Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Yves Sisteron , Stuart Lander & I (depicted in the photo below) have worked together for more than 22 years now and that has taken us through many cycles of market enthusiasm & panic. Considering that many of our funds are in the $200–300 million range, these returns were more meaningful than if we had raised billion dollar funds.

Startup 408

Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Every year at Upfront we try to analyze the venture markets. We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. For this year’s analysis we turned to our peers to gather their points-of-view on the state of the market.

Funding 277

Funding Venture Capital Marketing Writing 277

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.

Funding 287

Funding Venture Capital Santa Monica Invest 287

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

JULY 23, 2013

It is simply the most important way to proactively control your career development and how the market perceives you. This started as a post in which I was going to write out tips to personal branding and became in stead an essay of my own branding journey. That was fine with me – the market is the market.

Technical Advisors 386

Technical Advisors Marketing Startup Venture Capital 386

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. People who believe the former believe that you should see the market demand before too many people know you’re “in market.”

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

Maybe the market views this as not worth the price you paid? The industry jargon for convertible debt is a “bridge loan&# or “bridge financing.&# It’s called a bridge loan because it’s meant to provide enough capital to bridge you from your last round of funding until your next round of funding.

Startup 290

Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while and was going to use AngelList by Nivi & Naval as the basis for my example and the perfect prompt came yesterday when I read Fred Wilson’s blog post on AngelList. No cookies for guessing which reason they use to market to us. So how does this apply to you?

Guide 294

Guide Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 294

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. A normal VC fund raises a new fund every three years if they are strong performers.

Venture Capital 205

Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 205

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.

Marketing 247

Marketing Newsletter Technical Review News 247

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. So I think it’s now fair to rate me at 9/10 on follow-on fundings. 5 years ago. 5 years ago. The monkey on my back. ” Yup.

Venture Capital 387

Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 27, 2011

But should you actually write one if you’re a startup, an industry figure (lawyer, banker) or VC? This is a post to help you figure out why you should write and what you should talk about. GRP Partners last fund is the single best performing VC fund in the US (prequin data) for its vintage year). Absofuckinglutely.

Blogging 373

Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

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. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. What gives? The “A Round” of my startup in 1999 was $16.5

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

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.

Guide 336

Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

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. It definitely has a “d” in it, as in it’s really not fun, raising.

Funding 236

Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 15, 2010

Thus, it is very hard to make a commitment to fund you. And don’t allocate two months of each year to “hardcore funding activities&# but allocate a regular amount of time each month to it like any other job function. I funded Ad.ly So here’s the thing: Investors – The market is moving uber fast on deals.

Invest 411

Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

When Nivi published the series he titled it “the top 10 things I look for before I write a check.&# As a result I felt compelled to add this final attribute because it matters a lot to me. He has a lot of money to spend on personal marketing so the story is written as he wants it to be.

Technical Review 284

Technical Review Entrepreneur Startup Funding 284

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 17, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Pitching a VC “ There’s a great meme developing this morning on the need to simplify funding terms and documents. Chris writes that early-stage deals should have: Founder vesting w/ acceleration on change of control. I have this mentality, too. They now own 100% of worthless stock.

Funding 252

Funding Venture Capital Startup Blogging 252

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?

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

I wrote my version here and Scott wrote an excellent write-up of his views here. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.” I believe most LPs still want discipline in fund sizes, fees and focus. Either way it turned into a heated debate.

Venture Capital 309

Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

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. I can’t control the market. Private markets for stocks are the opposite.

Startup 336

Startup Pricing Technical Review Marketing 336

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2015

As I write these words I already imagine my next deposition in which I’m asked to read this out loud. I angel funded a company 5 years ago. Because no VCs would fund them with a pending lawsuit of this nature. I funded a company where the CEO stepped down. *. Lawsuits. Lawsuits are becoming so prevalent these days.

Startup 352

Startup IP Writing Ideas 352

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 18, 2014

Yet along with “authenticity” they are two of the key attributes I look for when I meet with companies I may consider funding one day. This is how Upfront Ventures came to fund Tristan Walker – one of the most talented and passionate entrepreneurs with whom we work whose new company is called Bevel. And we did.

Startup 419

Startup Entrepreneur Design Funding 419

InfoChachkie

JULY 14, 2011

Value Prop Twitter Style : “Ringrevenue’s call performance marketing platform enables ad networks, agencies, advertisers & publishers to generate more inbound sales calls.”. In today’s market, so much focus is placed on transacting business online. Why aren’t there a half-dozen well-funded startups running up your tailpipe?

Marketing 209

Marketing Advertising Paid Search Startup 209

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2014

In that article I talked about how PR drives: recruiting, employee retention, biz dev deals, funding and even M&A and that often “attribution” to your PR activities is unknown. Contrary to popular opinion I actually believe crowd-funding is best used after seed capital or venture capital. I have no money?

Press 320

Press Startup Writing Training 320

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 new fund is being managed by Erik Huberman, Tony Delmercado, and Managing Partner Drew Leahy, along with angel investor Paige Craig.

Funding 113

Funding Invest Venture Capital Writing 113

TechCrunch LA

JULY 19, 2022

million in new funding for its predictive inventory recommendation platform, joining other similar companies, including Zippedi and Inventa. The company raised $5 million in equity last November from Equal Ventures and Eniac to give it $28 million in total equity and debt funding. Last week, Syrup Tech raised $6.3

Product 191

Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

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. The Valley has obsessed with a quick up-and-to-right momentum story because we were thought to live in “winner take most” markets.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital Capital Funding Startup 363

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. There weren’t a lot of seed funds in 2007 so this was often done by angels, funding consortia or sometimes early-stage funds that existed then (First Round Capital, True Ventures, SoftTech VC, etc.).

Seed Funding 399

Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

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. Call this “price signaling.”

Venture Capital 324

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

But then you can springboard from there to your next gig and you’ll be an experienced startup employee with functional experience at sales, marketing, product or whatever roles you played.” My starting salary when I joined a VC fund as a partner at the age of 39 (and after 2 exits)? It’s gonna suck, I know.

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

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

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. What is less understood are the consequences of these changes.

Venture Capital 352

Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Fund Raising – No self respecting VC would admit (even to themselves) that they are influenced by what they read about you in the press. It’s much hard to get funded as a company nobody has heard of. There is no attribution on that inbound phone call. PR pays dividends in Biz Dev. Not for startups – for any business.

Press 415

Press Google Course Writing 415

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 27, 2011

I find it amusing when a journalist writes an article about a prominent startup (either privately held or preparing for an IPO) and decries that, “They’re not even profitable!” To grow faster businesses need resources in today’s financial period to fund growth that may not come for 6 months to a year.

Startup 419

Startup Venture Capital Sales Technical Review 419

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

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%). I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. Hedge funds, other public investors, corporates, etc.

Venture Capital 375

Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 375

TechCrunch LA

JUNE 9, 2021

Even as NFT sales dip below their most speculative highs, startups aiming to tap into their potential are still scoring big funding rounds from investors who believe there’s much more to crypto collectibles than the past few months of hype. The round was led by WestCap. The startup has raised a whopping $120 million to date.

Platform 308

Platform Framework Los Angeles Design 308