Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

I’ve become fond of saying “if I had a dollar for every person who told me just how much they loooooved Kara Nortman, I’d have a 10x fund.” Our industry needs more female leaders and they shouldn’t have to all quit their respective firms and raise their own funds to get a shot at running things. And that Greg Bettinelli chap?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

You can read it in VCs discussions about hedge fund managers, activist investors or the need to have dual-share voting structures. Today I called it, “our own little VC led, portfolio-by-portfolio company version of RIP Good Times from 7 years ago.” I put up this slide as part of my discussion.

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Revolution

AUGUST 2, 2022

What we did: Rise of the Rest Managing Partner, David Hall , and Revolution Ventures Managing Partner, Tige Savage , landed in the Space City for a fireside chat with HX Venture Fund on Revolution’s investment thesis, industry trends, and how Houston fits into the entrepreneurial equation. with more than a few Foxtrot pit stops in between.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Considering that many of our funds are in the $200–300 million range, these returns were more meaningful than if we had raised billion dollar funds. Obviously the funding environment has changed considerably in 2022 but as early-stage investors our daily jobs stay largely unchanged. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

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This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 7, 2015

Who is actually building a portfolio whose founders reflect the diversity of the greater population? I went back and calculated the number of companies in the first Brooklyn Bridge Ventures portfolio who have at least one founder who is female, from an underrepresented minority group, or LGBT. Not directly, anyway. And does it work?

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 14, 2014

Last week, there was a Business Insider article measuring the percent of female founded companies that NYC seed funds invest in. So, clearly, I''m making some kind of a portfolio-wide bet there, right? Take the most widely used number--that way fewer women are getting venture funding than guys. That, statistically, is true.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 30, 2025

Engaging an audience and building a following is a bit of an entrepreneurship rainy day fund. One of my portfolio companies, Esembly , runs a Cloth Diapering 101 class that nets them more conversions via follow up e-mails than traditional advertising directly to the site gets them. The thing weve been building.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2014

First, I''ve finished raising the first Brooklyn Bridge Ventures fund--tallying $8.3 One of the reasons why I''m announcing at all is because I realized that it had been a while since I said anything about the progress of the fund--and if you''re an industry person, you might have started wondering. I''m announcing two things today.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

On the positive side, funding happens so rarely, that you’re inevitably going to be asked how you did it—and it’s just human nature to think that it’s something you did, versus the inherent awesomeness of the idea, the team’s relevance to the challenge, etc. It’s not me, it’s them. What counts as a rabbit?

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

.” The reason is that at a VC you have a group of partners who often have different focus areas of excellence, each pursues deals in their respective field, each makes investments and sits on boards and each spends their most difficult hours tackling problems at portfolio companies vs. solving the challenges at the VC itself.

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Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

Strategics in this space typically have a portfolio of hard assets (i.e., buildings) and are more interested in improving the portfolio’s underlying performance through revenue maximization or cost reduction. But this is a slippery slope as portfolio companies feel pressured to put on a dog and pony show for every LP.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

On Funding?—?Shots When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.” billion When Ring started, even the folks at Shark Tank wouldn’t fund it. Being too early is the same as being wrong. We do other things, too.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 18, 2021

We have identified a number of areas where we must do better: Increase the number of Black founders we back Increase the number of Black team members at USV Increase the number of Black VCs we work with and support Increase the number of Black board members in our portfolio Increase the number of Black leaders in our portfolio Increase the number of (..)

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 13, 2020

Our portfolio company Numerai , which operates the crowdsourced Numerai Hedge Fund and is the creator of the Numeraire crypto token introduced their latest effort, Numerai Signals , with this video yesterday: USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Oct 10, 2020 Innovation Upends Extrapolation: Urbanization.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 23, 2021

I realized a long time ago that the VC’s customer is the founder/CEO/portfolio company and that our investors (called LPs in VC speak) are our “shareholders” That was a very defining moment for me and has clarified what matters the most in a VC firm. 2/ We regularly provide our LPs with a lot of information on our portfolio.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 13, 2019

Not only that, we have other portfolio companies to worry about. So, the extent to which any one VC would be openly critical of another’s portfolio company or the investors behind it is limited by the fact that you’ve got other companies that need their late round money.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 10, 2015

I recently met up with an investor who I'm not totally sure is a fit for my second fund , so it was important to me that I was upfront about all the reasons why he shouldn't come in. So here's all the reasons I told him he shouldn't be in: 1) Fund investing is boring. Being in a fund is not the same thing as angel investing.

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Dream It

JANUARY 13, 2021

We talk to companies all the time that don’t know we’re a sector-specific fund. Alana suggests that before speaking to an associate, you gain a basic understanding of the fund’s focus and stages they invest in. Looking at their portfolio companies will give you a good idea of whether or not your company will be a fit for their fund.

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Dream It

JULY 31, 2019

We didn't have a live product, but we had an insane buzz around us, with a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign and 'The Next Angry Birds' quote from Techcrunch. We spent most of that summer developing the product while carving out time to meet investors and try to raise funding. It did for me, at least.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

The basic components are obvious: talented founders, great engineers, angel money, venture capital, access to larger corporates (for business, funding & talent), great education / research (for IP breakthroughs) and a sufficient ecosystem of mentors, advisors, executive coaches and mavens. million under management across three funds.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most are sitting on large portfolios of private companies that are raising money now or will need to do so in the future and they know that they’re up against some headwinds. I’ll spare you the math and point out that this means we funded 0.104% of the market. I better roll up my sleeves and help my companies get funded.”

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

For starters we’re an LA-based venture fund who invests nationally (and sometimes internationally, but less so). Many people say it doesn’t pay to be an associate or principal at a venture fund because so few VCs promote up to partner ranks from within. And the contractions always come back.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

SPACs have been around for at least thirty years and I have always thought of them as a “liquidity path of last resort” for our portfolio companies. Our very best portfolio companies would be offered an opportunity to go public by the top investment banks on wall street. On the left has come direct listings.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are too many deals to look at, too many seed funds or angels asking you to look at deals and weekly “demo days” with manicured and monocultural presentations crafted by experienced story tellers to help even the mundane idea sound like it will. For investors life is no different. Year in, year out.

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American Entrepreneurship

APRIL 24, 2025

Seattle-based Omnidian has raised over $87 million in a major funding round that is poised to redefine the post-installation landscape for renewable energy systems. The post Omnidian Gains $87M in Funding to Revolutionize Renewable Energy Investment appeared first on American Entrepreneurship Today.

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Dream It

APRIL 7, 2020

The venture fund launched a completely virtual program with a focus on helping 13 Urbantech, Healthtech, and Securetech startups with business development, customer growth, and capital raising in a time of economic uncertainty. View Dreamit’s full portfolio here.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. As you can see below the number of seed funds shot up dramatically between 2006 and 2014. It’s very noticeable in terms of funds raised, dollars invested and deals completed.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. When Fred Wilson funded Twitter I guarantee you it wasn’t obvious that it was a billion dollar idea. Venture Capital is a tricky industry. Far from it.

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funders culture incumbents technology 362

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

That's because, for the most part, fund investors fall into two categories: institutions and individuals. You've decided to spread that across Z funds and you hope your portfolio meets some threshold. As most sub $25mm funds are stepping stones to something larger, you're kind of a stepping stone.

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This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

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. You could argue that the recent companies are too early, so I''ll take that challenge and compare it with my own portfolio. YC''s best investing days may be behind it.

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Dream It

MARCH 20, 2020

NarrativeDX ( Healthtech - Fall 2014 ) is the latest win for the Dreamit portfolio. This comes on the heels of NarrativeDX’s recent funding round just one year ago last February. Today, the company announced that it is being acquired by health care performance improvement pioneer Press Ganey.

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Revolution

MARCH 26, 2025

Companies in our portfolio are tackling supply chain and logistic challenges, making healthy food options more widely available, innovating in the retail and consumer space, disrupting the healthcare system, leading the way in digital sports and entertainment, and more. Based in Washington, D.C., These are great stories.

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American Entrepreneurship

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

She raised the company’s largest round of funding to date and received accolades from customers and awards such as TIME Best Inventions and BeautyMatter NEXT. With its robust global patent portfolio and the support of notable beauty and venture capital investors, its reach is global. That caught the ready support of investors.

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innovation collaboration entrepreneurship leadership 98

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

That believe has not only translated into the most diverse portfolio run by an investor who looks like me, with over 50% of the teams including diverse founders, but also into top quartile returns in our last fund. Venture is all about access—getting the best deals. Contact me here to find out more about this.)

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

I would argue that a portfolio of making bets that late stage, but still unprofitable companies like WeWork are going to be worth X billion dollars and buying in at a huge valuation is way riskier than buying a basket of promising early stage companies at single digit millions of dollars in valuation.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

On Funding?—?The The Denominator Effect I recently wrote a post about funding for investors to think about having a diversified portfolio , which I called “shots on goal.” If you funded 30–40 deals perhaps just 1 or 2 would drive the lion’s shares of returns. Photo credit: Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash On Funding?—?The

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