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Your board should protect you!

Berkonomics

All other board functions are secondary. Even venture capitalists who sit on boards where they have significant investments often forget this point. Actually, there are two legal duties of board members. Second is the duty of loyalty… …Loyalty to the corporate person, not to the shareholders who elected the board member.

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The Pre-Board Board: How to Create Accountability Before You Give Away a Board Seat

This is going to be BIG.

Typically, investors don’t take a board seat until you raise your first equity round—which means that it could be *years* before you have a real board meeting: A year of nights/weekends work researching, prototyping, and fundraising. Many people extend this round and don’t get there for two years. How many is too many, for example?

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Need investment capital?

Berkonomics

Preparing for the game… If you have been following our recent insights, you’ll be up to speed knowing that professional investors negotiate tough terms, from provisions of control over asset acquisition, eventual sale of the company, future investments, forced co-sale when others attempt to sell their shares and more.

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The Twenty Year Itch: My Last VC Investment Out of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures

This is going to be BIG.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll complete my next investment. It will also be my last venture capital deal. Venture capital is a pretty opaque industry and if I can shed some light on what it’s like to do this, or to decide to stop doing it, I’m happy to help. For me, I don’t mind sharing how I think about it.

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Board Diversity

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

The board diversity problem is a symptom of a much broader problem around lack of diversity in founders that get funded and lack of diversity in VC firms. Most startup boards are made up of a few founders and a few VCs. No wonder you have no diversity on the board. Boards don’t need three or four VCs on them.

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners Drives Innovation with Strategic Investments in Four Promising Enterprises

Ben Franklin Technology Partners

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA (Ben Franklin CNP) continues its mission of catalyzing innovation and fostering growth in the technology sector with its recent investments in four dynamic companies. Flat5 , located in Lewistown : Flat5 offers a transparent and automated solution to streamline the trucking industry.

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How to Win Consulting, Board, and Deal Roles with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds

David Teten VC

Would you like to work with private equity and venture capital funds? There are relatively few jobs directly inside private equity and venture capital funds, and those jobs are highly competitive. However, historically most private equity professionals were former investment bankers and other finance professionals. Thomson One.