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.

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Venture Capital Capital Marketing Seed Funding 150

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

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Venture Capital Technical Review Startup Seed Funding 398

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. Prorata investments rights given investors the right to invest in your future fund-raising rounds and maintain their ownership % in your company as your company grows and raises more capital.

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Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

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.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2009

Very few people fund individuals. Professional angels / former entrepreneurs / seed funds – In Silicon Valley there are people like Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, Mike Maples and many more. The key to getting money is that the people writing the check trust you. It is also the best thing to send in advance see here.

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Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2010

If a round of funding does happen then this debt is converted into equity at the price that a new external investor pays with a “bonus&# to the inside investor for having taken the risk of the loan. And startup CEO’s can often suppress the anxiety that goes along with the funding uncertainty – even to themselves.

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Startup Funding Venture Capital Pricing 290

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?

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Press Startup Writing Training 319

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.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Pricing Southern California 210

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

The first check I wrote was just over 10 years ago into a company called Invoca who just announced a new $56 million in funding led by Scott Hilleboe at HIG Growth Partners. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15 15 million first checks but we also have three growth funds.

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Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

I save room in literally every deal to invite angels (or seed funds) to co-invest with me. Even if one disagrees with the premise, why would anyone feel the need to attack Mike for writing it? With strong leads (VCs, seed funds or large angels) there is an unwritten Pottery Barn Rule. This is a hard one.

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Angel Startup Seed Funding Invest 150

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. If you know, VCs end up writing sizable checks into their own funds, which is important in better aligning interests. So there you have it. Up to a point.

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Venture Capital Invest Course Technical Review 356

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2013

If we count seed funds and large angels maybe that number goes up by 2x? ” (before fund raising). But here’s the kicker. As has been pointed out by Dan Primack based on FLAG Capital data, there are fewer than 100 “real and active” tech VCs in the country. Point is – it’s a small industry.

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Pricing Seed Funding Invest Venture Capital 302

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. I think this is a combination of being realists as venture capitalists that outsized returns in our funds must come from taking on bigger, more impactful projects that can move markets.

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Technical Review Software Review CTO Hire IP 418

socalTECH

APRIL 8, 2014

Among those funds is TYLT Lab (www.tyltlab.com), which recently announced a new, $20M early stage investment fund specifically focused on companies here. We spoke with Rami Rostami and Gerard Casale , who are behind TYLT Labs, and who told us a bit about their new fund, its investment criteria, and where it sees the promise here.

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Seed Funding Santa Monica Funding Startup 220

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

This is a blog post I really didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to write it because I have mixed feelings about AngelList. I didn’t want to write it because the bloggosphere doesn’t always do nuance well. So why I am writing it then? Most VCs fund companies with a degree of traction.

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Venture Capital Writing Blogging Startup 267

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-money” valuation. In the old days there usually weren’t convertible notes on early-stage deals and there weren’t party rounds with 20 angels or 6 seed funds. It’s worth reading his post to understand the problem. How much is in the option pool? No problem.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 150

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There is much talk these days that startup valuations have decreased and may continue to do so and that the amount of time it takes to fund raise may take longer. months for fund raising start to finish and make sure you have at least 6 month’s of cash if it takes longer.

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Startup Capital Funding Invest 150

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Although the first draft of this post began when Kluge was a proud member of NextSpace; as of this writing we have moved to a bigger office to accommodate our expanding team. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

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Web Design Social Media Design Seed Funding 103

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

When I was fund raising for my second company we had agreed a company-wide deal with Salesforce.com to use our product. My advice: Do not mention the other VC firms, angels, seed funds, etc. update] Is Ron Conway a great guy with good intentions in writing the letter he did? I had asked them not to. They did it anyway.

Pricing 292

Pricing Entrepreneur Technical Review Venture Capital 292

InfoChachkie

JUNE 9, 2015

With top-ranked accelerators Lauchpad LA closing its doors and Y Combinator rebranding itself as a seed fund, it seems fair to ask the question, “Are Accelerators Dead?”. My Forbes co-contributor Geri Stengel concurs that something is happening in the Volunteer State, writing last month about that state’s emerging women entrepreneurs.

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Startup Class LAMP Santa Barbara 100

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

As I was driving home from that meeting, I decided to work from there, and ended up writing a business plan and fundraising from family and friends. Constance Curtis: We just opened up our $2M seed funding round, which just opened last week. It was either, get back on the dating apps, or pay $14,000 for a matchmaker.

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Startup Entrepreneur Southern California Netflix 203

Tech.Co

MAY 9, 2017

We started traveling to Sundance and SXSW and these shows with awesome companies, but no one was writing about it,” Taylor said. The company caught the attention of investor from China and secured a seed-funding round around $1.5 And UploadVR was born. Taylor then set up shop in San Francisco to further his mission.

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Startup Web Development Design Education 70

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

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. Obviously the funding environment has changed considerably in 2022 but as early-stage investors our daily jobs stay largely unchanged. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

Startup 408

Startup Venture Capital Writing Invest 408

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had seen many cycles and decided that since I was going to do it all over again I should write about it. I decided to write about my experience and to be blunt. It became a huge kerfuffle with many VC partners writing to thank me for the post, which exposed those that gave their industry a bad name. Tempus Fugit.

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Venture Capital Blogging Startup Slides 274

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Fariborz Masseh: The idea of funding a business plan competition is not a new idea. In 2003 or 2004, I moved to California, and decided to change from running an engineering company into running a hedge fund. Now, I run a hedge fund and finance firm in Southern California. It has been done before, at a number of schools.

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Competition Southern California Mentor USC 154

Steve Reich

AUGUST 15, 2015

If you can’t raise from a few strong angels, from seed funds or from a VC then raising from a ton (let’s say 20+) angels is a perfectly acceptable strategy. ” Everyone has a vision that one or two “Super Angels” will write million dollar checks and all will be well. ” Well said, Mark. .

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Angel Pasadena Angels News Seed Funding 40

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

It’s what signals to existing investors how quickly their teams need to be fund raising and the level of risk the company is facing and also it signals to potentially new investors both how quickly you need to raise (ie you have less leverage if you’re in a rush) as well as how much cash you’ll need if they fund you.

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Startup Company Companies .Net 383

From the Venture Trenches

APRIL 30, 2013

Although the first draft of this post began when Kluge was a proud member of NextSpace; as of this writing we have moved to a bigger office to accommodate our expanding team. Now that we no longer commute to Windward Circle we cannot help but feel that Amplify has contributed to our growth as well.

Web Design 40

Web Design Social Media Seed Funding Design 40

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

” It was meant both as a call to those writing angel checks into other people’s companies that they ought to think about putting that capital toward themselves either by becoming a startup founder or (and this was my real point) by taking an under-market salary in a company where they can learn the right skills to do it in the future.

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Technical Review Startup Venture Capital IP 150

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 17, 2012

Available seed funding, check; another one down for the startup ecosystem checklist. Nasser explains their project, Eightshit.me , a goofy crowdsourced Twitter avatar tool that received some traction and a write up in Fast Company. “We Perhaps, what intrigued me most about Peek’s story was his beginnings in building Rocktr.

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Startup Incubator Seed Funding Platform 109

Tech Zulu Event

DECEMBER 18, 2012

Members can also enhance their expert status by writing informative articles and position themselves as a contact person for other professionals to get information from. Any funding yet? We received seed funding from Investitionsbank Berlin , a state bank investing in innovation and technological advancements.

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Networking Help Social Media Platform 71

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 23, 2015

For a high-volume seed fund that adds many portfolio companies every year (such as our friends at 500 Startups who invest in over 100 distinct companies annually), the cost of a bad affirmative decision (a false positive) is quite low, since it accounts for a relatively small portion of their total fund. Unicornless. billion).

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Venture Capital Technical Review Software Review Southern California 100

Tech Zulu Event

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Many times I think that it would be awesome to have a conversation with them, but typically write off the idea because the process for access is too difficult. Any funding yet? We have received seed funding from a friend and it is personally funded. That’s cool! What is your business model?

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Mentor Platform Social Network Chief Technology Officer 94

Tech Zulu Event

APRIL 17, 2012

Available seed funding, check; another one down for the startup ecosystem checklist. Although, unlike Rocketr, Perez is on the prowl to raise a non-government funded seed round. We haven’t actually sought funding prior to now,” says Perez. Same space, different spin. I don’t think Nasser sleeps.

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Startup Incubator Seed Funding Platform 56

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Assess potential for funding or bootstrapping. If you will need to supplement your own funds and assets for your business, don’t wait for a crisis to enlist family, friends, angel investors, or start a crowdfunding campaign. Remember that investors tend to fund entrepreneurs, not ideas.

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Startup Tips Coach Satisfaction 114

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2018

Whether you’re fund raising from angels, seed investors and VCs?—?as I mention this because it’s critical that you not let the fund raising process psyche you out. While I tell founders not to let the lemons get to them I also have to remind people that “It only takes one yes to have a successful fund-raising round!”

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Press Funding Venture Capital Technical Review 232

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Brad was openly writing about this and it felt like he was giving the VC playbook away for free! We write about $40 million of first-checks into new deals / year and about $40 million of follow-on investments. I’ll spare you the math and point out that this means we funded 0.104% of the market. This is how VCs feel.

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Startup Company Companies Venture Capital 150