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. While a few iconic brands including Uber, Airbnb, and Square emerged successfully from the last downturn, most venture-backed companies struggled during this period, and many ended up pursuing M&A strategies.

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startup board VC venture capital 130

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

Every year Upfront Ventures surveys Limited Partners (LPs) who are the main source of capital that invests in VC funds and thus the main source of capital that goes to startups to get an early-warning sense of the year ahead, leaving aside any Black Swans. Will they have enough capital?” Will it last?

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ventures startup venture capital VC 286

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. Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. Invidi is based in New York and founded in 2000.

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VC financing finance advice 285

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 12, 2020

We kicked things off with an event we called Hacking Education back in March 2009. This has been a good strategy and we have assembled a fantastic direct to learner portfolio that includes companies like Duolingo , Quizlet , Skillshare , Codecademy , and Outschool. USV has invested in the education sector for a bit more than ten years.

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investing investment education strategy 177

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. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly? Short answer – yes.

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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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VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

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

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

VC has been invested over the past decade according to race, gender and educational background makes for grim reading — with all-ethnic teams and female entrepreneurs receiving just a fraction of available funding versus all-white teams and male founders. female entrepreneurs face in accessing VC funding versus male counterparts.

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founder investing investment VC 113

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. Segment One: Jim’s background and Clearstone’s investment strategy. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”. Now Google is a VC.

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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 There weren’t a lot of seed funds in 2007 so this was often done by angels, funding consortia or sometimes early-stage funds that existed then (First Round Capital, True Ventures, SoftTech VC, etc.).

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VC advice financing finance 399

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I divided success into the phases of venture capital and 18 months into writing my first check here was my view (details on each in the link above). I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months.

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VC venture capital financing finance 387

TechCrunch

MAY 17, 2022

The judges for this pitch-off will be Yoon Choi (Muirwoods Ventures), Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) and Gabriel Scheer (Elemental Excelerator) on day one; and Sven Strohband (Khosla Ventures), Victoria Beasley (Prelude Ventures) and John Du (GM Ventures) on day two. ” Mar Hershenson — Pear VC. Gabriel Scheer — Elemental Excelerator.

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pitching energy startup consulting 76

TechCrunch

APRIL 7, 2023

Startups and VC Everyone needs some good competition to get the creativity flowing. Last year, VCs flowed approximately $6 billion to resale platforms, writes Brian Schwarzbach, an investor with Cathay Innovation. Price wars : That’s Tesla’s strategy for competing with legacy carmakers , Kirsten writes.

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media VC creativity sustainability 98

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 28, 2014

There are many times when being overly capitalized before you’re ready is a negative. Plus, most early-stage M&A fails so this isn’t likely a good use of capital for a young company). But this strategy great depends on point 3. Availability of Capital.

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startup VC frameworks capital 383

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

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.” As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. Their data looks at tech VCs.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 16, 2022

However, Tiger Global limited its activity in Africa from 2009 to 2014. But the deal, coupled with an increase in VC investments across Africa in subsequent years, wasn’t enough for the hedge fund to revisit the region. They learned their lessons and now have a different strategy. Until Flutterwave.

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media investing investment VC 87

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. Hamet is an extension of this strategy. And he followed through.

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ventures investing investment board 340

TechCrunch

APRIL 13, 2022

with Yoon Choi (Muirwoods Ventures), Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) and Gabriel Scheer (Elemental Excelerator). Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital.

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micromobility transportation pitching collaboration 82

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. Rolling ten-year returns have steadily declined across hedge fund strategies.

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disruption peer-to-peer strategy venture capital 52

TechCrunch

APRIL 12, 2022

with Yoon Choi (Muirwoods Ventures), Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) and Gabriel Scheer (Elemental Excelerator). Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital.

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micromobility transportation pitching collaboration 78

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].

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VC advice financing finance 136

TechCrunch

APRIL 15, 2022

with Yoon Choi (Muirwoods Ventures), Mar Hershenson (Pear VC) and Gabriel Scheer (Elemental Excelerator). Despite the vast sums of venture capital that has gone into shared micromobility, the industry has yet to reach unit economics favorable enough to turn a profit. How Your Startup Should Think About Collaboration, Not Just Capital.

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micromobility transportation pitching collaboration 71

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. So in the past we needed VC to really get a startup going. Answer: Not much.

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disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 25, 2015

As we went from a small band of missionaries hell bent on making our idea a reality, raising capital, getting press, and selling to customers – we were all having fun. When we first funded the company in 2009 we knew there was a big opportunity to help businesses automate marketing through phone channels.

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leadership SaaS board education 327

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2014

I first met Nick Halstead in 2009 when he was running a company called Tweetmeme (the predecessor to DataSift) who had invented the Retweet button and actually helped Twitter develop its early API. So Nick drove strategy & tech from the UK and remained an active board member and CTO of the company.

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founder leadership board innovation 309

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Ironically enough, the second nudge she gave my career also had to do with AOL--ten years later when in 2009, she introduced me to Jon Brod who was forming AOL Ventures. Does that make it a viable strategy for every new entrepreneur? Call it simplistic and naive, but being who you are, in my book, is always a winning strategy.

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data analysis venture capital communities strategy 298

StartupNation

DECEMBER 1, 2021

Michigan is now the state with the highest growth in VC investment. InvestNext is a Detroit fintech startup that has created a platform to streamline how real estate investment firms raise and manage capital. They were founded in 2020 and have solid VC backing, recently raising $2 million, raising their total funding to $4.4

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startup real estate health energy 108

OurCrowd

DECEMBER 10, 2021

Founded in 2009 by top scientists in the fields of aging, genetics and biology from Harvard, MIT and Tufts, InsideTracker is a truly personalized nutrition and performance system, aiming to help people optimize their bodies from the inside out. The supply of available workers in tech hasn’t grown as fast as the capital coming in.

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investing investment health VC 36

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 16, 2024

for the following venture strategies: American Dynamism ($600M), Apps ($1B), Games ($600M), Infrastructure ($1.25B), and Growth ($3.75B). Venture Capital firms configured themselves to address a market of 15 important companies. I am pleased to announce that we have just raised $7.2B This marks an important milestone for us.

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venture capital networking health VC 144

Founders Coop

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Just two years later, in 2009, we worked out a deal to create the Techstars Seattle program, with our first program running in 2010. The next important group to spot the weakness in Techstars’ strategy was the investment community. But it also created two big problems for Techstars as a business: cash flow and brand identity.

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startup ecosystem accelerator communities support 195

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 13, 2013

And then I got into strategy consulting, and I wanted to go into strategy consulting, and they said, “Yeah, but you’re a tech guy. We don’t take tech guys in the strategy consulting group.” Probably the internet helped because they needed internet skills in their strategy group.

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startup entrepreneurs consulting board 337

TechCrunch

APRIL 17, 2023

He will also address common challenges that nontechnical founders may encounter when building their founding team and offer practical strategies for overcoming them. TechCrunch hosts Darrell Etherington and Becca Szkutak will interview serial-founder-turned-VC Russ Wilcox. Currently he’s a partner at Pillar VC.

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real estate incubation VC construction 80

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

Having street smarts with no inspirational ability to build teams can yield a great small business but will be difficult to scale into a large VC-backed business. So we as VCs search for entrepreneurs/founders who have the whole package or as much of it as possible. In the book they profile how VC worked in the early days (60s / 70s).

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entrepreneurs VC advice consulting 293

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

This thinking is largely driven by the venture capital industry (and subsequently Wall Street) who are in search of high margin, highly scalable businesses. It’s nearly impossible to get a services company financed by VCs. Why Shouldn’t Most Services Businesses Raise VC? That’s the right answer for VCs.

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VC advice financing finance 332

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 3, 2012

Apparently, venture capital is a cruddy asset class where you can't get returns over the long term. That might make sense, if venture capital was an asset class. Saying that venture capital is an asset class is like saying that Italians are a race. Venture capital works largely the same way. It's a lot more skill based.

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real estate venture capital entrepreneurship creativity 299

TechCrunch

APRIL 15, 2022

Startups and VC. The company has been around since 2009 and just launched a new set of tools. Europe startups are having a good year so far : We’ve written about a slowdown in venture-backed deals in different regions, including the U.S., You’ll be forgiven for humming a bit of Aloe Blacc under your breath as you file your expenses.

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board strategy pitching media 98

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 21, 2013

I loved the concept--publisher lists of "Top 25 Brooklyn Eats" and "Best Burger in NYC" were the main attraction, as were user created lists like " Places you're likely to run into a VC." They tried that a while back and never seemed to push that through as a strategy. Still, I thought the lists were brilliant. Humans love lists.

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real estate strategy VC opportunity 304