A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 20, 2022

At 60, with 35 years of venture investing experience, I still get most things wrong. I met Mena Trott at a Nick Denton party in NYC in 2003 and she explained blogging to me. Investing is humbling. Which is why I like to keep things simple. And when I do I am rewarded. My friend Gordon asked me last night how I got into Bitcoin.

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Gust

SEPTEMBER 17, 2014

Me: So, you raised venture capital? Me: Raising convertible notes as a seed round is one of the biggest disservices our industry has done to entrepreneurs since 2001-2003 when there were “full ratchets” and “multiple liquidation preferences” – the most hostile terms anybody found in term sheets 10 years ago. On the phone ….

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This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 2, 2014

It''s kind of a funny answer to "When did you start Brooklyn Bridge Ventures?". Henry told me that I should start a fund--me, a 27 year old former VC analyst turned product manager with no MBA at a startup that wasn''t really headed in any particular direction. So when did I really start Brooklyn Bridge Ventures?

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 27, 2022

Jennifer Queen is the founder of Pina , a PR firm focused on startups and venture capital firms. Latin American venture capital and growth investments through 2018 had averaged less than $2 billion per year. Latin America became the fastest-growing VC region globally, and the market expanded to $16 billion in 2021. Contributor.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 11, 2022

There’s been talk of a slowdown in venture funding recently, with TechCrunch looking at it from different angles, including the fintech sector, a PitchBook report and even earlier on how startups should prepare in case it happens. We asked Beezer Clarkson, partner at Sapphire Ventures, and Josh Lerner, the Jacob H.

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David Teten VC

AUGUST 7, 2019

As a venture capitalist, should you be a Momentum or a Value investor? In VC, this means you source companies by talking with other VCs and tracking the investment patterns and new Linkedin connections of other VCs. You could argue that when they were [raising] oversubscribed [VC rounds], Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.,

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

.” Ibex Investors , which is based in Denver with offices in New York and Tel Aviv, was founded in 2003 with a “multi-stage” and “multi-strategy” investment strategy. Their structure is unlike the traditional venture capital firm. That opens Ibex to a whole new swath of mobility startups.

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transportation venture capital disruption strategy 55

TechCrunch

AUGUST 9, 2021

In 2003, FreshBooks’ co-founder Mike McDerment was running a small design agency. Canada’s startup market booms alongside hot global VC investment. After relaunching its accounting platform, FreshBooks has raised another $43 million. As in the case of many startups, FreshBooks was started to solve a pain point for one of its founders.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

JANUARY 21, 2022

My professorship began in 2003 but a couple of years ago, I took my leave to pursue my itch to start a company again. I struggled to figure out how to select a problem that could be a viable venture over the next 10 years. what will a typical day look like with each venture, and will I enjoy it? My usual criteria?—?market

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startup frameworks entrepreneurs entrepreneurship 105

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 5, 2024

in 2003, Sebastian Thrun had just won the DARPA Grand Challenge, right? ” Like, autonomous vehicle is a solved problem back in 2003. I think it requires a ton of partnership from the VC community, from the tech community, and certainly from D.C. And one of the best examples of this is autonomous vehicles or robotaxis.

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creativity communities technology investing 69

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2011

I took the opportunity this past week to publish summary notes of some of the VCs and entrepreneurs I had interviewed on This Week in VC. One of my goals in doing the show was not only to educate entrepreneurs but also to put a human face on many of the VCs in our industry as VCs can be hard to get to know. Thank you. (if

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Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Consumer web’s share of all US VC investment is increasing. Historically, enterprise investments have been the bread and butter of venture firms, representing about 52% of dollars invested over the last 17 years. of VC dollars. In 2004, for every 1 consumer investment, VCs invested in 10 enterprise companies.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 2, 2012

It was June of 2003. At least if you and some Silicon Valley VC get inked up in one of the breakout rooms, you can get it removed more quickly than you can get out of an investment relationship. I sat in a little ink shop on Rivington Street called Porcupine Tattoo. She had flower sleeves of spectacular color.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital. Many businesses that pitch to me have White Elephant issues and I’d like to tell you how to deal with these when you’re raising venture capital. But the VC is thinking about the issue whether you address it or not. Don’t pretend it isn’t in the room.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 16, 2012

I raised money as an entrepreneur, like you, in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 for two different companies. And of course I’ve sat on the other side of the table: As a VC. This is not just the perspective of a VC although I can’t say I have zero VC bias. I’ve raised seed rounds and A-D rounds.

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strategy development VC advice 366

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I would point readers to Martin Kleppmann’s useful blog post with graphs illustrating the effects of a valuation cap on entrepreneurs, seed investors and later-round (typically VC) investors. Valuation caps can come into play in settings other than seed-stage convertible note financing rounds.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. We found a way to make our venture capital last when it shouldn’t have, at around the same time one of my all time favorite New Yorker cartoons was published on this topic. April 29th, 2003 my first son was born.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2007, 2011) and for the hottest of companies and in bad markets for fund raising (2003, 2008) prices test the bottom end of the range. I’m a VC so I have an obvious bias. I saw this kind of pricing when I first entered the VC market in 2007. There is no such thing as a uniform price. I raised my A round at a $31.5

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. With StackOverflow, Joel raised money through venture capital. Union Square Ventures is an investor.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

Most of what I learned about operating startups I learned from the really tough years at my first company from 2001-2003. My company had raised venture capital in April 2001 but we were told that there may never be any more coming. Hell – we fought against the VC’s together! He’s family and he knows it.

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advice venture capital VC construction 285

Smart Hustle Magazine

MAY 20, 2021

So, I sort of grew up as a product manager at Google in the early days of the company working on Google AdWords, when we just launched AdWords, I think back in 2003. Venture Funding? Go to your VC grant, loan from a bank, whatever. So, we’re not a venture capitalist, right? Funding Options – Loans?

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