This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the pre-seed and seed stage VC fund I run in NYC, has invested in 64 companies in the last six and a half years. The diversity is the direct result of our mission—to build the most accessible venture capital fund in NY. Twenty-five of them have at least one female co-founder. Fifteen had co-founders over 40.

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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. I'm a huge fan of this innovation. and Half.com. Investing Strategy.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 23, 2014

When I turn down the opportunity to invest in a startup, I really turn it down. If I don''t have clarity on something, it means that I don''t think the space and the opportunity size is big enough to get clarity. It doesn''t help them improve their pitch or adjust their model. Venture Capital & Technology'

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 11, 2011

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC. All of this is covered in more detail on the TWiVC video above (and much of it is covered in text on this blog on the “ Raising VC &# tab).

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

She was pitching for a pre-seed round of $400k. Founders hit the street with their pitch deck, some make it, and some don’t, but nearly all of them ascribe a lot more human influence over the process than there probably is. Or that venture capital is a meritocracy? I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder.

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This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 1, 2014

We all have our inherent biases and what I am not arguing here is that the venture capital world is a fair playing field for anyone. I repeat: I AM NOT ARGUING THAT VENTURE CAPITAL IS FAIR TO ANYONE. We really don''t know, because we''re missing some critical information: HOW MANY WOMEN ARE SEEKING VENTURE CAPITAL?

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venture capital capital ventures founder 295

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

There was an explosion in number of startups both because it was cheap and there was tons of available capital. Non VC Growth Rounds. The fact that I still see it referred to in pitch decks is farcical. Late-Stage VCs Pay Up. VC Infighting. Boom in Number of Startups. Explosion in Seed Funds.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 271

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

That story actually begins about eleven or twelve years ago, with a little bit of VC mentoring. I was working for the GM pension fund, an institutional LP, as an analyst, doing a research project on consumer private equity and venture capital investing. Leading an investment into an ice cream chain, however, that's another beast.

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venture capital ventures capital consumer retail 346

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 29, 2011

I had an interesting conversation with an entrepreneur last week about how he decided which VCs he was going to pitch. Then I realized that it's probably not obvious what the dynamics are around how VCs tend to get introduced to companies and what works best for people, so I figured I'd blog about it. The Cold Intro. If I don't.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Go pitch a VC with an idea, and they''ll tell you to build it. In my mind, that creates the opportunity for increasing returns. Venture Capital & Technology' Go to them with a prototype and they''ll tell you to launch it. Launch it, and they''ll tell you to get more users. No risk, no return. New markets are available.

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venture capital pitching health VC 378

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 15, 2020

There have been a lot of calls for VC firms to make more hires from the Black and Brown community, as well as to hire more women. In venture, it’s all about getting an opportunity to make partner and being included in the carry—the economic upside of a fund. Not all hires, however, are made equally.

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

A number of individuals also participated, including partners from First Round Capital and Wilson Sonsini, Wiley and Allison Cerilli, David Rose, Tom Wisniewski, Chad Stoller, and Ramesh Haridas, among others. VCs pitch for money, too. VCs pitch for money, too. It's the black box of the startup world.

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ventures pitching VC startup ecosystem 280

TechCrunch

MARCH 3, 2021

Weeks or even months of working on your pitch deck could come down to the 170 seconds (on average) that investors spend looking at it. “Investors see a lot of pitches,” VC and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman noted. “In You want them focused on the opportunity. exit strategy”. just X percent”.

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Revolution

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Since the beginning of modern venture capital investing — a relatively nascent asset class — the industry has been biased toward funding what it knows best: founders with familiar demographics (white, male) in familiar geographies (Silicon Valley).

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innovation investing investment pitching 264

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 16, 2024

There are more active VCs alive today than have ever existed in the history of modern human existence—and that dates back 300,000 years! Then, they need to figure out a way to project that brand up above the venture community, like a Bat signal calling for the best founders to come and pitch them. The question is what to focus on.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 17, 2014

With the author staying close as an advisor, they build a real, cashflow positive business and start to think about where they could go with some outside capital. The first pitch I got was from someone who didn''t intend on staying with the business as an employee. You could think of it as a spin on Thrillist.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

Every pitch I’ve ever seen has led to the, “Would Amazon eventually do this? After 9 months it was time to raise seed capital and go test drive our new software and processes. Sam moved back to NY and we announced our seed round of capital, which we led. I guess he was as excited about the opportunity as I was!

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real estate ventures innovation pitching 380

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

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 30, 2010

” Figuring out the market for your equity, appropriate capital structures, reasonable milestones, and most important of all, the right partner, aren't things that usually happen on the first try without some amount of trial and error. Of course, there are mitigating factors around actually pitching too early.

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Startup Grind

AUGUST 15, 2018

Prior to co-founding CCV, Marlon was an investment director at Intel Capital where he completed his Kauffman Fellowship. Just last week they announced a $20M Series A that was led by Andreessen Horowitz and was oversubscribed only a year after their series seed, which we led alongside First Round Capital.

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culture VC pitching investing 111

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 18, 2011

I hope you’ll excuse me when I do the latter in combination with the former to try and explain how I see macro trends and help you think about the mind of a VC. I first met the founder of Pose, Dustin Rosen , when he was a junior person with an LA-based venture capital firm called The Mail Room Fund. Pose is no different.

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investing investment VC media 303

TechCrunch

MAY 10, 2021

It is clear that Black, women, Latinx and LGBTQ+ startup founders face an uphill battle when it comes to getting a share of the VC investment pie in Silicon Valley. It’s working with another Indy based VC firm, Allos Ventures , and Paul Ehlinger from Allos will be a venture partner at Sixty8. So that is why we launched Sixty8.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 12, 2021

But despite my privilege, I’m also confident that my Black heritage made it more difficult for me to raise venture capital. Today — and the data proves this — if you are a white male, you have an unfair advantage when looking to raise venture capital. At the time, I didn’t even know that raising venture capital was a possibility.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 25, 2023

After attending TechCrunch Early Stage last week, I was cheered to meet so many first-time founders and experienced investors who are looking for opportunities. Based on my conversations, VCs are very open to working with novices who can show that they understand the market in which they hope to compete.

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pitching incubation board opportunity 98

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Luckily for aspirational baseball players, pitch velocity, spin rate, and just about every other aspect of playing baseball are highly quantifiable in real-time. Venture capital is basically the complete opposite. You throw a pitch and you don’t find out the speed for a year or even longer. Actually, it’s even worse than that.

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pitching peer-to-peer board VC 243

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

I think that the only VCs there were myself and the IA Ventures team--a stark contrast to some of the other mainstream tech conferences that are pretty densely populated with investor types. Seems that in the absence of a pitch competition or some kind of immediately obvious venture investment opportunity, people aren't used to seeing VCs.

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creativity pitching VC opportunity 247

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 9, 2020

If you're in a more privileged position with lots of VC connections to pitch, you’ll either do one of the following things: You'll come right back at me, tell me why and how I'm wrong—because at this point you have nothing to lose. Can you show me a version of this plan with how it might be possible?

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founder pitching VC opportunity 260

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 28, 2011

There's nothing that used to make me feel more like a pompous VC than when I would respond to an entrepreneur by saying their idea isn't big enough--that a success for them would likely be too small for what our firm was looking for. Let me tell you that you don't need to start a company or take outside capital to be entrepreneurial.

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David Teten VC

JULY 27, 2021

We have collected a wide range of freebies, contests, accelerators, online communities, and VCs designed for student tech founders. I have been researching this both to support Versatile VC ’s portfolio companies and also as part of research for my new book, To University and Beyond: Launch Your Career in High Gear. 1) Your school.

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founder mentorship peer-to-peer pitching 144

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 19, 2010

I’m writing this post as part of my series with Advice on Raising Venture Capital but will file it under Sales Tips as well since it applies equally to both scenarios. You’ve found a VC partner or principal who has invited you to the Monday partners’ meeting. This happens often is sales meetings or VC meetings.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 29, 2022

Andrew Gershfeld is a partner at Boston-based Flint Capital , an investment company supporting entrepreneurs from Israel, Europe and the U.S. Around May 2020, nearly everything moved online, and investment pitches were among the first to do so. However, a majority of VC firms only used an offline approach. Contributor.

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TechCrunch

APRIL 1, 2022

Perfect pitch, a singer’s ability to produce any given musical note without a reference tone, is a rare phenomenon — only 1-5 people out of every 10,000 have it. While your odds of creating a perfect pitch deck that captures coveted VC interest aren’t quite that dire, they’re not exactly in your favor, either.

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pitching VC construction venture capital 89

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 5, 2012

The problem is that there are fantastic opportunities out there with completely trustworthy managers. Unlike a venture capital firm that states its criteria on its website and has forms, e-mail addresses, etc to encourage outreach, your site does a lot better job of saying "Go away!". Welcome to family office investing.

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venture capital VC capital networking 244

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 14, 2024

Over a decade ago, when I was working for First Round Capital, we opened our doors for “Open Office Hours”—a series of open meetings where any founder could come in and chat with us for 20 minutes each. If you wanted to interview me somewhere for an open audience, I’d say yes to just about every opportunity.

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communities consulting creativity advice 339

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 1, 2010

The simple fact of the matter is that most startups seeking angel or vc capital just don’t receive it—and that’s just anywhere. My company was not well executed enough to achieve venture capital financing—and that wasn’t the city’s fault, it was mine. You know what—it’s supposed to work like that! I was there, too.

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startup media ecology entrepreneurs 286

Jason Malki

MARCH 9, 2023

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Sheffield, the Founder & Managing Partner of Pachamama Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in US early-stage climate tech companies. Then, I stumbled upon PE/VC after chatting with a good college buddy of mine. Capital is not the only way you can add value to a portfolio company.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

DECEMBER 13, 2020

The Future is Uncertain, Your Pitch Deck (and Profitability) Can’t be On the off chance you need to be reminded, factors that can make or break your business are unpredictable, and 2020 has reminded us in no uncertain terms how quickly market opportunities, customer demands, and institutions can change irrevocably at a moment’s notice.

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