Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

I am thrilled to announce that we have added Hamet Watt as a Partner at Upfront Ventures. This is a big news day at Upfront Ventures. But as sweet as that success has been (we invested pre-revenue in a small team) today my even more important news was the further expansion of our partner ranks. He will be a venture partner.

ventures 340

ventures investing investment board 340

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

During our recent Dreamit Kickoff week, Bullpen Capital Founder and General Partner Paul Martino ( @ahpah ) spoke with our Spring 2020 cohort about the state of the VC ecosystem in the current economic crisis. Will a financial crisis affect how venture funds deploy capital? Startups should know how VCs work. startup) per month.

ventures 334

ventures startup capital board 334

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 16, 2024

for the following venture strategies: American Dynamism ($600M), Apps ($1B), Games ($600M), Infrastructure ($1.25B), and Growth ($3.75B). Venture Capital firms configured themselves to address a market of 15 important companies. I am pleased to announce that we have just raised $7.2B This marks an important milestone for us.

venture capital 144

venture capital networking health VC 144

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 5, 2021

There has been this narrative about investing in VC funds that you have to get into the top quartile (25%) or possibly the top decile (10%) in order to generate good returns. I have heard that for as long as I have been in VC and probably have written it here a few times. Well, it turns out that is not right.

VC 279

VC board investing investment 279

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

Every year Upfront Ventures surveys Limited Partners (LPs) who are the main source of capital that invests in VC funds and thus the main source of capital that goes to startups to get an early-warning sense of the year ahead, leaving aside any Black Swans. Note that all of these names were not started in Silicon Valley.

ventures 286

ventures startup venture capital VC 286

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. What do I know about venture?

ventures 419

ventures VC capital SaaS 419

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 14, 2019

The Fantasy Cash Flow Model When I was an analyst at the General Motors pension fund, investing in VC funds, I had to build a model of how I thought they would perform. It started out with initial investment size, pricing, and outcome behavior for each deal and then it made a prediction around the distribution of outcomes.

ventures 281

ventures angel investing board advice 281

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

VC has been invested over the past decade according to race, gender and educational background makes for grim reading — with all-ethnic teams and female entrepreneurs receiving just a fraction of available funding versus all-white teams and male founders. female entrepreneurs face in accessing VC funding versus male counterparts.

founder 113

founder investing investment VC 113

StartupNation

JANUARY 20, 2022

This is where venture capital comes into play. Defined as a type of private equity investor funding given to startups that have growth potential , VC can play a huge part in business growth success and can facilitate a number of startup-based costs. What is venture capital and how do you get it? Image Source: CB Insights ).

venture capital 89

venture capital capital ventures startup 89

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 16, 2016

There aren't many people who get the chance to analyze venture capital fund return data. Mattermark just posted a short report full of such statements and the former 21 year old institutional LP analyst in me (the job I got my VC start in over 15 years ago) flipped his s**t upon close review. The midway point of this dataset is 2009.

venture capital 210

venture capital ventures capital VC 210

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

But I do have some insight into how this will affect venture markets. So why invest in that period of uncertainty unless it’s early-stage and thus valuation matters less. If the next 30 days stays calm then investment will pick up. So, too, investments. I caution people from thinking this is necessarily a bottom.

financing 344

financing finance ventures real estate 344

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 23, 2015

Crosscut Ventures has just announced their 3rd fund and clocking in at $75 million , which will be focused heavily on Los Angeles – FTW. And some of the people in venture who have had the longest ringside seat to our ecosystem are the founders of Crosscut Capital. This is not your dad’s LA. They had only one problem.

ventures 324

ventures VC entrepreneurs capital 324

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

In this three-part series I will explore the ways that the Venture Capital industry has changed over the past 5 years that I would argue are a direct result of changes in the software industry, not the other way around. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. Enter Amazon.

venture capital 334

venture capital capital ventures VC 334

AsiaTechDaily

DECEMBER 4, 2023

Among the interested investors is Bessemer Venture Partners. MoveinSync: Revolutionizing Corporate Commutes with Diverse Solutions Established in 2009 by Deepesh Agarwal and Akash Maheshwari, MoveinSync has developed various solutions to streamline employee commutes for large corporations.

innovation 98

innovation transportation incubation consulting 98

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. I’m not a doomsday guy, but just believe that we won’t see a V shaped recovery, which could make VC funding more difficult for tech start-ups (don’t shoot the messenger!).

VC 269

VC startup advice innovation 269

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. Note that these are “gross” revenue numbers. OTHER DEALS: 1.

VC 240

VC peer-to-peer advice collaboration 240

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Spark Capital is relatively new to VC (founded in 2005) yet has become one of the hottest new VCs having invested in Twitter, Tumblr, AdMeld, Boxee, KickApps and many more companies. Other Deals.

VC 217

VC capital venture capital networking 217

Startup Grind

AUGUST 13, 2018

Prior to co-founding Floodgate , she worked at Charles River Ventures and McKinsey and Company. Some of Ann’s investments include Lyft, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Refinery29, JoyRun, TaskRabbit, and Modcloth. Given the success of her investments she was on the 2017 Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists.

VC 111

VC entrepreneurship pitching strategy 111

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. In particular I tried to do most of the “entrepreneur advice on VC” up front so that if you don’t want to watch our views on the deals you don’t have to. Farb talks about how he did that.

VC 214

VC founder advice ventures 214

Revolution

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

According to PitchBook , VC investments were down 30% in Q2 2022 compared with 2021, and IPOs hit a 50-year low. While a few iconic brands including Uber, Airbnb, and Square emerged successfully from the last downturn, most venture-backed companies struggled during this period, and many ended up pursuing M&A strategies.

startup 130

startup board VC venture capital 130

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

In the early spring of 2009, the fundraising nuclear winter of the previous year hadn't yet thawed. It would be months before Foursquare's first round touched off a NYC venture frenzy. I'm ecstatic to announce that Brooklyn Bridge Ventures has just completed a first close of $3.5 VCs pitch for money, too.

ventures 280

ventures pitching VC startup ecosystem 280

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

However, in this moment, I think one''s career in venture capital depends on changing your perspective. The biggest question I think VC''s face right now is whether or not, in the future, the best founders will look and act like the best founders of the past. YC''s best investing days may be behind it.

venture capital 410

venture capital VC ventures capital 410

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. There are now signs the VC market has gathered pace meaning it’s a great time to be fund raising.

VC 255

VC venture capital networking innovation 255

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. Logic tells me the following: It is hard to make money angel investing. For venture capitalists this isn’t troubling. It was an investment management class. There are too many deals.

angel investing 299

angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on the skills I’ve developed in my career. To some extent Keith Rabois agreed with me about domain knowledge and argued that most of his investments are in the consumer Internet space as a result. Always have been.

angel investing 284

angel investing investing investment VC 284

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. 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. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5

VC 269

VC venture capital investing investment 269

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 21, 2012

I met him in April of 2010--almost two years before he got a venture round. It was even earlier when I talked to Jason at Shopkeep--December of 2009 by my records. You're going to miss some stuff, and just because others invested doesn't make any of these companies winners quite yet, but I'm all about continuous improvement.

VC 265

VC education entrepreneurs development 265

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

The only people who should be disappointed where the regular folks invested in these T. Unlike venture capital funds, they don't make money directly off the multiples of their return. They did quite well on their angel investment in Square. What's worse is that this end of the market is even affecting early stage VC mindset.

angel investing 408

angel investing venture capital VC media 408

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). Real-time search engine.

VC 225

VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. I’d link to it but it’s behind a paywall.

VC 285

VC financing finance advice 285

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). 2009 has been the worst year for M&A in a decade.

VC 241

VC venture capital ventures capital 241

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Had a great chat with Jim Armstrong who is a General Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners today on TWiVC. It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”.

VC 236

VC venture capital ventures support 236

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 21, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic might have upended the global economy, but according to Meagan Crawford at Spacefund and Chris Moran with Lockheed Martin Ventures, it didn’t dampen investment in space startups. Crawford and Moran both agreed that interest and investment in space will increase as more startups have successful exits.

incubation 129

incubation startup VC sustainability 129

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

When venture capitalists scale back investing activities it can be very swift and leave many companies that are in the process of fund raising hung out to dry. I would argue that the shut-down of September 2009 was equally severe yet there are signs that this “VC Ice Age” has begun to thaw. Short answer – yes.

VC 263

VC board investing investment 263

AsiaTechDaily

MAY 7, 2023

Register Indonesia-based hyperlocal online F&B startup, UENA , has secured new funding from existing investor East Ventures and new investor Trihill Capital in a round that closed in Q1 2023. Bookmark ( 0 ) Please login to bookmark Username or Email Address Password Remember Me No account yet? The amount raised was not disclosed.

disruption 98

disruption media venture capital VC 98

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 9, 2020

Year-in, year-out, the gender gap in venture capital investment continues to be a problem women founders face. There has been little movement in the amount of VC dollars going to women-founded companies since 2012. VC funds must look at ways they can bring in more women decision-makers, all the way up to the top.

VC 123

VC startup leadership communities 123

Founders Coop

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Just two years later, in 2009, we worked out a deal to create the Techstars Seattle program, with our first program running in 2010. From the beginning, we were deeply committed to Techstars’ “give first” ethos and mentorship-driven approach to startup investing. Bottom line, Techstars needed cash.

startup ecosystem 195

startup ecosystem accelerator communities support 195