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How Much Should You Raise in Your VC Round? And What is a VC Looking at in Your Model?

Both Sides of the Table

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. It goes something like this … VC: “How much money are you raising?” Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” A VC is looking for reasonableness.

VC 247
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The BS List - We Don't Like This Space (No. 52)

This is going to be BIG.

Ask specifically what terrible things about startups in this space the VC is trying to avoid. Is it too hard to unseat entrenched incumbents? Either VCs can identify a very specific, unassailable issue of specific risk they don’t believe the return is there for, or they’re just being lazy.

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Venture capital funding may have slowed, but VC firms have no problems raising new funds

TechCrunch

With a large population, Pakistan is geographically smaller, well-connected with fewer provinces, has lower regulatory barriers and doesn’t have strong incumbents,” Khurshid, who is originally from Pakistan, said via email. This allows Pakistani startups to scale faster throughout the country and expand into other markets.”.

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Build a company, not a feature

TechCrunch

It’s rarer still that companies built on a feature make for VC-investable companies with the potential for VC-scale returns. Startups often fall into the trap of writing off incumbents as too big to act, too clueless to know what customers want and too incompetent to deliver good products.

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Equity Monday: HungryPanda raises $70M, trade tensions, and cross-border VC

TechCrunch

Namely, the business of VC and startups. That should be good news for payments processors incumbent and startup, as well as other ecommerce businesses, again large, small, and even platform-focused. Right, now through the first of America’s national Q4 feast days, it’s time to get back to business.

VC 77
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The Opening

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

So the existing incumbents are the defensive line. And they are not taking on any of the incumbents directly. It is also hard to take on the existing social nets. Why would someone with a million followers on Instagram or TikTok or Twitter leave those behind for a new social net? They look impenetrable. Until they aren’t.

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Extra Crunch roundup: Edtech VC survey, 5 founder mistakes, fintech liquidity, more

TechCrunch

Some readers say they use our surveys to study up on an individual VC before pitching them, so let us know which format you prefer. 10 VCs say interactivity, regulation and independent creators will reshape digital media in 2021. Does a $27 billion or $29 billion valuation make sense for Databricks?

VC 107