A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 27, 2021

Our 2008 vintage early-stage fund has generated about 5x cash on cash but only generated a 22.5% Our Opportunity Funds invest in the later stage rounds of our top-performing portfolio companies plus a few later-stage investments in companies that are new to USV. cash on cash but generated a 58.6% cash on cash but only 46.7%

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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.

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angel investing investing investment VC 284

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Now that he’s become a VC he’s promising me he’ll provide way more public information and discourse so please welcome him by following him on Twitter and better yet welcoming him with a Tweet of your own linking to his Twitter handle or this post. I’ve known Hamet for 5 years. The idea immediately resonated.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

Lots of discussion these days about the changes in the VC industry. The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion.

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VC startup real estate financing 311

Founders Coop

JANUARY 11, 2023

We started the firm in 2008, on the cusp of the Global Financial Crisis, and it’s somehow fitting to be entering our 15th year as the laws of financial gravity reassert themselves once again. By contrast, venture capital is a craft that defies both speed and scale. Founders’ Co-op turns fifteen this year.

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founder peer-to-peer VC sustainability 168

TechCrunch

AUGUST 15, 2023

Brett Calhoun Contributor Share on Twitter Brett Calhoun is the managing director and general partner at Redbud VC. Amid these turbulent times, the VC accelerator industry has emerged as a stalwart player. Angel investments in 2022 equaled those from 2006 to 2011 combined. Crowdfunding witnessed a 2.4x growth from 2020 to 2021.

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accelerator peer-to-peer startup VC 96

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

Paul Martino, General Partner at Bullpen Capital. 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?

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ventures startup capital board 334

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Union Square Ventures (USV) has been one of the most successful venture capital firms of the past 10–15 years and continues to be a leader in our industry. Lindel is no stranger to thorny venture capital issues — he was arguably amongst the most successful LPs of his generation. Lindel Eakman led the discussion with Fred and Andy.

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leadership VC venture capital ventures 161

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

I’ve been asked by portfolio companies and plenty of others about how they should be changing their strategy given the stock market pullback and what they’ve been hearing on “VC twitter”. 3) Do you need to raise a large amount of growth capital in 2022? Even “needing” growth capital can be problematic.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 205

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. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5 and Half.com.

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OurCrowd

NOVEMBER 19, 2020

SALT Talks-OurCrowd Pandemic Venture Investment Series (Part 1). Despite the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, venture capital is well placed to thrive as the world becomes increasingly digital and demands innovative solutions, according to one veteran Silicon Valley investor. Watch the full episode here. and Box Inc.

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investing investment VC venture capital 67

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. Logic tells me the following: It is hard to make money angel investing. There are too many deals.

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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!).

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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.

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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 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. OTHER DEALS: 1.

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VC founder advice ventures 214

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

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VC venture capital investing investment 269

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. I believe these VC funds have suffered some amount of reputation fall out. Why are VC’s really doing seed deals?

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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. Founded in August 2008 in Palo Alto, CA, by Sam Christiansen and Keith Lee.

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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. 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). But it’s a real phenomenon.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

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. Clearstone currently invests out of a $200 million fund based in LA with offices in Menlo Park and in India. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”.

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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. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly?

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 28, 2010

This was the first episode where Jason wasn’t on the show, which gave me the chance to have another VC on the show to discuss deals. Rustic Canyon is an LA-based, but geography-agnostic VC that is currently investing from a $200 million fund. VC Financings: 1. I keep meaning to get him drunk to spill the stories.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 270

Tomasz Tunguz

APRIL 1, 2019

In 2014, I published a post called Do Startup Require Less Capital to Succeed than 10 Years Ago ? In the analysis, I created a metric, the return on invested capital (ROIC). In other words, at IPO, how much revenue per VC dollar did the company generate. First, availability of capital. It was harder.

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SaaS capital startup VC 110

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on my background. I should say that I agree that naive optimism in entrepreneurs can produce higher beta (upside or flops) and that’s good from an investment standpoint if you’re looking for big returns.

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angel investing investing investment VC 152

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. If you want to understand how the VC industry is changing there is a great primer in the link.

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ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

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.

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incubation startup VC sustainability 129

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Company plans to use the capital to build out sales and marketing and r&d. -a led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Founded in 2008 in Santa Monica by Ron Goldman (former CRO of shopping.com) and Rahul Sonnad. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. a fbFund winner. Current round: $4.

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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). We feature a prominent speaker at every event.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. They often have “dead&# or “tired&# investors who have stranded capital. Not so VC.

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venture capital capital ventures advice 289

TechCrunch

APRIL 18, 2023

Simply put, equity risk premiums (ERPs) have broken down well below the ranges that were established since 2008. Venture capital activity has declined Deployment of VC capital continues to slow down. There has been an aggressive shift in assumed equity returns compared to fixed income returns.

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ventures VC venture capital capital 82

Tomasz Tunguz

NOVEMBER 5, 2022

In the mid-2000s, many startups invested their excess cash reserves in instruments called Auction Rate Securities. In February 2008, the ARS market seized. VC investment fell 40%, nearly halving another source of oxygen. The point of raising venture capital is to have money when the company needs it.

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venture capital VC investing investment 80

TechCrunch

JANUARY 19, 2022

Less than 2% of venture capital funding went to all-female founding teams in 2021, marking a five-year low, new data from Pitchbook shows. So how is it that despite the recent boom in startup funding, the venture capital industry is actually becoming an even tougher place for women to raise money? of overall deal value.

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founder peer-to-peer venture capital ventures 95

TechCrunch

JULY 19, 2022

Everyone loves an underdog, which is why investors and tech journalists are so fond of discussing startups that launched during the Great Recession of 2008, like Airbnb, Uber, WhatsApp, Mailchimp, Square and Venmo. Once a key driver of global venture activity, fintech investment slows around the world. Walter Thompson. yourprotagonist.

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pitching venture capital VC financing 94

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months.

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VC venture capital financing finance 387

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice).

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