Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

If you want to raise venture capital more easily the advice could be quite practical and counter-intuitive. Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. They often have “dead&# or “tired&# investors who have stranded capital. It is 2010.

venture capital 289

venture capital capital ventures advice 289

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I guess that makes USV, Spark Capital, Foundry Group, Accel, Benchmark, Revolution (along with several others) pretty happy right now. source: Capital IQ. source: Capital IQ. I said, “It’s much easier now than it was in 2008/09.&# Still, market amnesia by ordinarily rational actors always surprises me.

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

So as of 2008 total LP commitments were still at nearly $250 billion. Our current fund was raised in 2008/09.] After all, most people don’t understand that “venture capital is a get rich slowly&# scheme. So companies are running for the first 1-2 years on significantly less capital than they did 10 years ago.

VC 311

VC startup real estate finance 311

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

He’s personally led more than 50 financing rounds. Company plans to use the capital to build out sales and marketing and r&d. -a led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Founded in 2008 in Santa Monica by Ron Goldman (former CRO of shopping.com) and Rahul Sonnad. a fbFund winner.

VC 248

VC incubation ventures capital 248

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 21, 2011

As a Brooklyn native who has never lived outside the five boroughs—and someone who left Big Finance—I feel a special kind of pride over what’s gone on here in the last six+ years. I'm all for people putting $25k to work to try something out--and if it works, having the momentum to raise more capital.

communities 308

communities innovation incubation angel investing 308

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? What happened? And it changed the culture.

VC 466

VC culture sustainability capital 466

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I spent my first year developing proprietary deal flow and learning the business and then the Sept 2008 / Lehman Bros collapse / financial meltdown happened. As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5

VC 387

VC venture capital financing finance 387

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. Remember it was only 2008 where Microsoft and even Google were laying off employees. Many may simply hit the wall.

angel investing 299

angel investing investing investment real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

My thesis on why this is happening is that large tech companies didn’t invest enough in R&D between 2008-2010 (Google even went through layoffs!!!) First Round Capital & True Ventures seem to spend as much time cultivated relationships with “second round capital” as they do entrepreneurs.

angel investing 284

angel investing investment investing VC 284

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

Paul Martino, General Partner at Bullpen Capital. During our recent Dreamit Kickoff week, Bullpen Capital Founder and General Partner Paul Martino ( @ahpah ) spoke with our Spring 2020 cohort about the state of the VC ecosystem in the current economic crisis. Will a financial crisis affect how venture funds deploy capital?

ventures 334

ventures startup capital board 334

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. Often times when companies raise “bridge” financing (this is money from internal investors. 9mm – Investor: Sequoia Capital (Michael Moritz) – Read more: TechCrunch , PaymentsViews. Short answer: no.

VC 285

VC financing finance capital 285

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

There are real changes in the venture capital industry and it would have been fun to talk about them. Dave McClure argued passionately that since the overwhelming majority of exits are sub $100 million we need to readjust how much capital goes in. Or when the economy turns downward and they all need financing extensions?

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 1, 2011

years ago you’d remember RIP Good Times from Sequoia, which still strikes me as having been prudent advice in late 2008. I think that’s the beauty of both capitalism and innovation. I still have to get sales, operations, finance, HR & corp dev right to win. I agreed to finance a company today.

advice 391

advice VC financing finance 391

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2018

It turned out I wasn’t such a great product manager, the technical things we were doing were about two years too early—about to be made orders of magnitude easier by a lot of cloud and big data tools, and, oh, yeah, Lehman went under when I was pitching VCs for money in 2008. Personal finance is a thing that no one likes to talk about.

financing 274

financing finance pitching founder 274

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In my previous post, The VC Ice Age is Thawing (for now) I wrote about the reasons why the VC market came to a screeching halt in September 2008 and remained largely shut until at least April 2009. With First Round Capital, Sequoia and Founders Fund obviously a lot of respected investors think highly of its potential.

VC 255

VC venture capital networking innovation 255

Gust

DECEMBER 13, 2011

Here are the trends in venture capital financings from 2006 through 2010 – the number of seed stage deals funded and total investment by region in millions of dollars. . For VCs, I chose to look at all seed stage VC deals (from MoneyTree©) as well as those in five of the most active regions in the country. All Seed-VC. Silicon Valley.

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

And Mike believes that entrepreneurs often need less capital to get started these days. Venture Financings we Discussed. Spun off from Freewebs in 2008, based in Palo Alto. Current round: $8.5mm Series-C led by Jafco Ventures with DCM , Emergence Capital, and August Capital participating. Total raised: $19mm.

VC 230

VC ventures venture capital capital 230

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Bu when you start to worry that the world is ending (as it seemed it was in late 2008 / early 2009) you tend to get worried about large burn rates. It is no wonder why they had less time for new deals.

VC 263

VC board investing investment 263

TechCrunch

JULY 23, 2021

The company raised $50 million Series C funding led by NewView Capital, with participation from SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund and King River Capital. During the 2008 economic downturn, Almond’s family lost their home. As part of the investment, Jazmin Medina, principal at NewView Capital, will join Paystand’s board.

finance 144

finance financing networking capital 144

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.

venture capital 107

venture capital capital ventures founder 107

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 9, 2022

3) Do you need to raise a large amount of growth capital in 2022? Even “needing” growth capital can be problematic. Growth capital should be the kind of thing you choose to take, not need to take. It was super hard to get any kind of financing before, and it will remain so. You should be all good. Mediocre deals?

VC 243

VC financing finance capital 243

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. You have to be selected to present and it is typically reserved for companies that have already raised early-stage capital and are well into revenue growth. Should you use investment banks to raise venture capital?

VC 242

VC venture capital ventures capital 242

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

We’ve had two companies where we had to bridge finance them several times before they eventually IPO’d We had a portfolio company turn-down a $350 million acquisition because they wanted at least $400 million. Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. It sold to Amazon for > $1 billion.

sustainability 294

sustainability board construction strategy 294

StartupNation

SEPTEMBER 23, 2021

Business financing is often an essential component to any successful business. Whether it’s financing new ways to help reach your current business goals, or accessing extra working capital when you’re in a bind, Rapid Finance can help. Real results. For years, Marita’s Cantina had its ups and downs.

finance 77

finance financing funders capital 77

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Most prefer not to say this publicly for two reasons: 1) they have an entire portfolio of startups, many of whom are raising capital and 2) they prefer not to be attacked publicly or seem “anti entrepreneur.” Many experienced partners are funds have 7-10 boards and most of these will need more capital. This is how VCs feel.

startup 285

startup VC entrepreneurs investing 285

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

Was Paul Graham right in his “high resolution” financing post? A standard entrepreneur retort I heard back then (2008-09) was “I don’t know what my company is worth now. Our convertible note says that it “converts into the next round of capital and into the same security.”

startup 354

startup VC entrepreneurs financing 354

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2011

2007, 2011) and for the hottest of companies and in bad markets for fund raising (2003, 2008) prices test the bottom end of the range. That’s the deal you get when you’re raising in a good market for startup financing. There is no such thing as a uniform price. That’s fine. It’s hard to stop a train.

startup 336

startup advice pitching investing 336

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

My thesis on why this is happening is that large tech companies didn’t invest enough in R&D between 2008-2010 (Google even went through layoffs!!!) First Round Capital & True Ventures seem to spend as much time cultivated relationships with “second round capital” as they do entrepreneurs.

angel investing 152

angel investing investment investing VC 152

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 18, 2009

We commited to getting by on much less capital than was planned. We got their commitment and our existing investors bridged us until the new financing round could close. Ask any entrepreneur who has been through the recent washout that began in September 2008. In the morning I flew home. Stories like these are not rare.

entrepreneurs 298

entrepreneurs advice VC SaaS 298

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 19, 2019

If you’re a bottoms up, product driven, capital efficient business, that operates at a profit, a $2M seed for 10% of the business may be enough to reach that $20M Series A. If you prefer to build a business that consumes more capital either for ramping GTM or developing a more technical product, a $5M seed might be a better bet.

financing 108

financing finance capital innovation 108

Feedough

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

But, still, every startup, especially those seeking angel and venture capital funding, are conditioned to project this growth curve – because investors love it. Usually, entrepreneurs use bootstrapping to finance their expenses. Today, disruption is rather slow-paced. Not every startup see such hockey stick growth.

disruption 111

disruption sustainability entrepreneurs energy 111

TechCrunch

JUNE 24, 2022

Alomar, who led startups through the dotcom bust of 2000 and the Great Recession of 2008, will talk about whether investors are still prioritizing growth over profits, and identify which proof points founding teams must define before their next raise. 3 tips for biotech startups seeking non-dilutive capital to weather the downturn.

angel investing 84

angel investing pitching capital investing 84

TechCrunch

JULY 18, 2022

I lived and invested through the 2008 crisis, and I’ve been trying to share the lessons I learned through that struggle with my portfolio companies, some of which I want to share with you. Remember, if you don’t ask investors for support now, someone else in their portfolio will.

founder 95

founder finance financing ventures 95

TechCrunch

JANUARY 25, 2022

Tribevest founder Travis Smith went on a fishing trip with his brothers in 2008 that he says they couldn’t afford. The brothers had dreams of finding their own financial freedom through investing in real estate, but didn’t have enough individual capital to go into business alone. “On The Tribevest dashboard Image Credits: Tribevest.

collaboration 98

collaboration real estate investing investment 98

TechCrunch

JULY 19, 2022

Everyone loves an underdog, which is why investors and tech journalists are so fond of discussing startups that launched during the Great Recession of 2008, like Airbnb, Uber, WhatsApp, Mailchimp, Square and Venmo. If your company is too nascent to be valued, convertible notes might be a viable way to secure early financing.

pitching 94

pitching venture capital VC finance 94

Entrepreneurs' Organization

SEPTEMBER 18, 2018

A classically trained pastry chef, Christina Tosi spent years in New York City restaurants before founding Milk Bar in 2008. In contrast to her future success in finance, Kelly Peeler’s early start as an entrepreneur began with flipping refurbished furniture at the age of 11. Christina Tosi / Milk Bar. Kelly Peeler / NextGenVest.

entrepreneurs 130

entrepreneurs consulting culture financing 130

TechCrunch

MAY 24, 2022

What is happening to risk-taking in venture capital? As a venture investor, I have invested in over 60 companies, and while many have gone public or been acquired, the journey has included pivots, near-death experiences and navigating through the 2008/2009 downturn. More posts by this contributor. Be creative when tightening the belt.

venture capital 92

venture capital creativity capital ventures 92