Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

One of things I’ve loved the most about doing now 11 weeks of This Week in VC is a chance to have an hour-long recorded conversation with investors. And in my interviews with many VCs I feel that people can watch these and get to know the VC’s as human beings a bit better. So how did Mike get into VC?

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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. In particular I tried to do most of the “entrepreneur advice on VC” up front so that if you don’t want to watch our views on the deals you don’t have to. OTHER DEALS: 1.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 2, 2010

I’m writing this series because if you better understand how VC firms work you can better target which firms make sense for you to speak with. It in not uncommon to see a VC talk about “total assets under management&# as in “We have $1.5 What is a VC fund? VC’s don’t invest 100% of their own money.

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

Founded in 2008 in Santa Monica by Ron Goldman (former CRO of shopping.com) and Rahul Sonnad. Incubated by Clearstone Ventures in 2008. Current round: $4. led by Altos Ventures and Maverick Capital, with Larry Braitman. Total raised: $6.0mm. See: TechCrunch.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2010

Because it is a “series&# I plan to get into some of the deeper complexities of funds such as “cross over funds&# and “why VC’s hate to price their own deals&# at a later stage. First, if the VC does 15-20 of these under one partner then it is certain he can’t spend any time with these investments.

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VC venture capital entrepreneurs investment 265

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2010

To see the video of This Week in VC click on this link. We spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about industry trends (in this order): The history and background of True Ventures, one of my favorite early-stage VC’s (and the one with whom Om is a venture partner). This is astounding and myopic in my view.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2010

It’s always fun chatting with Jason because he’s knowledgeable about the market, quick on topics and pushes me to talk more about VC / entrepreneur issues. The following was available: “I kept hearing about startups that raised VC funding, but which hadn’t filed Form Ds (nor issued a press release).

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

It was especially fun for me because we got the chance to talk about the VC industry and how entrepreneurs should think about the VC industry in addition to discussing deals. Segment Three: “VC Deals Funded this Week”. Segment Four, “VC Discussion – How Should Entrepreneurs Think about ‘Strategic’ Investors?”.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 21, 2009

They do around 7% of the total VC-backed deals in the US per year or just under 40 deals / year on average (present year excluded!). Where I add commentary from myself or my fellow VC colleagues from our discussion after Jamie left I’ll put in red. They have data from surveys they did with corporate development officers (e.g.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

This is where VC comes in and why it’s needed in the industry no matter how much populist sentiment exists against the VC industry. got picked up early without raising a lot of VC. That is why I find it curious when angels start shouting that VC’s are dinosaurs, evil, money-grubbing and non-value-add.

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angel investing investment investing VC 284

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Between 2006–2008 I sold both companies that I had started and became a VC. SEEING THINGS FROM THE VC SIDE OF THE TABLE While I was a VC in 2007 & 2008 those were dead years because the market again evaporated due the the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We’re still trying to find our sober equilibrium.

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VC culture sustainability capital 466

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

I can’t help feel a bit of rear-view mirror analysis in all of “VC model is broken” bears in our industry. To really assess what opportunities the VC industry has over the next decade, one needs to first look at some of the root causes of poor returns in the past decade. The number of venture capital funds has shrunk by two-thirds.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 347

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

This is part of my ongoing series “ Start Up Advice &# but I’d really like to call this post, “VC Advice.&#. 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. VC’s who don’t get this are naive.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

I spoke at Michael Kim’s excellent annual Cendana VC/LP conference today. You can read it in VCs discussions about hedge fund managers, activist investors or the need to have dual-share voting structures. Today I called it, “our own little VC led, portfolio-by-portfolio company version of RIP Good Times from 7 years ago.”

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VC capital culture venture capital 392

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). If you’ve been following the press about VC funds you’ll know this is no small feat. Let’s start with the fund. This month we closed our 4th fund of $200 million.

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ventures venture capital advice VC 343

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. Remember it was only 2008 where Microsoft and even Google were laying off employees. I saw VCs doing crazy things in 2007-08 when I first entered the VC market – crazy prices, limited due diligence, large funding rounds.

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angel investing investment investing real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 16, 2014

The speaks to the continued confidence in the venture capital markets and as I had predicted some time ago the VC markets right now are a great place to invest – especially relative to other places to put one’s money. If you want to understand how the VC industry is changing there is a great primer in the link.

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ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 10, 2010

The importance of the conference is that it assembles most of the top privately held early-to-mid-stage technology companies in the country (and some globally) as well as most VC’s, growth equity funds and corporate development departments from large industry players looking at technology acquisitions. Revenue of ~$160mm in 2008.

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VC venture capital ventures capital 242

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

In fact, one could say that the sagging stock price of Facebook and stories about lack of VC funding for consumer startups represents , in one microcosm, the story of Web 2.0: The seminal application of the collaborative web--Github--was launched in April 2008. 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

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. The VC industry is segmenting – I have spoken about this many times before. The VC industry has different segments in it that have different fund sizes, different investment amounts and different risk / return expectations. It’s just not a VC investment.

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disruption VC entrepreneurs finance 308

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

Now that he’s become a VC he’s promising me he’ll provide way more public information and discourse so please welcome him by following him on Twitter and better yet welcoming him with a Tweet of your own linking to his Twitter handle or this post. I’ve known Hamet for 5 years. I stayed close. And he followed through.

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 9, 2016

In 2008, I tried to fundraise for my startup the week that Lehman Brothers went under. Basically, VCs told us that they were going to wait and see how the election turned out--and things didn't really thaw out until the following September. Extreme uncertainty slows the VC market to a crawl--that's what I learned.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2012

I had this ethical dilemma pop up on one of the first deals I even did as a VC. I had been looking around at several deals in late 2008 as the markets were tanking. ” I was learning which VCs I wanted to work with, what stage & check size I wanted to commit do and what teams would be a good fit for me. .”

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VC finance financing investment 356

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

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. “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. years ago.

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VC venture capital financing finance 387

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 25, 2013

But VC is like congress. As you can see from the chart their data suggests there are about $25 billion of VC distributions per year in the US. According to FLAG Capital there are 100 active VCs (as defined by making at least $1 million in VC per quarter for 4 consecutive quarters). Their data looks at tech VCs.

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VC peer-to-peer entrepreneurs investment 374

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. Watch the market closely.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I spoke about how Amazon Web Services deserves far more credit for the last 5 years of innovation than it gets credit for and how I believe they spawned the micro-VC category. I said that I felt that Micro-VCs were the most important change in our industry. It is great for entrepreneurs and great for VCs. I believe that.

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real estate entrepreneurs finance financing 309

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% That explains why our 2010 Opportunity Fund has a lower cash on cash return but a much higher IRR than our 2008 early-stage fund. Three of our most mature funds showcase how these numbers can behave differently.

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Gust

DECEMBER 13, 2011

I’ve recently taken a look at seed stage funding by venture capitalists (VCs) and angel investors over the past five years. 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. VCs in NYC invested, on average, only $2.4

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entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Many deals – VC or otherwise – didn’t close. History repeated itself in September 2008 with that market crash. VC, sales, biz dev, M&A or otherwise. Especially in VC. Many deals – VC or otherwise – didn’t ever close. History repeated itself in September 2008 with that market crash. Any deal. Any deal.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 18, 2017

Recently the firms two founding partners (and also Managing Partners) —  Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham  — decided to transition management of the firm to Andy Weissman (who joined in 2012) and Albert Wenger (joined in 2008 and writes one of the most thoughtful blogs in our industry ). Maybe that’s USV, too.

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leadership VC venture capital ventures 161

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 17, 2014

In 2008, I went to breakfast with Hilary Mason while I was down there. I can''t guarantee you''ll sell something, win VC dollars, go viral, etc. We just hung out in a small group of nobodies, having chatted a bit through our respective blogs before. Drop me a line at charlie@brooklynbridge.vc if you might want to participate.

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communities VC accelerator startup 313

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Sopoong , a social impact-focused VC, intends to support environmentally minded tech founders in South Korea and Southeast Asia, while building a bridge between Korean conglomerates and startups in the sector. Korean VC Sopoong closes $8M fund for startups focused on environmental impact by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch.

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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. People who comment to me privately about how surprised they are by how rapidly I’ve “built a name for myself in VC&# remind me of this fallacy. If you were reading the headlines from only 2.5

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

Many companies that are raising B or C venture capital rounds right now raised their initial money in 2005-2008. Not so VC. Reputation – Equally, the investor might not be worried about squeezing out your existing VC, per se, but doesn’t want to develop a reputation as a VC with an edge. It is 2010.

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venture capital capital ventures advice 289

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

What is the True Sentiment of VCs? I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” But not a VC or Bill Gurley or myself would have spooked it 2 years ago.

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