Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

This is a story of one of the risks of venture capital. But some companies have entrepreneurs that seem talented on paper, are in a space that seems interesting to investors and are able to raise venture capital early in the company’s existence. Our first big round of venture capital (our A round) was a whopping $16.5

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

But VC is an “illiquid asset&# so funds didn’t disappear quickly - In 2000/01 the stock market quickly adjusted punishing investors in the NASDAQ and in individual public technology stocks. side note: our last fund at GRP Partners is currently ranked as the 5th best performing fund of the year 2000.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Sam Altman of YC recently pointed out that pulling back during the downturn in 2008 would result in several big misses: In October of 2008, Sequoia Capital—arguably the best-ever in the business—gave the famous “RIP Good Times” presentation (I was there). These sound fundamentals drive the venture capital market over the long term.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2013

We have previously raised funds in 1996 ($200 million), 2000 ($400 million) and 2008/9 ($200 million). Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too. I am super excited to announce that today is a day of lots of new things for my partners & me: A new fund, a new office and a new brand.

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ventures venture capital advice VC 343

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Back in 2009, I wrote a post called The Venture Capital Math Problem. In that post, I argued that the venture capital business could not sustain more than $20bn a year of new capital coming into it and continue to produce good returns to the investors in VC funds. link] — Ben Siscovick (@bsiscovick) February 26, 2020.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 199

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 11, 2012

Until you realize that vetting and helping companies is actually really hard--or did you not notice all the news that venture capital as an asset class doesn't beat the market. Who wouldn't want in on the next Union Square Ventures or First Round Capital funds? I certainly would! At least startups have accelerators, incubators, etc.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

We moved into the legal process and final due diligence in January and February of 2000. Our final closure was the first week of March 2000. It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. They accepted my argument. It was December 1999.

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venture capital advice VC real estate 301

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Just as an additional disclosure, these are my thoughts, not that of First Round Capital, my employer. There is an enormous amount of angel capital available, while at the same time there is a small amount of Series A and a large and concentrated amount of late stage capital. To me, there's some seriously flawed thinking here.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. It’s also meaningless if they had four $200 million funds and the last one they closed was in 2000. Unfortunately over the period of 2000-2010 the VC industry hasn’t performed well and therefore the number of funds going forward is likely to reduce greatly.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 3, 2011

Even more interesting is that at GRP Partners (the VC firm where I’m a partner) our two most successful returns from our previous fund [which is ranked as the top performing fund in the country for its 2000 vintage according to Prequin] were both run by women! But then the truth sets in.

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entrepreneurs entrepreneurship VC pitching 341

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Raising Venture Capital. Not so in venture capital. My chips were down in late 2000 / early 2001. I often tell people that raising money is worse than getting married. I have to be careful in how that sounds because I love my wife and am happily married. My story briefly.

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VC advice entrepreneurs venture capital 288

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 12, 2011

This week I sat down with Chris Dixon, co-founder / CEO of Hunch and Partner at Founder Collective in the most recent installment of This Week in Venture Capital. If you like the quick summary notes, please check out Adam’s blog on tech, entrepreneurship & VC as a thank you.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

When you’re running your own venture — especially if it’s your first — it’s unlikely you will find the time to deep dive into how venture capital firms work. So, I’ve decided to share the main lessons about VC that I wish I’d known when I was a startup founder chasing venture capital. But the opposite is also true.

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venture capital capital ventures founder 107

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

I was clueless about startup operations, financing and venture capital, but I didn’t need to be an economist to realize that most of the companies I worked for lacked solid fundamentals. ” What can the 2000 dot-com crash teach us about the 2022 tech downturn? ‘The macroeconomic market is just noise’.

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advice venture capital founder entrepreneurs 95

Tomasz Tunguz

JUNE 5, 2021

What does it mean for venture capital and Startupland? Let’s examine the relationship between total venture capital investment and the 10 year Treasury in some detail. The y-axis tracks enture capital investment by year and the year of the data point resides in the reddish circle. In short, we should expect some cooling.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 142

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 31, 2022

What happened in 2022 is the bottom fell out of the capital markets and the startup and tech sector more broadly. As the capital markets, including crypto/web3, came undone, companies reacted by adjusting their burn rates to reflect that the growth at any cost phase was over and it was time to get on a path to breakeven.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 31, 2010

We raised a seed round of capital in 1999 and our first venture capital round was the first week of March 2000 (e.g. But this was early 2000 and our US competitors had already closed rounds North of $45 million. We had a $40 million round lined up to close in the Autumn of 2000. We were based in London.

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entrepreneurs advice real estate venture capital 308

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 15, 2019

This simple and short blog post by the folks at Correlation Ventures contains the key to venture capital returns – the hit rate. Venture capital returns are highly correlated to a fund’s hit rate. I think that is all about the amount of capital in the business now. More capital means more businesses get funded.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

The framework of his book has profoundly altered how I think about the technology market and affects how I thought about building my businesses and how I think about investing in venture capital. In 1999-2000 they weren’t doing enterprise-wide installations at Merrill Lynch, Dell and Cisco. Enter Salesforce.com.

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incumbents disruption frameworks innovation 376

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

Next Wednesday we’ll have Dana Settle of Greycroft Partners, a New York / LA early-stage venture capital fund. Invidi is based in New York and founded in 2000. 9mm – Investor: Sequoia Capital (Michael Moritz) – Read more: TechCrunch , PaymentsViews. Rumored to be appox. Founded in 2006 by Aaron Finn.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 8, 2011

I'd say just about everyone in my LinkedIn network , all 2000 of them, are people who I've at least had the equivilant of a 1:1 lunch with. I like to think about who the most influential and accomplished people will be in the NYC innovation community in ten years, because I plan on having a long and productive venture capital career.

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networking media communities innovation 302

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I know that most people who are close to them tend to deny their existence, as we saw in the great housing bubble of 2002-2007 and the dot com bubble of 1997-2000. I guess that makes USV, Spark Capital, Foundry Group, Accel, Benchmark, Revolution (along with several others) pretty happy right now. source: Capital IQ.

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real estate entrepreneurs finance financing 309

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 20, 2010

I never would have paid for music back in 1999 or 2000 when I was sporting my 64mb Creative Nomad, powered completely ilegally by Napster. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology. Remember when they said that people wouldn't pay for music? Because it was a tremendous pain in the ass.

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venture capital creativity sustainability capital 353

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. A huge thank you to all of the Limited Partners who have entrusted us with your capital, time and reputations. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

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ventures venture capital VC capital 287

Tomasz Tunguz

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

Amy Cortese published “Venture Capital, Withering & Dying” in the New York Times on Oct 21, 2001. So far this year, 29 venture-backed companies have tried initial offerings, compared with 252 in 2000. Venture capital funds lost 18.2 In Venture capital investment pace has slowed.

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venture capital capital ventures investing 84

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

Coupled with my participating preferred from 1999 and 2000 I had more than $55 million of liquidation preferences. Otherwise, what incentive exists for the VC to put in more capital or to have the founders earn money. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice VC Industry startup technology vc venture capital.

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founder VC advice pitching 329

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

What a pleasure that I got to spend an hour talking with both Om Malik (whom I’ve always respected his views) and Paul Jozefak , a venture capital partner at Neuhaus Partners in Germany (and formerly the head of Europe for SAP Ventures). Founded in 2000 in New Brunswick, NJ. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 21, 2011

If there’s a jobs startup within 2000 miles of NYC, I will see it. There’s nothing more demoralizing to try and change the face of human capital to have to sell a job post when you know it doesn’t work. Everyone sends me startups in this space because of my experience with Path 101 and my passion for helping people with their careers.

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innovation technology capital entrepreneurs 292

TechCrunch

APRIL 5, 2023

Lux Capital, known for investing in life science and frontier tech startups, is back in the market to fundraise for its latest vehicle — but this time without a dedicated late-stage entity. The firm was founded in 2000 and has raised $4 billion across nine previous funds. million to the fund. million to the fund.

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opportunity capital strategy investing 99

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2010

And so it happened that between 2000-2008 I was the biggest buzz kill at dinner parties. They have marked-up paper gains propped up by an over excited venture capital market that has validated their investments. Bad times often require more capital but ironically this is when capital is dried up.

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angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

I recently read a blog post by Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Ventures about why entrepreneurs should care about from whom their VC funds raise their capital. Stable Capital Amongst the hardest things to find when one raises a new fund is ability to have stable capital. We lived that first hand.

entrepreneurs 237

entrepreneurs VC mentorship strategy 237

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

We both are concerned about non-traditional capital entering the late stages and the impact that may have in the next downturn in the economy to the startups who merely trying to optimize for short-term valuation maximization.

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VC SaaS strategy ventures 309

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 12, 2010

Deals are getting done with a lot less capital which is creating a healthy debate in the industry. Retail investors were burned in IPOs in 2000, Consumers getting burned by services disappearing) Minutes 31-35. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. .&# It’s self selecting. Minutes 8 – 10. Minutes 36- 38. Minutes 41-56.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 5, 2011

Look more modern than our previous website, which had a very 2000 feel to it. I wanted to be whimsical and have a blog as cool as Spark Capital. Anything that works well was her implementation. I did anything that seems kludged – I assure you. Demonstrate the deep relationships we have with the CEO’s with whom we work.

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real estate investing investment entrepreneurs 260

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

They never did any PR or marketing to get their videos to first get shown on the news during the 2000 election. All viral adoption starts with one thing – great content. That’s what JibJab focused on. They did a rap battle between Bush & Gore – I tracked it down. I hadn’t seen this before.

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mix-use VC advice creativity 303

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 29, 2016

You're still a wonderful person, I'm sure, but your idea or company could be one that is disproportionately unlikely to return investor capital in multiples given the risk. Well, my own statistics are that about 2000 things come across my desk in a year, and I make 8-10 investments. Getting an investment is very difficult thing.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

So in 2011 as a startup company if you can generate lots of demand you can definitely raise an A round of capital (say $3 million) at a $7 or 8 million pre-money valuation or slightly higher whereas just two years ago you would have struggled. It was early 2000. That’s fine. I raised my A round at a $31.5 That was market.

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