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). A few months later, we funded Airbnb.

startup 419

startup venture capital disruption sustainability 419

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 12, 2010

We had a special edition of This Week in Venture Capital this week shooting out of the Next New Networks offices in New York. Our guest was Mo Koyfman of Spark Capital. The Spark Capital website (it’s one of my favorites). Founded in 2008 by Mehdi Maghsoodnia. Content, of course, is the same!]. Total raised: $16.0mm.

VC 217

VC capital venture capital networking 217

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. million pre-money valuation is now raising $1 million at a $12 million valuation the next investor has nowhere to go but up (or sit out the investment). source: Capital IQ. source: Capital IQ.

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 16, 2010

The VC industry grew dramatically as a result of the Internet bubble - Before the Internet bubble the people who invested in VC funds (called LPs or Limited Partners) put about $50 billion into the industry and by 2001 this had grown precipitously to around $250 billion. So as of 2008 total LP commitments were still at nearly $250 billion.

VC 311

VC startup real estate finance 311

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

Well, they did ask David Chao of Doll Capital, who said that the " frothy bubble is over ". The last closed market we had was from about September 2008 until June 2009--10 months. We're seeing, for the first time, investment and some disruption in huge areas like education, food, healthcare, government and even hardware based startups.

ventures 301

ventures venture capital disruption pitching 301

Dream It

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Via TechCrunch by Arman Tabatabai: Venture capital has been flooding the various subverticals under the robotics umbrella in recent years, and the construction space is one of the largest beneficiaries. Matt Murphy and Grace Ge, Menlo Ventures Which trends are you most excited about in construction robotics from an investing perspective?

construction 259

construction investing investment opportunity 259

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. Like many modern VCs, we’re committed to investing in the community and in our portfolio companies. What’s up with that?

ventures 343

ventures venture capital advice VC 343

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 21, 2011

But I am also someone who is very colored by my past experience of seeing the venture implosion after the first bubble and walking through the fundraising tumbleweed of late 2008. I'm all for people putting $25k to work to try something out--and if it works, having the momentum to raise more capital. Angels: Focus and pace.

communities 308

communities innovation incubation angel investing 308

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 1, 2011

Investments in innovation can often have unforeseen positive ripple effects. Back at the end of 2008, when the economy was in the tank, and funding was tough to come by, NYC Seed, a small local fund with some government and local academic backing supported my startup, Path 101.

pitching 267

pitching support finance financing 267

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 23, 2014

There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry. The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like). 15 years ago we were at the peak of Internet hype with the launch of many over-capitalized businesses with a market size & opportunity was limited.

VC 398

VC venture capital peer-to-peer ventures 398

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 6, 2013

In fact, much of the groundwork of the NYC tech community''s growth came before the late 2008 economic crash--when the city started paying attention to the tech community as the economic savior poster child. City money didn''t spur on the massive venture capital investments that have been made by the private sector.

education 303

education venture capital communities ventures 303

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

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 27, 2021

Our 2008 vintage early-stage fund has generated about 5x cash on cash but only generated a 22.5% Our Opportunity Funds invest in the later stage rounds of our top-performing portfolio companies plus a few later-stage investments in companies that are new to USV. cash on cash but generated a 58.6% cash on cash but only 46.7%

opportunity 279

opportunity venture capital strategy investing 279

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I’d rather be Roger Ehrenberg with a thesis around data-centric companies and base my investment decisions on my background. I should say that I agree that naive optimism in entrepreneurs can produce higher beta (upside or flops) and that’s good from an investment standpoint if you’re looking for big returns.

angel investing 152

angel investing investment investing VC 152

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 11, 2014

I''m super proud of Rob, Ben and the whole Backupify team--and this is particularly special for me because Backupify was the first investment I ever made as a VC, and the first board I ever sat on. Rob messed around with some local video thing in 2008, which everyone but Rob thought was a pretty terrible idea.

board 262

board venture capital creativity entrepreneurship 262

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

We’ve been dying to tell you all for a while that we had raised a new venture capital fund and of course given SEC filing requirements the story was somewhat already scooped by the always-in-the-know Dan Primack a few weeks ago. Our last fund we raised was in 2012 and we began investing it in April of 2012.

ventures 396

ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

Tomasz Tunguz

MAY 2, 2022

When I asked him what he meant, he replied because capital was so plentiful and accessible today, he hired more expensive people, spent more time developing a product, and invested with a longer time horizon before demonstrating evidence of success. Capital availability on the x-axis and evidence on the y-axis to illustrate his point.

capital 143

capital real estate enablement development 143

Tomasz Tunguz

AUGUST 6, 2023

What will a venture capital turnaround feel like? In 2008, I had just become a venture capitalist. With 15 years’ perspective, I plotted the QQQ (Nasdaq) value against venture Investing activity & venture Exits activity (all log normalized). for QQQ/Investing & 0.93 Will it be gradual or sudden?

venture capital 92

venture capital ventures capital support 92

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 have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months.

VC 387

VC venture capital ventures financing 387

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

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. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. a fbFund winner. Current round: $4.

VC 248

VC incubation ventures capital 248

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 1, 2016

At the Upfront Summit in early February, we had a chance to have many off-the-record conversations with Limited Partners (LPs) who fund Venture Capital (VC) funds about their views of the market. However, they have been sending VCs far more investment checks in the last ten years than they’ve gotten back as distributions.

venture capital 205

venture capital capital ventures VC 205

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. But there are many zombie VC’s with no more investments left in their portfolios so it’s hard to know which trend has more impact.

VC 255

VC venture capital networking innovation 255

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

I can't take credit for this meme, even though I've already invested in it.twice. The seminal application of the collaborative web--Github--was launched in April 2008. Once with Docracy, once with a super cool company launching in the first quarter of 2013.). It's a web where 1+1 really does equal more than 2.

collaboration 351

collaboration media SaaS VC 351

Tomasz Tunguz

JULY 4, 2020

We reviewed the data in May and compared it to the effects of the financial crisis in 2008 on startup fundraising. As a reminder, 2008 saw a 40% reduction in venture dollars invested in startups. These corrections match 2008. The amount of available dollars to invest is high. The fundraising market is contracting.

collaboration 145

collaboration accelerator capital investing 145

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

I’ve seen friends (and family members) lose much of their savings that way over the years because “Black Swans” happen and in 1987, 2001, 2003 & 2008 (just to name a few from my memory) huge market gyrations caused much financial distress to people seeking short-term gains. So, too, investments.

finance 344

finance financing ventures real estate 344

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

In the first post in this three part series I described why I believe the VC market froze between September 2008 – April 2009. This has a tangible impact on the valuation of start-ups and the pace of investment. If Stanford has to cut back on VC investing, you can imagine how bad it is getting.

VC 269

VC startup advice innovation 269

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2024

As we enter 2024, the capital markets have found their footing and are moving higher. That is good news for the innovation economy because healthy capital markets are a necessary support system. However, optimistic capital markets are necessary but not sufficient for a healthy innovation economy. But it eventually gets it.

energy 236

energy venture capital innovation capital 236

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 3, 2010

This was really a fun week at TWiVC because we decided to have an entrepreneur come and talk about raising capital rather than having a VC come on. Raised angel money from Rob Lord, Reid Hoffman, Benchmark Capital and others. And the broader question of whether VC’s will continue to invest in the Twitter ecosystem.

VC 214

VC founder advice ventures 214

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. The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. If you invest it in startups you’re a VC professional money manager.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs financing 308

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

When venture capitalists scale back investing activities it can be very swift and leave many companies that are in the process of fund raising hung out to dry. But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. Why did the VC markets freeze so quickly?

VC 263

VC board investing investment 263

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. . VCs in NYC invested, on average, only $2.4 US Angel Investment – All Regions. Investment. All Seed-VC. Silicon Valley. New England.

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2010

Our guest this week on #TWiVC was Dana Settle , partner at Greycroft Partners , a venture capital firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Founded in August 2008 in Palo Alto, CA, by Sam Christiansen and Keith Lee. Jelli - I went on record saying that I wanted to invest and that I think this company will create a big success.

VC 240

VC peer-to-peer advice ventures 240

TechCrunch

MARCH 30, 2021

Finch Capital , the early-stage fintech VC with a presence in London and Amsterdam, is acquiring Wirecard Turkey, a subsidiary of Wirecard, the disgraced fintech out of Germany. Finch’s managing partner Radboud Vlaar tells me Noma Pay’s larger plan is to invest in payments infrastructure in Turkey and the Middle East region.

capital 98

capital leadership VC accelerator 98

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

Since then Mike his built his career by investing in early-stage companies (seed or series A), which is remarkable given that Polaris Ventures is a $1 billion fund. Simple: according to Mike Polaris has followed on nearly every seed investment that they’ve done. Spun off from Freewebs in 2008, based in Palo Alto.

VC 230

VC ventures venture capital capital 230

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Clearstone currently invests out of a $200 million fund based in LA with offices in Menlo Park and in India. Segment One: Jim’s background and Clearstone’s investment strategy. We also talked about Elevation Partners who invested in Palm and how this deal really salvaged their investment, which was a VERY big bet on Palm.

VC 236

VC venture capital ventures support 236

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). DST invested $180mm last fall. To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link.

VC 225

VC social gaming venture capital networking 225