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How Venture Funding For Early-Stage Startups Will Change During the COVID-19 Crisis

Dream It

In New York, for instance, there are now venture funds with a West Coast mentality and firms with an East Coast mentality; the same is true for firms in San Francisco. Will a financial crisis affect how venture funds deploy capital? The biggest question for a venture firm is whether LPs will fail to make capital calls in a crisis. “It

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Upfront Ventures Adds Hamet Watt as New Investment Partner

Both Sides of the Table

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. He first came to see me in 2008 when we was raising money for his 1st startup – NextMedium. He will be a venture partner. I’ve known Hamet for 5 years. I stayed close.

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GRP Announces $200 Million Fund. Rebrands as Upfront Ventures

Both Sides of the Table

We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). 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. Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too.

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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. Between 2006–2008 I sold both companies that I had started and became a VC. What happened? Hey, we got to raise again next year. Let’s deploy faster!

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On Funding?—?Shots on Goal

Both Sides of the Table

They sold 2 years later for $16 million In the financial crisis of 2008 we had a company that had jointly hired lawyers to consider a bankruptcy and also pursued (and achieved!) If you’re a seed fund that takes 5–10% ownership and doesn’t take board seats you might have 50, 100 or even 200 investments. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

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How to Manage a Startup Through Troubling Times

Entrepreneurs' Organization

Like the downturns in 2008 and 2001, this has been a very trying time for entrepreneurs running startups. Many entrepreneurs are reliant on outside funding, whether angel investors, venture capitalists or strategic investors , to keep the venture going. The pandemic of 2020 has tested most sectors of the economy.

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Congrats to Backupify! A Great Exit Story for the First Company I Ever Backed

This is going to be BIG.

I''m super proud of Rob, Ben and the whole Backupify team--and this is particularly special for me because Backupify was the first investment I ever made as a VC, and the first board I ever sat on. Rob messed around with some local video thing in 2008, which everyone but Rob thought was a pretty terrible idea.

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