Berkonomics

JUNE 29, 2017

If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

Invest 243

Invest Entrepreneur Sales Startup 243

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.

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

In normal times investors will look for “traction&# before investing. Thus, it is very hard to make a commitment to fund you. I spoke about this more in depth in these two posts: 4 things I look for in an investment & how to manage VC relationships. I funded Ad.ly Investors are writing checks for dots.

Invest 411

Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

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.” Another firm funded them. Of course that was a wrong narrative for both companies.

Snapchat 214

Snapchat Invest Technical Review Dollar Shave Club 214

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

I recently wrote about my views that startups rounds should be priced. Fred, who also wrote his views about convertible debt (significantly more succinctly than I) believes that the price of a single round should be the same for everybody. The trouble is, nobody has an incentive to agree to write the first check.

Pricing 294

Pricing Venture Capital Writing Equity 294

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

I was chairman of a company that, for twelve years never took a dollar of outside investment. The company was funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. The effort to write a grant request is not trivial. No dilution to shareholders or the founders.

Equity 156

Equity Writing Education Research 156

Tech.Co

DECEMBER 29, 2023

As investors continue pouring funding into artificial intelligence and consumer habits shift, many AI and subscription model startups have been enjoying rapid growth. Source: runwayml.com In June, Runway raised $141 million in funding, nudging its market valuation to an envy-inducing $1.5 Organic milk formula product Bobbie.

Startup 213

Startup Generative AI Newsletter Tool 213

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds?

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 23, 2020

The proposal sets out four big initiatives, including zero-emissions vehicle manufacturing, assembly and adoption; zero-emissions infrastructure investments; commitments to public transit investments; workforce development; and job training. The funding would include $20 billion for utility upgrades.

Southern California 261

Southern California Los Angeles Rosemead Incubator 261

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. If you don’t believe in your bones that you’re amazing then it’s no wonder you don’t want to sell them on making the investment.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

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% above inflation yet in many markets in the US & Europe prices were rising at 10-25% per year. Logic tells me the following: It is hard to make money angel investing.

Invest 299

Invest Angel Technical Review Venture Capital 299

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 31, 2021

The sweeping infrastructure package put forward today by President Joe Biden comes with a price tag of roughly $2 trillion (and hefty tax hikes) but gives startups and the broader tech industry about $1 trillion worth of reasons to support it. ” Climate resiliency . Given the steady drumbeat of climate disasters that hit the U.S.

Startup 229

Startup Technical Review Invest Research 229

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

The traditional way that this type of financing is offered is what is known as “convertible debt.&# This means that the investment does not have a valuation placed on it. They trust the judgment of the VCs to source, finance, help manage and then create some sort of exit for the investments that they make.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

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. I’m writing this post to explain to entrepreneurs what you should be thinking about in terms of the VC’s you approach and the size and stage of their funds.

Venture Capital 269

Venture Capital Funding Invest GRP Partners 269

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2010

There has been much discussion about VCs doing seed funding in the past year. I’ve written about it myself (Is VC Seed Funding Dead?) and (Is There Really a Signaling Problem with VC Seed Funding?). There is a structural reason that VCs are investing at early stages, 2. Short summary of my posts: 1.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

It has historically been the case that VCs would rather fund the promise of 100x in a company with almost no revenue than the reality of a company growing at 50% but doing $20+ million in sales. sold to Disney for $670 million and since our first investment was at < $10 million valuation we did quite well. It literally drove FOMO.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2020

In a bear market executives are paid to: consolidate the number of contracts and renegotiate prices. Seed deals, for example, are easier to get funded than a late-stage deal for obvious reasons. A seed deal hasn’t already been “priced up” to a range where a new investor might be concerned about the valuation relative to performance.

Venture Capital 263

Venture Capital Marketing Startup Writing 263

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

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. Very few people fund individuals. They know that the money they invest may be lost. Team: You need a team.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I have talked extensively about “social proof&# in fund raising in the past. And we all know that Ron Conway is considered the savviest of angel investors and yet by definition not all of his investments succeed. lots of brand names piling on) can lead to group think and price creep. Who ultimately invested in FourSquare?

Invest 288

Invest Angel Web 2.0 SEO 288

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

The Facebook parent-company saw its stock price get bludgeoned after a bad earnings report showcased that Apple’s ad-blocking changes are shaving billions off its books and the company’s crown jewel — the Facebook platform — has stopped growing and actually shrank this quarter. Image Credits: Facebook. the big thing.

Marketing 246

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

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.

Invest 284

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. Taken together these “mega rounds” represent nearly half of the funding in 2018. More on that later.

Venture Capital 292

Venture Capital Capital Startup Funding 292

socalTECH

MAY 25, 2016

Santa Monica-based March Capital Partners (www.marchcp.com) has just announced a brand new, $240M venture investment fund, led by longtime venture investing veterans Jim Armstrong, Sumant Mandal, Gregory Milken and Jamie Montgomery. What is the investment focus for this fund?

Southern California 113

Southern California Capital Funding Invest 113

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

.” In the article I discussed the downside of raising capital at a too high of a price and referred people to a previous article I had written encouraging founders to raise “ At the Top end of Normal ” as opposed to stratospheric prices. There is an important psychology that exists in investments. A down round.

Pricing 302

Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. You can be pissed off, but I don’t set prices. That’s stupid.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

When convertible debt first started being introduced as a “faster, cheaper way to get startups funded” they didn’t have pricing built into them. ” And some seed stage investors told me, “I prefer not to fight over price now. They’ll get priced soon enough by a VC.”

Startup 354

Startup Pricing Equity Venture Capital 354

Berkonomics

MAY 8, 2014

I am chairman of a company that, as I write this, is twelve years old and has not yet taken a dollar of outside investment. The company has been funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. Grant writing takes skill and immense amounts of time.

Company 166

Company Companies Writing Education 166

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). Lower costs to start a business (95% reduction), many more companies created & funded by angels / seed. ” Stated simply – if you seed funded Uber at $4.5m Why is this?

Venture Capital 398

Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

I wrote my version here and Scott wrote an excellent write-up of his views here. We both agree that the later-stage valuations are being driven up to a point that feels irrationally priced [he uses b-round SaaS valuations as an example and I am willing to be even more broad based]. Each of the two videos is about 10 minutes long.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 29, 2023

If your forte is a service, like consulting or web site design, it’s harder to find guidance on what will get you funded, and how you can scale your business. For example, both need to provide exemplary customer service, build customer loyalty, and provide real value for a competitive price. Capture your “secret sauce.”

Startup 111

Startup Training Services Writing 111

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 12, 2015

Thus founders seeking funding for a good cause or a new technology often seize on grants from universities, government agencies and philanthropic organizations as free money to solve their problems. After months of preparation, you should expect another six to nine months for reviews and funding cycles. In the U.S.

Pricing 100

Pricing Equity Technical Review Research 100

Berkonomics

MARCH 13, 2014

They told me all about why this is such a good idea: hard to manage price discovery in the commercial real estate market; fragmented information about vacancies obtained from landlords and brokers; and the large scale of transactions. He is an active angel investor, and he manages several angel funds in Texas. . Raising money'

Invest 237

Invest Examples Networking Writing 237

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

What price? There is one source that was always problematic for me – intros from investment bankers. This is no criticism of the investment banking industry (although I’m sure some will read it this way) for which there are very useful purposes. They are venture bankers not investment bankers. What stage?

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Startup Pricing Invest 347

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

There is much discussion online and also in small, private groups, about why the price of technology companies – public and private – are falling. It pains me to see the typical (and predictable) responses on Twitter, “VCs want prices to drop!” ” “Sure, prices are dropping.

Startup 150

Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 25, 2011

Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Chris Sacca fly by that prompted me to want to write a blog post helping entrepreneurs understand why they should push back against VCs asking for “super pro-rata” rights. I’ll explain what they are and why you should avoid them if you can. A primer on “pro-rata” rights.

Entrepreneur 310

Entrepreneur Venture Capital Writing Invest 310

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” And even the venerable Fred Wilson weighed in with how people “ leading vs. following ” in funding rounds play different roles and have different skills. AngelList 101 : As you know, AngelList is a platform where angels can invest in semi-screened tech deals. They will have to negotiate price and terms.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on my background. I should say that I agree that naive optimism in entrepreneurs can produce higher beta (upside or flops) and that’s good from an investment standpoint if you’re looking for big returns.

Invest 152

Invest Angel Venture Capital Startup 152