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.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2022

million, our Seed Funds mostly between $200–300 million and have delivered median ownerships of ~20% from the first check we write into a startup. By 2021 we had to write a $3.5m It forced extreme disciple to “stay in our swimming lanes” of knowledge and not just write checks into the latest trend.

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Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

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.

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Blogging Startup Writing Venture Capital 373

socalTECH

JUNE 27, 2013

Despite the increase in startup activity in Southern California, local venture capital funds are still few and far between, and a large chunk of the funding here is still from Sand Hill Road. The firm just announced that new fund, and a new name, Upfront Ventures (www.upfront.com). Tell us about the new fund?

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Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

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. I am closing 3 new fundings in April (2 new, 1 follow-on).

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Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

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. One of the most important aims of a fund-raising process is to keep similar firms at the same stage of your process. Why 8–10 and not just 3–4?

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Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

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

MAY 21, 2018

I was recently with an entrepreneur and talking with him about his fund raising process. She had emailed with a partner at a big VC fund and he had passed the request to a junior associate. it’s just respecting your personal time and your fund-raising process as much as you’d respect the VCs time. This isn’t rude?—?it’s

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Funding Newsletter Venture Capital Email 217

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Tracy is knowledgeable enough to talk tech and swap design & product stories with other founders, but she realized early that networking amongst this group and reading and writing in their journals would not bring her more customers. So Tracy began keeping a blog about … (what else?)

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Startup Entrepreneur SEO Venture Capital 363

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. They might own 8% of your company after the first funding but demand up to 33-50% of your next round of financing.

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Entrepreneur Venture Capital Writing Invest 310

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. A deck is a deck. Just send it.

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Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

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 you can see below the number of seed funds shot up dramatically between 2006 and 2014. It’s very noticeable in terms of funds raised, dollars invested and deals completed.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

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.

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Funding Invest Venture Capital Writing 113

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

But at the end of the year you write your own ticket if you’re talented because now you have experience and it cost you less than your law school loans! My starting salary when I joined a VC fund as a partner at the age of 39 (and after 2 exits)? Why did I join as a partner in a VC fund on that salary? But I explained.

Startup 409

Startup Invest Venture Capital Writing 409

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.).

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Seed Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 399

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. ” See points 1-6.

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Press Google Course Writing 415

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

The truth is I have been thinking a lot about the topic, I just haven’t been writing about it. I plan to write about this phenomenon soon. So I’m increasingly seeing entrepreneurs getting funded at 22. So the role is a strong woman leader has always been a comfortable idea for me. But then the truth sets in.

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Entrepreneur Venture Capital Startup Blogging 341

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

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. Mark didn’t get a chance to talk about that topic but since he’s writing about himself in third person here he can confirm that is 100% the strategy of Upfront Ventures.

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Venture Capital SaaS Writing Funding 309

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

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

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Product Funding Technical Review Equity 191

TechCrunch LA

JULY 21, 2020

In 2014, we established the Play Equity Fund, the only nonprofit focused on Play Equity as a social justice issue,” said Renata Simril, President & CEO of the LA84 Foundation. So the group has partnered with the LA84 Foundation, which brings sports to underserved communities. That non-profit is also a partner with Angel City. “In

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Writing Los Angeles Equity Startup 171

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

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.” I thought I’d write a post about how to talk about valuation at a startup and give you some sense of what might be on the mind of the person considering funding you.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Invest 324

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

socalTECH

OCTOBER 11, 2018

This morning, Moonshots Capital (www.moonshotscapital.com), led by Kelly Perdew and Craig Cummings , announced its first formal fund, a $19M seed stage fund. In October of last year, we did a first close on our first committed fund, which we're announcing. It's much better with committed funds and bigger checks.

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Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

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 Investors are writing checks for dots.

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Invest Technical Review Venture Capital Startup 411

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.

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Platform Framework Los Angeles Design 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

Market to Your Target Audience – I’ve seen a lot of startups who like to write blog posts on life as an entrepreneur. Understand that for every article they write they need “an angle&# and if you can’t help shape that you’re not likely to get inches. A funding announcement is a stand-alone event.

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Marketing Startup Press Technical Advisors 380

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. I have publicly said many times that there is a positive to crowd funding.

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Venture Capital Seed Funding Email Blogging 352

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2012

I got a call from a VC friend of mine who said, “we’re looking at this deal but can’t write the full check. I decided to write a $2+ million check along with my co-investor who offered $750k. But my other VC partner had a smaller fund and raising price would have a big impact on his ability to finance the company.

Venture Capital 356

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Writing 356

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 23, 2020

There’s also a relatively modest request (of only $4 billion) for funding devoted to pilot projects, startup companies, and public clean technology investment initiatives (like LACI). The funding would include $20 billion for utility upgrades. There’s $25 billion in money set aside for public transit and $12.5

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Southern California Los Angeles Rosemead Incubator 261

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013

It’s a hard topic to write about because it’s almost an accepted norm that total transparency is good. They told you, “Yeah, man, I’ll gladly write the first $250,000. We funded one in 2005 and lost a lot of money. It’s 2003 and VCs aren’t exactly lining up to fund startup businesses.

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Startup Course Venture Capital Writing 417

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 9, 2021

Disciplining yourself to write down the plan is actually the best way to make sure you actually understand it yourself. You need it for communicating to your team, finding strategic partners, or soliciting investor funding from friends and family, angel investors, VCs, and crowd funding. Pitch your company, not your product.

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Entrepreneur Tips Funding Startup 156

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 22, 2010

Brad Feld hadn’t written his seminal “ term sheet series &# and The Funded hadn’t yet been created. I’m not sure I really even need to write this at length because Nivi absolutely nailed the topic in his article “ The Option Pool Shuffle.&#. Back then VentureHacks didn’t exist. That’s normal.

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Venture Capital Pricing Startup Funding 405

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

We use this try to draw some context that informs our funding decisions. Of course we fund companies in good markets and bad. In venture our goal is to fund companies over a 10-year+ time horizon, which is the time it takes to build truly transformational companies.

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Funding Venture Capital Marketing Writing 150

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

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.

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Startup Entrepreneur Design Funding 419