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.

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2012

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. In 2008, people weren't sure if we were heading into a complete financial collapse.

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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). But it still takes VC to scale a business (thus large capital into industry winners like Uber, Airbnb, SnapChat, etc).

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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.

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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). Perhaps the biggest piece of new news is that after 17 years of operations we’ve changed our name from GRP Partners to Upfront Ventures. Well, the venture capital industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years … and we have too.

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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.

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ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

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 for QQQ/Exits.

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venture capital ventures capital support 92

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.

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board venture capital creativity entrepreneurship 262

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. One of the most common areas of attention respondents highlighted were startups focused on construction and manufacturing.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

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). Just because the valuation in absolute terms isn’t a big difference does not mean that people aren’t paying higher than intrinsic value for these investments.

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real estate entrepreneurs financing finance 309

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 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.

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VC venture capital ventures financing 387

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%

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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.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Andy Areitio is a partner at the early-stage fund TheVentureCity , a new venture and acceleration model that helps diverse founders achieve global impact. 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.

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venture capital capital ventures founder 107

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.

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VC venture capital networking innovation 255

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. And what we think about Sequoia’s website , First Round Capital’s and True Ventures (we both like to copy stuff from True). Read more: MediaWeek.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2024

Trillions of dollars are being invested in the AI sector and that will continue for as far as this eye can see. Satoshi gave us the playbook to build a decentralized internet stack back in 2008 and I feel quite confident that we will have massive mainstream applications running on this decentralized stack well before 2028.

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energy venture capital innovation capital 236

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

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. Investing much of new cash to build presence in Android platform. Current round: $4. Total raised: $6.0mm.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

It quickly became impossible to raise venture capital. History repeated itself in September 2008 with that market crash. It isn’t even a story about raising venture capital or M&A. If it’s a biz deal you might care about IP protection, revenue share, investment commitments to joint marketing – whatever.

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venture capital advice VC real estate 301

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.

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collaboration media SaaS VC 351

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.

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financing finance ventures real estate 344

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). Paul discussed his perspective having been at SAP Ventures.

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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.

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entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

If you read this blog often you'll know that I'm a huge fan of First Round Capital. They have totally changed the way you run a VC firm, investing heavily in systems & events for their founders that are pushing the boundaries of the way our industry works. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5 Investing Strategy.

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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.

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Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

Martino founded Bullpen in 2010 with a focus on post-seed, pre-Series A startups, and he led the fund’s investments in companies like FanDuel, Namely, Ipsy, SpotHero, Classy, and Airmap. This geographic distinction is now less about actual geography and more about mentality and style of investing of these types of firms.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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VC ventures venture capital capital 230

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2012

I told him that our market was absolutely booming and was worthy of a commensurate investment. Not that I’ll take credit for what I’m about to announce, but I knew that if somebody could commit to building out LA and making the investments required to kick ass in this market it would be Cooley. Invest they have.

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VC communities investing investment 299

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

In short: Access to great deals, ability to be invited to invest in these deals, ability to see where value in a market will be created and the luck to back the right team with the right market at the right time all matter. So if you truly want to be great at investing you need all the right skills and access AND a diversified portfolio.

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sustainability board construction strategy 294

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

This episode of This Week in Venture Capital featured Michael Montgomery, president of Montgomery & Co. If you don’t know Montgomery & Co it is one of the premier technology & media focused investment banks in the country (and as Michael corrected me they also have a strong Healthcare / Med tech practice).

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

On a panel that I sat on with Ron in LA in 2008 he stated that there were no circumstances in which the founder should take money off of the table. We could do more in 2010 with more VC investment; the doubling assumes only ratable increase in marketing spend to achieve profitability. I believe this is wrong. Tweet This Post Facebook.

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founder VC advice pitching 329

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. Current round: $11mm in Series B by Accel (lead), Khosla Ventures, Trilogy Partnership.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

This is part of my series on Understanding Venture Capital. VC’s don’t invest 100% of their own money. They raise money from institutions who want to have some allocation of their investment dollars in a category known as “alternatives,&# which is supposed to mean higher risk, higher returns.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on Understanding Venture Capital. I recently wrote a blog post on understanding how the size and age of a venture capital fund might affect you when you’re raising money. invested in the seed round they have more inside knowledge than I do. And they don’t.

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