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.

Venture Capital 416

Venture Capital Marketing Technical Review Seed Funding 416

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

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

Funding 217

Funding Newsletter Venture Capital Email 217

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2016

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos.

Writing 62

Writing Summary Email Ideas 62

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

Writing 171

Writing Los Angeles Equity Startup 171

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.

Entrepreneur 156

Entrepreneur Tips Funding Startup 156

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 9, 2023

Even in this age of videos and text messages, the quickest way to kill your startup dream with investors, business partners, or even customers, is embarrassingly poor writing. You have to be able to communicate effectively in all the common forms, including business writing, as well as talking, presenting, and producing videos.

Tips 123

Tips Writing Startup Summary 123

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 14, 2023

If you don’t have the time to write things down, or your writing skills leave something to be desired, don’t be afraid to get some help. No executive I know writes all his own contracts, but every smart one owns every one that is written for him, and understands every element.

Startup 102

Startup Writing Mentor Sample 102

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. If we wanted to we could have sold > 2x the fund easily in the secondary markets with significant upside remaining. of the fund.

Venture Capital 471

Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

TechCrunch LA

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Riot Ventures , the Los Angeles-based, early-stage and deep technology investment firm is going out to market to raise a $75 million second fund to finance the development of startups in LA and beyond, according to fundraising documents viewed by TechCrunch. Oculus, Snap, Tinder and others.

Los Angeles 126

Los Angeles Artificial Inteligence Invest Angel 126

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.

Capital 164

Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 164

socalTECH

JANUARY 18, 2011

This morning, Pasadena-based Perfect Market (www.perfectmarket.com) announced a new, $9M round of funding for the firm's technology, which is used to help publishers monetize their content. Congrats on funding. Right now, news organizations write off the news cycle. In our last round of funding, Tribune led the round.

Marketing 232

Marketing Funding Content Writing 232

socalTECH

OCTOBER 19, 2009

He recently landed a round of funding, and shares his experience here: Before you start bitching about investors not writing checks in this economy let me just say this  bullshit. I just finished our capital raise for our new company, Affordit.com and can tell you first hand that I've never seen more people eager to write checks.

Writing 100

Writing Santa Monica Venture Capital Entrepreneur 100

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.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 22, 2020

The only way an entrepreneur can really dodge this issue is to totally fund the startup with personal funds (bootstrapping). That means writing down and signing the terms of the agreement, after making sure everyone understands them. If you are not sure on this matter, then don’t take their money. Be professional about it.

Funding 123

Funding Startup Equity Venture Capital 123

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?

Funding 196

Funding Venture Capital Los Angeles Social Media 196

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?

Venture Capital 332

Venture Capital Funding Startup Sales 332

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Starting in 2009 I began writing checks consistently, year-in and year-out. I admit that my writing style back then was a bit more carefree, provocative and opinionated. In a world when LPs benchmark VC performance on a 3-year time horizon from deploying one’s fund (is your 2019 fund in the top quartile!!??) billion fund.

Venture Capital 466

Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

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

Berkonomics

DECEMBER 31, 2020

The company was funded entirely by grants from the National Institute of Health, amounting to millions of non-dilutive dollars in all. And we should not forget that non-profits of all types depend upon grants for a significant amount of their funding, often employing professional grant writers on staff or as consultants.

Equity 156

Equity Writing Education Research 156

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 mean, in a real fund-raising process?

Funding 336

Funding Venture Capital Startup Email 336

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

It’s not hard to find people willing to write the narrative that “venture capital is not an asset class” or “venture capital has performed terribly.” It had an influence on the people who fund our industry in a negative way as many asset managers who fund our industry read this flawed report.

Venture Capital 362

Venture Capital Capital Startup Writing 362

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

It’s helpful to think of startups as proceeding through several stages, which I have defined some 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.

Funding 94

Funding Startup Organization Incubator 94

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 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. why do I write p.s.’s sometimes?

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Startup Marketing 150

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.

Funding 150

Funding Venture Capital Marketing Writing 150

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. Find out who funded them – Contact the management teams.

Angel 291

Angel Funding Venture Capital Startup 291

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ).

Venture Capital 161

Venture Capital Funding Capital Startup 161

Xconomy

MAY 31, 2016

Microsoft plans to invest more in early stage startup companies through a new corporate venture fund, headed by former Qualcomm executives. And at the other end is where you’ll typically see our larger investments and acquisitions,” Kashyap writes. With a formalized venture fund, Microsoft now has a seat at the table.

Funding 62

Funding Artificial Inteligence Cloud Computing Writing 62

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

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2018

Acquiring seed-stage funding is admittedly tough, but a source that I find often overlooked is government grant funding, accessible in the U.S. The resulting delays can give your competitors an edge, or the market requirements can change before you get the funding you need. Experts are available to help, but fees are high.

Funding 90

Funding Technical Review Startup Research 90

Startup San Diego

OCTOBER 31, 2023

We held a quick lightning round of “Ask/Offer,” with attendees writing down what they’re asking for (ex. funding, […] The post Sip N’ SaaS – Day 3 of San Diego Startup Week Recap & Photos appeared first on Startup San Diego. This night focused mainly on celebrating the B2B SaaS community.

San Diego 52

San Diego SaaS Startup Writing 52

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.

Venture Capital 328

Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

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

Southern California 261

Southern California Los Angeles Rosemead Incubator 261

socalTECH

JANUARY 8, 2020

in a funding round, according to the company. The funding was led by Switch Ventures, and also included Bessemer Venture Partners, Toba Capital, plus Gerald Risk, Peter Kelly, Jonathan Erlich, and Blaine Vess. The company is led by CEO Malte Kramer. READ MORE>>.

Services 100

Services Marketing SEO Writing 100

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Most of these scenarios involve attracting outside investors, strategic partners, or key team members: You are the team and you don’t need outside funding. In fact, they are probably in such a hurry to give you money that they don’t want you to waste time writing anything down and passing it along to new investors.

Technical Review 126

Technical Review Writing Entrepreneur Slides 126

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?). Knowing What the Seed Funding Policy of your VC is. million of our $200 million fund for seed funding.

Seed Funding 298

Seed Funding Funding Venture Capital GRP Partners 298