This is going to be BIG.

MAY 26, 2022

“Personal Branding” The term is fingernails on a chalkboard-level cringe for many of the best founders—mostly because it feels most of the people who spend time building their personal brand don’t actually have much there there behind it. Unfortunately, this has real consequences for founders. So how can founders differentiate?

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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. Right here.

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TechCrunch

JULY 2, 2021

Founder of Unicorn Capital and Minimal Capital, Evan Fisher 's pitching and investor strategy has helped startups raise more than $2.5 Not even a senior VC. Even if the only benefit was that other investment committee members heard the story direct from the founder, that alone would make your video pitch worth it.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 3, 2022

My phone buzzes as I get a text from a friend who’s a partner at a VC firm. “My 2 cents on why you should invest in my company,” reads the message she received, along with a $0.02 I tracked down and emailed the founder who sent the transfer to figure out what they were up to. “I had to get scrappy.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 2, 2015

It''s a co-working space full of creatives and freelancers, most of whom who have never pitched an investor, and probably never seen a startup pitch either. Their reaction to what I do day in and day out is very telling about how a lot of people, including VCs themselves, think of the job. For a seed fund, I find it a bit silly.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 19, 2021

Kunal Lunawat is the co-founder and managing partner of Agya Ventures , a venture capital firm focused on proptech, travel, hospitality and the future of the built world. 5 factors founders must consider before choosing their VC. As VCs, we cannot overemphasize how important it is that founders are transparent and upfront.

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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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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2018

The responses I got came at a time when I've been having a lot of conversations with female founders as well about their fundraising experiences. At this moment, I'm in the process of backing three companies that have at least one female founder and I just finished a round for a black female founder in December. Ducks head.]

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TechCrunch

JULY 23, 2021

We know how much you love a good startup pitch-off. Plus, you get to hear feedback from some of the smartest folks in the industry, thus learning how to absolutely crush it at your next pitch meeting with a VC. Extra Crunch Live is usually a combination of an interview with a founder/investor duo and an audience pitch-off.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 9, 2020

While I got some very kind words on my recent writings , I heard from some founders that didn't feel like they got treated fairly—specifically around feeling patronized or dismissed—and that I wasn't showing enough action to improve on that. I try to get back to everyone—which is something not all VCs do.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 2, 2021

We know how much you love a good startup pitch-off. Plus, you get to hear feedback from some of the smartest folks in the industry, thus learning how to absolutely crush it at your next pitch meeting with a VC. Extra Crunch Live is usually a combination of an interview with a founder/investor duo and an audience pitch-off.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

MARCH 10, 2023

Stories, Slides, and Data Primary data set of public 3-minute pitches and 2-minute Q&As I have spent more than a decade coaching thousands of people on how to tell stories. Halfway through the journey, I realized that something was fundamentally off in how founders tell them and how investors receive them. Who is the founder?

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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.

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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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TechCrunch

APRIL 29, 2023

But I’ve always found those same focuses to be especially in conflict with what it means to be an early-stage founder pitching your vision: You have to have Elon Musk-level ambition, big dreams and the ability to sell a company to investors before there are any real metrics behind it. What is this, revenue growth for ants?

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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. How did you break into tech investing? I was already investing in public stocks, bonds, and preparing to make my 1st home purchase.

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The Startup Blog Market Brief

NOVEMBER 19, 2019

The ed-tech company's co-founder shares the secrets of his pitch. The post 5 Elements of a Pitch Deck That Will Lead Your Company to New VC Investment appeared first on Market Brief. Swing Education has raised $23 million in venture capital funding to-date.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 28, 2022

This is true particularly if, like many founders, you don’t happen to be part of a social or economic circle where striking up early conversations with potential investors is a no-brainer. James Norman: It’s pretty varied when you’re a first-time founder. Building an investor network from scratch sounds daunting.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 29, 2021

Edtech needs to reach beyond underfunded public school systems to become more sustainable, which is why more investors and founders are focusing on lifelong learning. Mercedes Bent and Bradley Twohig , partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners (a multistage generalist fund with investments including Forage, Clever and Outschool).

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TechCrunch

MARCH 29, 2023

With a drier than normal investment scene, founders are looking for more effective ways to reach the right VCs. To that end, over the past few weeks, thousands of founders have applied to land capital through a common app, but instead of hoping to land into a university, they’re hoping to land capital from top investors.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 8, 2021

While the venture capital boom of the last few years has helped a great number of founders, the capital is not landing equally. Black founders are raising more capital than ever, but still just a fraction of a fraction of what others have managed in recent years. Black founders rarely find themselves in a similar situation.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 7, 2022

In a recent episode of TechCrunch Live, Agility’s co-founder and CTO, Jonathan Hurst, and Playground Global’s founding partner, Bruce Leak, joined us to discuss the robotic company’s journey from the lab to the commercial sector — and the role a good VC firm can play in that journey. From lab to launch.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

MARCH 30, 2023

Why You Can’t Raise VC Money Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash Many entrepreneurs have experienced the keen sting of rejection when venture capital firms refuse to invest in or otherwise respond to their exciting new startups. Even the institutions that claimed to invest in “hilariously early” startups fell through.

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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. At Cross Culture Ventures we take a thematic approach to investing that we have coined 'cultural investing' - the impact of the convergence of global popular culture and consumer behavior on technology and innovation.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 7, 2021

Sequoia is one of the most sought-after VC firms in the world, and predictably, it sees plenty of startups competing for its attention. We even took a look at Rec Room’s earliest pitch deck, the seed that ultimately grew into a business that has raised nearly $150 million. Love is the answer. Love is the answer.

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Hunter Walk

MARCH 2, 2023

So, yeah, we’re believers in being accessible and open to founders regardless of whether or not we share an existing network. That’s why I’m participating in SeedChecks , an experience by which you can submit your pitch deck to a group of early stage investors without having to know any of us already.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 17, 2022

One truth is that successfully raising capital from a VC firm is a huge milestone in the life of a startup. Another truth is that VC isn’t right for all companies. In fact, there are significant downsides to raising money from VCs. Before these two day jobs, I was the director of Portfolio at hardware-focused VC fund Bolt.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

It was back in 2019 that we reported on Visionaries Club , a new, Berlin-based, European VC focusing on B2B, founded by Sebastian Pollok and Robert Lacher. Pollok was previously a VC at e.ventures in San Francisco and also founded Amorelie, which exited to Pro7Sat.1 1 Media Group.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

The crew here at TechCrunch has done a lot of writing about making amazing pitch decks over the years, and I figured it was time that I put together a collection of all of it in one handy spot. Are you VC-investable? Before you start pitching. Pitch deck pro tips from a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 17, 2023

Not a scientific sampling, but I noticed that several investors signaled this week on Twitter that they remain interested in talking to founders who are still at the idea stage. If you’re an investor who wants to be included in future columns, email guestcolumns@techcrunch.com with “How to pitch me” in the subject line. Más o menos.

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TechCrunch

MAY 12, 2023

The venture capitalist was at an AI confab last month, but he has not yet made a new AI investment during the current hype cycle. He’s one of many investors who have seen an inflection point take over a sector before, bringing in boatloads of capital, new founders and, at times, speedy and FOMO-driven deals.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

In the scuffle, VCs are turning to scouts to do the legwork, but that has meant being yet another step removed from their founders. I’ve sat at both sides of the table as a founder and a VC, and I understand how difficult it is to get them on the same page. Techstars Equitech Accelerator ) and women founders (e.g.,

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TechCrunch

APRIL 12, 2022

There’s not a lot new under the sun in the world of venture capital — look at 20 VC websites and they’re pretty much all indistinguishable. Yes, they invest in the best teams. The twist is that the fund is help-first, invest-later. The investor gets a deep view into how the founders operate, think and act.

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TechCrunch

MAY 15, 2023

If a VC has experience in a different field, it may not translate well — if at all — to a startup, and advice around certain business decisions could quickly become outdated. There is a growing group of VC funds led by folks who think they might be better suited to back companies because they are currently startup founders themselves.

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David Teten VC

AUGUST 21, 2019

Most founders who are raising capital look first to traditional equity VCs. Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. She was pitching for a pre-seed round of $400k. So what about all of the above statements—things that founders widely hold to be true barriers to fundraising? This isn’t surprising.

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TechCrunch

AUGUST 19, 2022

Essentially, VC is a high-stakes extreme sport in which top players can accumulate startling amounts of wealth and power. But where does all that money actually come from, and how do VCs actually make money? “Once you’re on the VC-fueled treadmill, you can’t easily step back off,” he writes. Walter Thompson.

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