Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I started in 2007 with a thesis that my primary investment decision would be about the team (70%) and only afterward about the market opportunity (30%). I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. Co-founder discontent. I don’t. Motives matter.

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VC investing investment entrepreneurs 374

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Greycroft is an early-stage VC. Closing a VC fund in 2009/10 is a major achievement in and of itself. In the intro section of the show we talked a lot about why VC funds are becoming smaller again and where Greycroft fits. Founded in October 2006 by Jonah Peretti (co-founder of Huffington Post). Time will tell.

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VC peer-to-peer advice collaboration 240

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

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. The rest of this post series deals with the reasons why VC froze up in the first place, why investments have heated up recently and why the future of VC funding at the current pace is not certain.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors. And in my interviews with many VCs I feel that people can watch these and get to know the VC’s as human beings a bit better. So how did Mike get into VC?

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). This is astounding and myopic in my view.

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VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 5 million was always the classic definition of an A-round between the late nineties (crazy financings aside) and say 2007. . $5

VC 399

VC advice financing finance 399

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 20, 2021

Founder and managing partner at Ripple Ventures , Matt Cohen is a business operator turned early-stage investor. Founders must learn how to build and maintain circles of trust with investors. Matt Cohen. Contributor. Share on Twitter. More posts by this contributor. Endowments are perfectly positioned to change this.

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ventures education venture capital VC 96

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 14, 2019

USV seeded Tumblr along with our friends at Spark in the summer of 2007 and were actively involved in the development of the company until its sale to Yahoo! I maintained an active Tumblog from before we invested in 2007 until October 2016, when I stopped posting there. There was no moment when I decided to stop posting there.

media 202

media investing investment development 202

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. When deal-making slows, VC dollars typically favor the perceived market leader, starving other venture-backed businesses in the same space of capital.

startup 130

startup board VC venture capital 130

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. The industry did that in 2007.

ventures 419

ventures VC capital SaaS 419

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

Every time he opens his mouth about founder diversity, he seems completely out of his league to address the topic. 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 380

venture capital VC ventures capital 380

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 2, 2020

Nash said on Twitter that the two met at LinkedIn, where Nash was himself VP of product management for four years beginning in 2007. After moving on to a bubble-era company that no longer exists, Nash tried his hand at VC for the first time, joining Atlas Venture as an associate. But Nash didn’t disappear from the scene.

startup 104

startup VC education pitching 104

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

The importance of the conference is that it assembles most of the top privately held early-to-mid-stage technology companies in the country (and some globally) as well as most VC’s, growth equity funds and corporate development departments from large industry players looking at technology acquisitions. Founded in 2007 by Oxford Univ.

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VC venture capital ventures capital 242

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

I rarely talk to any startup entrepreneur or VC who doesn’t feel it and somehow long for simpler times despite the benefits we all enjoy from increased enthusiasm for our sector. We are experiencing a frenetic time. For entrepreneurs there’s too much money sloshing around. Year in, year out.

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advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I only say that because after years as a VC I can always tell when my peer group invested in something because “it seemed like it would make money” versus when they invested out of passion. On reflection of the role that I want to play as a VC it is clearly in the camp of passion. I’m a VC.

peer-to-peer 373

peer-to-peer VC pitching entrepreneurs 373

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

My largest investor was a financial firm that invested in my prior funds to get into the VC business—and in the six years since they first invested, they had built out a team and a strategy that no longer involved doing much seed. One of my founders texted me, “What are you telling people to do about the Coronavirus?”

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. Any VC 3 years in saying otherwise would either be exaggerating, lucky or an extreme outlier.”

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VC venture capital financing finance 387

TechCrunch

APRIL 5, 2022

‘The tortoise and the hare’ story is playing out right now in VC. After the last few weeks of geopolitical volatility spilling over to the financial and crypto markets, it seems like all anyone can talk about is what startups and VCs can, should or will do in the anticipated downturn. More posts by this contributor.

SaaS 64

SaaS venture capital capital VC 64

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I believe the rise in angel investing is here to stay and the professionalization of this class (aka “super angels&# or “micro VC&# ) is a good thing for the VC industry and for entrepreneurs. It’s a non-fiction story of many of the players at the heart of the financial crisis that became exposed in 2007/08.

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angel investing investing investment VC 306

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 22, 2020

While they can withdraw those funds from the business the next day, local founders must still secure decent backing to even begin the work. Venture Kick was launched in 2007 with the vision to double the number of spin-offs from Swiss universities and draws from a jury of more than 150 leading startup experts in Switzerland.

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startup ecology education incubation 144

TechCrunch

JULY 27, 2021

in 2004 before falling sharply due to the economic recession of 2007-2009. Sequoia Capital led the round and was joined by Jay-Z’s Roc Nation venture investment arm Arrive, Will Smith’s Dreamers VC and existing investor Signia Venture Partners. The rate reached its peak of 69.2% The rate reached 63.7%

real estate 98

real estate health VC advice 98

Gust

OCTOBER 8, 2014

Cautionary note: No competent VC is actually fooled when you show up after raising $6M in seed financing and say you’re now raising an A! No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer].

VC 136

VC advice financing finance 136

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

by Michael Woolf that is worth any startup founder reading to get a sense of perspective on the reality warp that is startup world during a frothy market such as 1997-1999, 2005-2007 or 2012-2014. The reason is that no VC wants to see the venture debt provider get burned if you become bankrupt.

startup 383

startup VC frameworks capital 383

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. Answer: Not much. It’s a shame.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. According to FLAG Capital there are 100 active VCs (as defined by making at least $1 million in VC per quarter for 4 consecutive quarters). Their data looks at tech VCs.

VC 374

VC peer-to-peer entrepreneurs board 374

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 13, 2013

After all, you’d have to be a really big baby to complain about being a VC. You’d imagine your favorite founder, VC, blogger, political figure, billionaire, whatever has a stress free life pontificating about how to build the next really cool, society-altering product or changing a city, state or country.

creativity 313

creativity VC board entrepreneurs 313

TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

Since M-Pesa’s mobile money infrastructure came into play in 2007, there has been a proliferation of fintech services ranging from wallets to savings and loans. came to East Africa in 2007 to work on philanthropic biofield projects. Founded by Brendan Playford and Cate Rung , Pngme started primarily as a lending platform in 2018.

accelerator 93

accelerator financing finance capital 93

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

It’s a bit like if you bought a $1 million home in 2007 and want to sell it for $1 million today. management, founders, angel investors) get any money. One is slightly better and priced at $1 million, which you know from Zillow is what they paid for it in 2007. Not so VC. So what happens?

venture capital 289

venture capital capital ventures advice 289

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Chris Dixon made the point that he thinks investors should look for the founders to have the domain knowledge rather than them having domain knowledge themselves. But I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders but I can’t see that this extends to angel investors. got picked up early without raising a lot of VC.

angel investing 152

angel investing investing investment VC 152

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

I’ve decided to take all of my private conversations and subjective points-of-view on the topic and make them public in a keynote speech at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco on June 15th. 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.

startup 336

startup advice pitching VC 336

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2011

I’m enjoying being a VC. I thought I’d talk a bit about the differences I’ve experienced between being an entrepreneur & a VC – you know, from “both sides of the table.&#. VC meetings going well. 2 million in VC. I swore never to do that as a VC. What do VC’s Experience?

entrepreneurs 384

entrepreneurs startup VC real estate 384

TechCrunch

MARCH 9, 2021

One such is Flutterwave Mobile, which in the founder’s words “will turn merchants’ mobile devices into a point of sale, allowing them to accept payments and make sales.” Fawry was launched in 2007, but didn’t become a billion-dollar company until 2020, a year after going public.

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capital frameworks investing investment 145

Haystack

APRIL 10, 2018

About 150 people showed up, a healthy mix of founders, seed-stage investors and big fund VCs, and a bunch of LPs of various sizes. As evidenced by today’s investor panel which included managers who focus on pre-seed, or traditional seed, or larger VC funds that can go from seed all the way to growth. Um… wow.

investing 60

investing investment financing finance 60

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

More importantly, I know them both for a while--Hilary since August of 2007 through twitter and, of course, getting to work with her at Path 101, and Kara since I used to e-mail her about her Boomtown columns in the WSJ over ten years ago. They're awesome and I'd show up to hear them speak anywhere.

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data analysis venture capital communities strategy 281

Don Dodge

APRIL 6, 2015

Co-founder Paul Graham got his Masters and Doctorate degrees from Harvard. Robert Morris, another co-founder, was a professor at MIT. Paul and his co-founders wanted to get involved in Angel investing but wanted to do it in a scalable way, involve lots of friends and advisors, and be more “hands on” than the typical Angel investor.

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incubation angel investing pitching venture capital 40

abovethecrowd.com

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

We learned from Periscope’s founder, Kayvon Beykpour, about Scott’s role as a trusted advisor and confidant in the company’s earliest stages, culminating in Periscope’s acquisition by Twitter and subsequent integration. His work with the Periscope team exemplifies his character as an investor.

creativity 56

creativity entrepreneurship venture capital entrepreneurs 56

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi. 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.

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309