Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

I had previously raised VC in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2005. In case VC’s haven’t figured this out yet, shit rolls downhill. My blog linked to Brad Feld’s blog because I was so grateful for his series on term sheets and he was one of the biggest reasons that as a VC I felt compelled to blog. Tempus Fugit.

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David Teten VC

AUGUST 7, 2019

The first is Momentum Investing , “a strategy to capitalize on the continuance of an existing market trend”, which usually meaning that the price has been rising in the recent past. In VC, this means you source companies by talking with other VCs and tracking the investment patterns and new Linkedin connections of other VCs.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 53

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). If you’ve been following the press about VC funds you’ll know this is no small feat. Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures.

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ventures venture capital advice VC 343

TechCrunch

APRIL 11, 2022

At the same time, he added, “high interest rates may also increase the demand for venture capital when bank lending is less attractive to entrepreneurs.” The biggest VC firms are managing a lot more moolah than you thought. Indeed, some of his earlier work has found few consistent effects of interest rates.

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venture capital investing investment ventures 97

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

Many entrepreneurs have been encouraged to believe that smooth storytelling and good social skills are enough to convince investors that things are moving according to plan. At a time like this, trust is more important than ever,” said Barber, adding that she tells entrepreneurs to stay in close touch, “particularly around bad news.”.

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

As the recipients of less than 1% of venture capital raise, institutionalized systems are visibly at play. When you think about the intersection of venture capital and technology, and specifically how it works — it is being led from an engineering perspective. Admittedly, there were no entrepreneurs in my family.

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founder entrepreneurial ecosystem venture capital ventures 105

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 20, 2014

In 2008, when I started working at Redpoint I knew very little about how the venture business worked, and before I started at the firm, I wanted to prepare by learning as much as I could about the industry. Unfortunately, not much was written about venture capital at the time. Mitch Kapor, Accel.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

Many observers of the venture capital industry have questioned whether its best days are behind it. I can’t help feel a bit of rear-view mirror analysis in all of “VC model is broken” bears in our industry. They are, in fact, great news for traditional venture capitalists. This article originally ran on PEHub.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 347

TechCrunch

MARCH 7, 2023

However, it appears that even though VCs are proceeding more cautiously than before and taking their time with due diligence, they are still investing. CB Insights recently found that two of the largest global VC firms, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, actually backed more fintech companies in 2022 than any other category.

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advice ventures sustainability investing 110

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

After all, I am no stranger to the publicly expressing the frustrations of dealing with the downside of this industry as I wrote about in 2006 when I was an entrepreneur. But VC is like congress. “I don’t know the exact math, but I hear it again and again: the top 2% of firms generate 98% of the returns in venture capital.”

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Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 22, 2014

Each quarter, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters gather data on the VC industry. I’ve used this data to draw the long term investment trends across the US venture capital industry. VCs have doubled their allocations to software compared to five years ago.

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venture capital capital ventures startup 40

Ian Hathaway

OCTOBER 14, 2020

I demonstrated that with a few small adjustments, the real-time data pointed to a venture economy that wouldn’t miss a beat this year. It shows that after a slight dip in the second quarter, venture deal activity (adjusted for the systemic data lags) rebounded in the third quarter to a level that was about the same as the first quarter.

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ventures mix-use VC venture capital 88

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Money continues to flow into new venture capital funds. For example, in the past month, Runa Capital , Lerer Hippeau , Razor’s Edge Ventures , First Star , OurCrowd , Northzone , Janngo Capital and Kapor Capital all announced new funds. VC fundraising gets weird as autumn nears.

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ventures startup SaaS venture capital 68

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

He and I once took different sides of an debate about whether “VC signaling&# in early-stage deals is a serious problem or not. He is the CEO of Hunch , company that I believe is solving a very big problem that I have been telling entrepreneurs needs to be solved for the past 2 years.

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entrepreneurship VC angel investing venture capital 281

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 11, 2012

Until you realize that vetting and helping companies is actually really hard--or did you not notice all the news that venture capital as an asset class doesn't beat the market. Want to know why there aren't more female partners at VC funds? scratches bald head]. You can't exactly look those people up on Angel List.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. Infonautics went public in 1996 and Half.com was sold to eBay in 2000.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 12, 2010

In the VC & Private Equity world there’s a small number, too, with one of the most respected being PEHub. I always wanted to have Dan on This Week in VC with Dan Primack ( to see video click link ) because he’s blunt, honest, opinionated and well informed. Question: Some people are saying traditional VC is dead.

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Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2012

In addition, angels were up against a selection problem: All the best entrepreneurs and opportunities would naturally gravitate to the best venture capital funds, leaving only the “scraps” for angel investors. This is absolutely competitive with venture capital returns. So which is it? Only they’re not.

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angel investing venture capital investing investment 152

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Just as an additional disclosure, these are my thoughts, not that of First Round Capital, my employer. The other day, Adeo Ressi wrote in TechCrunch about how we need more venture funds, because. Every investor and entrepreneur knows there is something scary about the current startup economy. Are we in a bubble? Valuations.

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Berkonomics

JANUARY 17, 2019

Reduce further expenditures of remaining capital and protect the assets purchased with the original investment. My favorite story of a fast failure was of a technology incubator started in the year 2000 with optimistic money from several angel investors, including me. A personal story of failing fast.

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incubation angel investing board venture capital 48

Berkonomics

JANUARY 17, 2019

Reduce further expenditures of remaining capital and protect the assets purchased with the original investment. My favorite story of a fast failure was of a technology incubator started in the year 2000 with optimistic money from several angel investors, including me. A personal story of failing fast.

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incubation angel investing board venture capital 48

David Teten VC

JANUARY 12, 2022

However, few investors can directly impact the value of the underlying asset, except for private equity and venture capital investors with portfolio acceleration strategies. For example, activist hedge funds, and most private equity and VC funds. When a hedge fund investor makes a trade, they can then only pray, hedge, or sell.

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disruption peer-to-peer strategy venture capital 52

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

This was an audience of mostly first-time entrepreneurs. I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I said that I felt that Micro-VCs were the most important change in our industry. I believe that.

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real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309

TechCrunch

JUNE 9, 2022

Startups and VC. Before Karl Alomar became managing partner of VC firm M13, he led one company through the dotcom bust of 2000 and helped another survive the Great Recession of 2008. He initially looked at some data and suggested there was a slump, and when some folks suggested it was not the right data, he took another look.

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advice VC education pitching 83

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

And so it happened that between 2000-2008 I was the biggest buzz kill at dinner parties. They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. The dinner parties now are filled with self-righteous angel investors bragging about how many deals they are in on.

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angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Berkonomics

JANUARY 12, 2012

If they are not achieved within the expected time, the reasons must be analyzed and acted upon to avoid loss of capital beyond plan or expectation. My favorite story of a fast failure was of a technology incubator started in the year 2000 with optimistic money from a number of angel investments, including mine.

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incubation angel investing venture capital VC 59

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I have conversations with entrepreneurs and other VCs on a daily basis about fund raising, the prices of deals, how much companies should raise, etc. These are not scientific, just anecdotal and just trying to provide some transparency for entrepreneurs on what I’ve seen the market. It was early 2000.

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startup advice pitching VC 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. I spent a bunch of time thinking about this position — especially since Beezer is an investor in Upfront Ventures. I’m still not sure.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I’m often asked the question about why there aren’t more women who are entrepreneurs. But last week I noticed a blog post by a woman, Tara Tiger Brown, that asked the question, “ Why Aren’t More Women Commenting on VC Blog Posts? She has a quote from literally every major VC from whom you’d want to hear.

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entrepreneurs entrepreneurship VC pitching 341

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

Startups and VC. What can the 2000 dot-com crash teach us about the 2022 tech downturn? Many entrepreneurs have been encouraged to believe that smooth storytelling and good social skills are enough to convince investors that things are moving according to plan. Fertile ground for growth : Ghanaian agtech Farmerline raises $1.5

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startup ecosystem disruption advice entrepreneurs 75

Y Combinator

AUGUST 5, 2019

In 2005, when Y Combinator started, there was already a well developed ecosystem of venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and Boston. But access to those venture capital firms was limited. VCs preferred to fund companies that already seemed like a sure bet – in other words, were far along.

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incubation startup VC business incubator 22

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

TechCrunch Europe ran an article in November of last year that European startups need to work as hard as those in Silicon Valley and I echoed the sentiment in my post about the need for entrepreneurs to be maniacal about their businesses if one wants to work in the hyper competitive tech world. We were based in London.

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entrepreneurs advice real estate venture capital 308

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 11, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Recently I’ve been debating with a number of young startup companies that are raising money in the next few months, “what is the right about of capital to raise at a startup?&#. I’ve seen too many entrepreneurs try to do things on the cheap.

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startup advice venture capital VC 319

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. We’re staring to get the hang of how to divide the show up into talking about deals but also talking about issues for entrepreneurs during funding.

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Jason Malki

JULY 13, 2023

Nick created Blockperfect to serve entrepreneurs who didn’t fit the typical VC model; there, he provides Venture Catalyst, a program designed to ease the friction of taking an idea from contemplation to a well-managed cash-flowing business. As Chief Technology Officer at Armor Scientific, he successfully raised $2.5

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entrepreneurial ecosystem entrepreneurship sustainability consulting 98

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. 2 weeks later and we may never have raised any more VC.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

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