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. LPs Still Believe Strongly in Venture Capital as a Diverse Source of Returns.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

On Funding?—?Shots Shots on Goal Being great as a startup technology investor of course requires a lot of things to come together: You need to have strong insights into where technology markets are heading and where value in the future will be created and sustained You need be perfect with your market timing.

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Funding Startup Writing Invest 294

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. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

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.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened?

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Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

socalTECH

APRIL 23, 2021

Hawke Ventures, a new, venture capital fund that is part of marketing company Hawke Media, said Friday that it has raised $5.6M for its first, venture capital fund. The company said it plans to write checks of between $100,000 and $250,000 in digital marketing startups.

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Funding Invest Venture Capital Writing 113

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

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2011

Yesterday I wrote Part 1 of the series on the changes to the software industry over the past decade that has led to changes in the venture capital industry itself. These trends have put pressure on traditional VCs. This will continue while we’re in a tech bull market and I predict will wane when we’re not.

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Venture Capital Capital Software Startup 296

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

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

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

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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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

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 6, 2022

Last week, we talked about about the “de-stonkifying” of the market. The company’s stock tanked by more than 26 percent, representing a $230 billion reduction in market cap and a $31 billion drop in Zuckerberg’s personal net worth. Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review ! Image Credits: TechCrunch.

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Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 246

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. Of course sentiment can swing wildly with new information but I set out to take the pulse of the market as we enter 2016.

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Venture Capital Startup Course Marketing 150

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 29, 2010

We received so much positive feedback from our This Week in Venture Capital show walking through valuation calculations & term sheets that we decided to do a Q&A show this week to address topics that entrepreneurs want to learn about. In fact, far better if you haven’t raised venture capital.

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Venture Capital Capital Startup Pricing 282

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

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 5, 2023

It’s helpful to think of startups as proceeding through several stages, which I have defined a long time ago from a funding perspective. The first step toward a business with any idea is to write it down, and build a business plan around it. Funding or rollout stage. Growth and exit stage.

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Startup Funding Organization Incubator 122

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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Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 15, 2012

One the most frequent questions asked of me by entrepreneurs is, "How can I become a Venture Capitalist?" The inquiry is common because being a VC is (to an entrepreneur, at least) a sexy job. I define a "VC" as, "a professional investor who deploys third-party funds into relatively early-stage companies."

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Venture Capital Technical Review Invest RSS 242

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

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. What should be in your deck?

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Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 26, 2013

Understanding “The Funding Angle” I sit at enough board meetings to hear conflicting advice given to entrepreneurs about how to handle PR and announcements at startups. I think many board members (including VCs) were trained 10+ years ago when life was very different and their advice often comes from an outdated lens.

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Startup Funding News Press 355

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. I wrote my version here and Scott wrote an excellent write-up of his views here. I believe most LPs still want discipline in fund sizes, fees and focus.

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Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

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

AUGUST 8, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “Pitching a VC&# – the outline is here. You’ve pitched several angels and VC’s. Your friends and advisers tell you that this means you need revenue because in this economy VC’s will only fund businesses with revenue. Unfortunately your advisers are wrong.

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Venture Capital Guide Startup Technical Review 309

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 21, 2010

In writing anything positive about any of the companies I’m not suggesting that it means that I prefer them to any of their competitors. I just cover the companies that were funded that week. Also, some of the deals I write about I have actually seen as part of their fund raising process. Big market.

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Venture Capital Capital Email Blogging 265

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. In case VC’s haven’t figured this out yet, shit rolls downhill. No prizes for guessing which VCs I didn’t work with (and still won’t).

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Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2010

One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “what’s it like being a VC?&# I’ve been a VC for nearly 3 years now. I always start my answer to this question with, “you’d have to be a pretty big baby to complain about being a VC.&# And the VC job has plenty of admin and minutiae.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Entrepreneur 312

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

What Can You Do if a VC Pulls Their Term Sheet? I’m just writing verbatim what I wrote in a Quora response years ago. Get even by getting funding, building a great company and always know that the best “f**k-you” in life is success. Finally, know that the VC & entrepreneurial worlds are very, very small.

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Venture Capital Content Writing Blogging 150

socalTECH

JANUARY 8, 2020

Los Angeles-based Luxury Presence , a new startup which provides websites and digital marketing services to real estate agents, has raised $5.4M in a funding round, according to the company. Luxury Presence says it also offers up services for lead generation, managed SEO, managed Instagram, copy writing, and video production.

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Services Marketing SEO Writing 100

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 14, 2013

Mostly it’s because your marketing campaigns suck. Or more directly – they are likely narcissistic resuscitations of your newest features or bragging points that nobody but your marketing team and your mom care about. I am a VC. They offer a point-of-view about their market. I hand out money.

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Marketing Press Blogging Startup 389

InfoChachkie

OCTOBER 8, 2012

Nearly every entrepreneur has heard the refrain, "Get back to me when you have some traction,” while seeking funding. However, when uttered by most Venture Capitalists (VCs) it conveys a desire to obtain validation of your venture's value proposition from dispassionate, objective third parties. Triangle Of Evidence.

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Venture Capital RSS Customer Custom 265

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We try to look at the sources of capital, the valuations, exits and trends. We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. VC survey data 2016 from Mark Suster.

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Funding Venture Capital Marketing Writing 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. Let me start out with my premise: “Data rooms are where fund-raising processes go to die.” I have to back up and give you more context.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

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. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” 5 years ago.

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Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

Prorata rights are one of the most important rights of a private market technology investors and yet are seldom fully understood. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. As always a balanced perspective is in order.

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Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336