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.

ventures 343

ventures venture capital advice VC 343

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

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). The overall trends in our industry have breathed a new life into the venture capital industry. The iPhone was released.

VC 398

VC venture capital peer-to-peer ventures 398

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.

venture capital 107

venture capital capital ventures founder 107

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 11, 2014

Rob messed around with some local video thing in 2008, which everyone but Rob thought was a pretty terrible idea. " — Charlie O'Donnell (@ceonyc) December 29, 2008. Venture Capital & Technology' I'm fearing the day Yahoo goes "Oops!" Still, he got his guys in the Ukraine to code something up.

board 262

board venture capital creativity entrepreneurship 262

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

One of the points I tried to make is that as venture capital investors as an industry we seem to have a healthy disdain for public market investors. We have an entire generation of startup founders who don’t have muscle memory from getting their burn rates back into shape from 2008/09 or 2001-2005. Others will follow.

VC 392

VC capital culture venture capital 392

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. Why do they invest in venture capital? We raised $280 million.

ventures 396

ventures VC venture capital real estate 396

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. Venture capital funds do not take down the entire capital commitment upfront.

opportunity 279

opportunity venture capital strategy investment 279

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.

VC 217

VC capital venture capital networking 217

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.

VC 387

VC venture capital financing finance 387

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. This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice (although this also applies tightly with Raising Venture Capital ).

venture capital 301

venture capital advice VC real estate 301

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. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. Current round: $4. Total raised: $6.0mm. See: TechCrunch.

VC 248

VC incubation ventures capital 248

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 8, 2014

Even the old Pfizer headquarters, active as recently as 2008, is now home to the production of everything from microchips to pickles. Politics Venture Capital & Technology' Refactory is trying to create an end to end process from design to manufacturing for hardware on Sackett Street.

mix-use 316

mix-use communities venture capital creativity 316

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2011

I said, “It’s much easier now than it was in 2008/09.&# And time is the enemy of all deals so start sooner rather than later, as anybody who was planning to raise in October 2008 will tell you. That happened a lot in 2002 and again in 2008. It’s what I love about entrepreneurship and about venture capital.

real estate 309

real estate entrepreneurs finance financing 309

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. Same with VCs.

angel investing 299

angel investing investment investing real estate 299

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

He first came to see me in 2008 when we was raising money for his 1st startup – NextMedium. At every entrepreneur event I through between 2008-2012 I invite Hamet because he was a great mentor for entrepreneurs. Hamet started his career in Venture Capital working for the first post-apartheid VC fund in South Africa.

ventures 340

ventures investment investing board 340

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. So get out there and start raising your capital! Let’s be honest – the same is true for VC’s.

VC 255

VC venture capital networking innovation 255

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?

VC 466

VC culture sustainability capital 466

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 1, 2011

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. Investments in innovation can often have unforeseen positive ripple effects.

pitching 267

pitching support financing finance 267

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

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. The collaborative web arrived after the social web hit a tipping point. That is the very month that Facebook became the largest social network, outpacing MySpace.

collaboration 351

collaboration media SaaS VC 351

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 the people who invest in VC funds have two problems. The top quartile funds have performed well.

VC 311

VC startup real estate finance 311

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

Back in late 2008, I noticed that one of my Flickr contacts seemed to be short a few photos--like, a few thousand of them. Tags: First Round Capital Venture Capital & Technology. Josh Kopelman will be working closely on this investment as well. The origin of this company is pretty interesting.

investment 286

investment investing communities board 286

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). Tags: This Week in Venture Capital.

VC 225

VC social gaming venture capital networking 225

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. At least later stage investors.

financing 344

financing finance ventures real estate 344

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. . Then, I looked at angel investment in the US over the past five years, as reported by the Center for Venture Research , in billions of dollars. All Seed-VC.

entrepreneurs 162

entrepreneurs angel investing VC venture capital 162

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. It’s my job to invest wisely in entrepreneurs who are capital efficient, who innovate in ways that pay off economically in good markets or bad and who plan for worst-case scenarios.

VC 269

VC startup advice innovation 269

Dream It

APRIL 12, 2020

Some LPs might not make capital calls because they are worried about the environment, and some LPs might actually no longer have the liquidity to fulfill these capital calls. LPs failed to make capital calls in the late 90s during the dot-com bubble burst, after September 11, and during the financial crisis in 2008.

ventures 334

ventures startup capital board 334

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2011

In the early 80’s he left academia to work on venture capital investing with Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies. The discussion with Howard Morgan starts off by acknowledging Josh Kopelman as a co-founder of First Round Capital. In 2008 they raised a much larger fund $132.5

capital 284

capital board VC pitching 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2010

Online advertising platform for local businesses; ReachLocal reported over $203 million in revenue for 2009, compared to around $146 million in 2008. million loss in 2008. million, compared to a $7 million net loss in 2008. Tags: This Week in Venture Capital. I think you’ll enjoy watching.

VC 236

VC venture capital ventures support 236

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. When the show has been processed it will be available here (estimated 8pm PDT).

VC 240

VC peer-to-peer advice ventures 240

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. Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advice VC Industry startup technology vc venture capital. I already had this argument with Ron Conway and we disagree on the topic.

founder 329

founder VC advice pitching 329

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2010

Spun off from Freewebs in 2008, based in Palo Alto. Current round: $2mm Series B from Tomorrow Ventures (Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google) and Lars Hinrichs (Xing founder). 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

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

OCTOBER 21, 2009

On the third Wednesday of every month I co-chair a meeting called the SoCal VCA (venture capital alliance), which represents participants from all of the top venture capital firms in Southern California as well as prominent members of the Tech Coast Angels (TCA). What are your predictions for the road ahead.

VC 241

VC venture capital ventures capital 241

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 24, 2012

When I couldn’t talk David into doing early-stage deals back in 2008/09, I hooked up with the guy who seemed to be working with the largest number of high-quality LA startups I had encountered – Dave Young – and started working with him and Nicholas Hobbs of DLA Piper. There’s more!

VC 299

VC communities investment investing 299

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

They sold 2 years later for $16 million In the financial crisis of 2008 we had a company that had jointly hired lawyers to consider a bankruptcy and also pursued (and achieved!) Early-stage venture capital is about extreme winners. the sale of the company for $1 billion. It was ~30 days from bankruptcy.

sustainability 294

sustainability board construction strategy 294

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. At GRP we sat out 2007 and much of 2008 for that reason and we’re now looking pretty smart for doing so. Answer: Not much. And that was evident on today’s Angel vs. VC panel. It’s a shame.

disruption 308

disruption VC entrepreneurs finance 308