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. MetaMarkets.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

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 What is a VC fund? VC’s don’t invest 100% of their own money.

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VC venture capital investing investment 269

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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This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 21, 2012

It was even earlier when I talked to Jason at Shopkeep--December of 2009 by my records. It took almost two years for the company to raise their first outside capital from RTP and Greycroft--and honestly, my bad for not staying close to the company. Good for him--I'm happy to see him get resourced to built out his vision.

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VC education entrepreneurs development 265

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

They do around 7% of the total VC-backed deals in the US per year or just under 40 deals / year on average (present year excluded!). Where I add commentary from myself or my fellow VC colleagues from our discussion after Jamie left I’ll put in red. 2009 has been the worst year for M&A in a decade. per year.

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VC venture capital ventures capital 241

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

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

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. YCombinator had a great run from 2007 through early 2009 investing at a time when there weren''t nearly as many seed funds and accelerators as there are now.

venture capital 410

venture capital VC ventures capital 410

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 9, 2011

Come 2009 we felt really bullish about the future for startups because the froth was gone and so, too, were wantrapreneurs. The people left standing had a compelling vision to build companies and we backed many in 2009. When this period was fresh, in Sept 2009, I wrote a very detailed assessment of what I thought had just happened.

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VC disruption entrepreneurs venture capital 305

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 Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”. Segment Four, “VC Discussion – How Should Entrepreneurs Think about ‘Strategic’ Investors?”.

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VC venture capital ventures support 236

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

Imagine if, say, Autodesk had purchased it in 2009 for $100 million? Of the first four investments I made as a VC in 2009, two have exited and two (Invoca & GumGum) still are independent and likely to produce $billion++ outcomes . My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. Maker Studios?—?sold Entrada Ventures? —?that

venture capital 363

venture capital capital ventures VC 363

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

What's worse is that this end of the market is even affecting early stage VC mindset. If you're a VC and you think for a second that whether or not Square pricing at $2.9 billion or $6 billion has anything to do with that Series A you're about to do, please pick up your marbles and go home. Congrats on your huge disappointment.

angel investing 408

angel investing venture capital VC media 408

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.

advice 398

advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2011

I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well. These two trends had a major impact on the computing industry from 2000-2005 but the effects weren’t yet felt by the VC industry. Spawning of Micro VCs. When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5 Enter Amazon.

venture capital 334

venture capital capital ventures VC 334

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MAY 6, 2015

As an active investor in the Los Angeles technology market we’re always seeking to better understand the data and trends of why our market has grown so rapidly since 2009. If you’re an LP and want to know who these emerging funds are please call me and/or attend our Annual VC Summit.

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VC opportunity media innovation 307

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 5, 2021

There has been this narrative about investing in VC funds that you have to get into the top quartile (25%) or possibly the top decile (10%) in order to generate good returns. I have heard that for as long as I have been in VC and probably have written it here a few times. As you can see, investing in VC funds can be very profitable.

VC 279

VC board investing investment 279

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 14, 2013

There was no strategic goal to build venture backed startup companies, but yet at least three companies in her community got VC investment last year. Yet, you can''t just hire me to be your local community VC. She started out by simply taking a space and filling it with the kind of people that inspired her. How can they be helped?

communities 340

communities coworking spaces economic development funders 340

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

We haven’t hit that wall yet for three reasons: 1) not enough elapsed time, 2) the VC market is frenzied now, too and 3) we haven’t seen a market downturn since the volume picked up. But I’ll judge the angel class of 2009/2010 on a 7-10 year time horizon. I was very active in 2009 / early 2010.

angel investing 299

angel investing investing investment real estate 299

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 finance financing 399

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

This is where VC comes in and why it’s needed in the industry no matter how much populist sentiment exists against the VC industry. got picked up early without raising a lot of VC. That is why I find it curious when angels start shouting that VC’s are dinosaurs, evil, money-grubbing and non-value-add.

angel investing 284

angel investing investing investment VC 284

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. It’s just not a VC investment.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs finance 308

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2012

I had this ethical dilemma pop up on one of the first deals I even did as a VC. ” I was learning which VCs I wanted to work with, what stage & check size I wanted to commit do and what teams would be a good fit for me. .” The call from a fellow VC to “look harder” made me decide to request a site visit.

VC 356

VC finance financing investment 356

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 think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. 5 years ago. . None have exited. That’s normal.

VC 387

VC venture capital ventures finance 387

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

The tech community has been having a long-overdue conversation about mental health and work/life balance and it’s something I’ve been talking up as far back as 2006 , 2009 , and 2014 on my blog and in public. In late 2018, the company raised $75 million Series C from Sequoia, arguably the top VC firm in the world.

coworking spaces 545

coworking spaces hospitality culture coworking 545

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We held a 90-minute demo session where 150 of LA’s VC’s and senior technology executives watched the LPLA V2 group present in small groups of 12-15 each. The VC’s & executives were then asked to make “commitments&# (in writing) to 3-5 of the companies that they felt they could make some sort of contribution to.

startup 276

startup VC media networking 276

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

These are all normal things but in this big run since 2009 we’ve all gotten used to nearly 100% follow-on financing rates, valuations only moving up, deals clearly the convertible note caps and low mortality rates. The impact hits VCs in an immediate way that most entrepreneurs don’t realize. Watch the market closely.

finance 344

finance financing ventures real estate 344

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 27, 2010

Geolocation is so 2009. I can be frustrating for entrepreneurs who can’t seem to get a VCs interest until someone else is interested as well, but there’s actually a logic behind it, believe it or not. Ok, so we’re all doing social TV now. Haven’t you heard?

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VC venture capital media board 186

Gust

DECEMBER 13, 2011

I’ve recently taken a look at seed stage funding by venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors over the past five years. For VCs, I chose to look at all seed stage VC deals (from MoneyTree©) as well as those in five of the most active regions in the country. All Seed-VC. VCs in NYC invested, on average, only $2.4

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

In the early spring of 2009, the fundraising nuclear winter of the previous year hadn't yet thawed. Back when I was pitching my previous startup to investors, it had never really dawned on me that they had experienced what I was going through--and that a VC firm was essentially a startup. VCs pitch for money, too.

ventures 280

ventures pitching VC startup ecosystem 280

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 2, 2014

Henry told me that I should start a fund--me, a 27 year old former VC analyst turned product manager with no MBA at a startup that wasn''t really headed in any particular direction. I started a company, failed at it, and joined First Round in 2009 to help them open up their NYC office.

venture capital 293

venture capital VC ventures technology 293

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. The idea immediately resonated. And he followed through.

ventures 340

ventures investing investment board 340

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AUGUST 3, 2009

So with the metoric rise of Twitter now forecast at 45 million as of August 3rd, 2009 (and rising fast), has Twitter Killed the Blogger Star? Bill Gurley , a well known VC from Benchmark Capital, seemed to have a 2-year hiatus from blogging and has now picked up the pace. Now we could all sleep more. Or could we? So what gives?

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VC creativity networking media 219

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2018

The idea is simple enough: several female VC partners at top funds will hold 1-hour meetings with 40 promising female entrepreneurs looking to get advice on their business and pitch in a friendly, non-judgmental, safe environment. 8% of VC partnerships, for example). With 8% of partners at VC firms being female?—?we

founder 256

founder peer-to-peer VC mentorship 256

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

But they weren’t there in 2009 when you were up late nights shitting yourself whether you really were smart for pursuing this idea. That was back when VCs weren’t so quick to respond to emails. I hope to offer experiences from being an entrepreneur and being a VC.&#. I started blogging 2 years ago.

advice 391

advice VC finance financing 391

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” But not a VC or Bill Gurley or myself would have spooked it 2 years ago.

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investing 285

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2021

In 2005, it was a risky bet to join Union Square Ventures and plant my VC career here in NYC. It wasn’t until I helped Foursquare raise their seed round in 2009 that many outside VCs even took notice of NYC. They’re less impactful on a year to year basis.

communities 434

communities startup real estate mentorship 434

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. In fact, I am still active on two boards where I first invested in 2009. The industry has obviously changed enormously in 2022 but in many ways it feels like a “return to normal” that we have seen many times in our industry.

ventures 408

ventures startup peer-to-peer venture capital 408

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 27, 2010

Geolocation is so 2009. I can be frustrating for entrepreneurs who can’t seem to get a VCs interest until someone else is interested as well, but there’s actually a logic behind it, believe it or not. Ok, so we’re all doing social TV now. Haven’t you heard?

VC 150

VC venture capital media board 150