021

The Alliance for Southern California Innovation said on Thursday that it is launching a new program, the SoCal Venture Pipeline. According to the company, the new program will provide companies that have demonstrated clear market traction and provides targeted introductions to venture funds.

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Southern California SoCal Venture Capital Capital 192

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Fund raising. But it’s critical for your business, for you as a leader and people who excel at fund raising have an extreme advantage over those who do not. As a VC I also have to fund raise every three years and these posts 100% apply to VCs raising money, too. Below is the outline Upfront.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

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Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

socalTECH

MARCH 29, 2019

MiLA Capital , the venture capital firm that is behind the Make In LA hardware accelerator, says it has raised its first official venture capital fund, officially closing its first fundraise. Size of the fund was not announced. Source of the funding for the new venture capital fund was not announced.

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Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 191

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).

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Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I Know Everybody Told You to Send Your Fund-Raising Decks as a Link. Here’s Why You Should Just Send the Deck I know you have your document sending tool to send your fund-raising deck to VCs and track who read your deck, which pages they read and how much time they spend on each page.

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Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

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. You’d be surprised how many firms are “dictator VCs” – even those that don’t formally acknowledge it internally. ” Some firms are collegiate.

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Venture Capital Capital Startup Invest 150

TechCrunch LA

MAY 23, 2019

The Los Angeles ecosystem is $76 million stronger today as Fika Ventures , a seed-stage venture capital firm, announces its sophomore investment fund. Fika invests roughly half of its capital exclusively in startups headquartered in LA, with a particular fondness for B2B, enterprise and fintech companies.

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Funding Startup Seed Funding Los Angeles 218