A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Back in 2009, I wrote a post called The Venture Capital Math Problem. This 2009 piece from @fredwilson (literally the best in the biz) predicted significant venture industry contraction when in fact the last 10yrs have seen massive expansion. link] — Ben Siscovick (@bsiscovick) February 26, 2020. All public.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 5, 2021

There has been this narrative about investing in VC funds that you have to get into the top quartile (25%) or possibly the top decile (10%) in order to generate good returns. I have heard that for as long as I have been in VC and probably have written it here a few times. As you can see, investing in VC funds can be very profitable.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 31, 2020

I edited hundreds of stories in 2020, so choosing my favorites would be an exercise in futility. “Enterprise expenditure on custom software is on track to double from $250 billion in 2015 to $500 billion in 2020,” so we’ll definitely be diving deeper into this topic in the coming months. David Eichler, TCV.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Besides, there were a limited number of places where I could do my job in venture capital anyway—and while I might be a go to for a pitch from super early stage pre-seed and seed founders looking for quick answers and decisive term sheets in New York City, the reality is that I would be pretty far down the list in the Valley. Plenty of bros.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Today, pitch competitions, incubators, accelerators, VCs and angel groups proliferate. Venture Kick was launched in 2007 with the vision to double the number of spin-offs from Swiss universities and draws from a jury of more than 150 leading startup experts in Switzerland. Philipp Stauffer, partner, FYRFLY Venture Partners.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Italy’s ecosystem for tech venture capital and startups has been in development for years and has made decent strides in the last decade. However, while many startups exist in cities like Turin, Bologna, Naples and Rome, Milan is generally seen as a bigger ecosystem because of its mercantile culture and a significant share of VC funds.

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Haystack

JANUARY 18, 2020

Having spent time around and then in the world of VC in the Bay Area during the last decade, I’ve been reflecting on how different norms in the industry have changed. At the start of 2010, there was some unwritten VC industry conventions that have been tested, challenged, and upended in the last decade. That is for another post.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 19, 2021

Despite a pandemic that sparked a global recession, 2020 was still a record year for venture capital investments into American startups. According to data shared by PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association, investors poured $156.2 venture capital market in 2020 was hot, it was not newly so.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

But most venture-backed startups are “still overwhelmingly white, male, Ivy-League-educated and based in Silicon Valley,” according to a study conducted by RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC. Or will we have to repeat the same conversations about representation failings within VC funds? Funding for Black entrepreneurs in the U.S.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 20, 2020

For all of the investors preaching that augmented reality technology will likely be the successor to the modern smartphone, today, most venture capitalists are still quite wary to back AR plays. Tipatat Chennavasin, The Venture Reality Fund. Brianne Kimmel, Work Life Ventures. Jacob Mullins, Shasta Ventures.

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 11, 2021

The venture capital scene in Africa has consistently grown, with an influx of capital from local and international investors reaching unprecedented heights in recent years. It was expected that these figures would increase in 2020. Investments did pick up, and from July, VC funding on the continent had a bullish run until December.

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Dream It

APRIL 7, 2020

— samir kaji (@Samirkaji) April 7, 2020 To guide startups through the confusion, Dreamit interviewed three leaders helping startups secure emergency funding from different perspectives as bankers, attorneys, and investors. The information on this page was updated on April 6th, 2020. Last Friday was anything but orderly.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 20, 2021

The fourth quarter of 2020 was as busy as you imagined, with super late-stage startups reaching new valuation thresholds at a record pace, and total venture capital funding in the United States recording its second-best result of all time. First, we want to how unicorns performed in Q4 2020.

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Revolution

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Since the beginning of modern venture capital investing — a relatively nascent asset class — the industry has been biased toward funding what it knows best: founders with familiar demographics (white, male) in familiar geographies (Silicon Valley).

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 17, 2020

Then I found out that the creators of this new game had received venture capital funding and were going to turn it into a business. It comes with the territory in VC. USV TEAM POSTS: Matt Cynamon — Aug 13, 2020 A Quick Update On Hiring Albert Wenger — Aug 13, 2020 Marxism Remains a Dangerous Idea.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 19, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Hannah Murdoch — Mar 18, 2020 Joining USV David Gabeau — Mar 18, 2020 David @ USV Hanel Baveja — Mar 18, 2020 Joining Union Square Ventures Nick Grossman — Mar 17, 2020 The Great Shift to Video Albert Wenger — Mar 16, 2020 COVID19 What’s Next?

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This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

I have now been investing on my own at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures for almost eight years exactly—which is pretty much about the time people say it takes to build up a company to a big exit. Between all these cutbacks, my total was half of what I thought it would be heading into the August venture snooze. 2020: “Hold my beer.”

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 20, 2020

If you search for “vc open for business” on Twitter , you will see almost universal scorn for the idea that VCs are open for business right now. We have mostly seen VC firms live up to the commitments they made pre-pandemic and in the cases where terms changed, it has not been not gratuitous. It may in fact be open.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 19, 2021

The round was co-led by African early-stage VC firm Future Africa and Japanese but Africa-focused VC Kepple Africa Ventures. Other investors include Acuity Ventures, Aidi Ventures, Assembly Capital, Kairos Angels, Nama Ventures, RallyCap Ventures, and Remapped Ventures. million seed round.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

The venture capital market appears to be getting later, larger and more expensive. Venture capital getting later and larger was something we saw repeatedly in our examinations of what happened in Q3 2020 more broadly. Late-stage deals made Q3 2020 a standout VC quarter for US-based startups. billion in 2020.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 8, 2020

When the pandemic started, the conventional wisdom was that the capital markets would take a beating, including the venture capital market for startup capital. The second quarter of 2020 is now behind us and we will see the data on it soon. First, venture capital firms raise funds and it is our job to put them to work.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 25, 2021

Microtraction , an early-stage venture capital firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, saw funding nearly quadruple for its portfolio. 2019 saw the local VC firm invest in six companies. Of the total investments raised in 2019 and 2020, 54gene contributed more than half of those numbers by raising $4.5

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Though some businesses may never be truly sustainable, a venture firm in Seoul argues that emerging climate-tech startups will help big manufacturers do better overall. I spoke with Sopoong chief executive Max Sang-Yeop Han , a serial entrepreneur who joined Sopoong in 2016 and acquired the firm in 2019, to learn about the VC’s plans.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 30, 2020

For years — decades, even — there was little question about whether you could become a venture capitalist if you weren’t comfortable financially. In fact, five years ago, I wrote that the real obstacle to becoming a venture capitalist has less to do with gender than with financial inequality. You couldn’t.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 5, 2021

Over the next few weeks, the venture capital industry will compile and release data concerning its Q4 2020 performance, capping a year that saw the world of private capital freeze , thaw and burn. For our look at the third-quarter fintech VC market, head here.). So it was too interesting to not unpack.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 16, 2021

The global venture capital ecosystem is inequitable. In the United States’ mature venture capital market, an entrepreneur’s race, gender and age help determine who has access to capital. Yes, venture capital startup hubs can take decades to reach maturity. But there are other limiting factors: geography, for example.

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500

JUNE 9, 2020

Supply chains have been disrupted, businesses have had to close or operate at limited capacity for months, and even founders have had to expand their fundraising timeframes as we saw in our 2020 Female Founders Data Report. As a VC firm, we’ve had to adapt many aspects of our business as well.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 21, 2020

While it is nice to have these “rights”, the need for this letter actually has very little to do with how venture capital firms want to work with a portfolio company. The existence of these letters has everything to do with where the venture capital firms get their funds from.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 10, 2022

million seed round led by MaC Venture Capital. Serena Ventures, Omidyar Group’s Luminate Fund, Melo 7 Tech Partners and Cascador (Empowering Economic Growth Foundation) participated. This is compared to the 80% revenue growth between FY 2021 and FY 2020. Five years on, this startup, Stears , is announcing a $3.3

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Matt and many members of his leadership team got the band back together early this year and started a new company called Bolster in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank and the early-stage VC firm High Alpha. Bolster also will allow venture capital firms and startup investors to participate in its platform as super users.

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TechCrunch

MAY 28, 2022

The storied venture firm is known to react to macroeconomic events with grand memos aimed at portfolio companies and sometimes the entrepreneurship scene at large. ” The document reads like a follow-up course to its infamously ill-timed “Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020” memo of March 2020. .”

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2021

As I wrote yesterday , I think the trends that were accelerated in 2020 will not reverse in 2021, although the slope of the adoption curves will likely flatten a fair bit. We are already seeing that happen in the finance sector, with breakout projects in decentralized finance in 2020 like Compound, Yearn, and Uniswap (a USV funded project).

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 26, 2021

Over the last two years, New Zealand’s startup scene has seen record venture and early-stage investment. Despite the pandemic, 2020 saw $158 million invested into 108 deals, representing the third year in a row of over $100 million in investment in startups. Elevate launched in March 2020, just as the entire world was locking down.

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TechCrunch

JUNE 10, 2022

Women in VC have caught the entrepreneurial bug. From Katie Haun spinning out of Andreessen Horowitz to Sydney Thomas leaving Precursor Ventures to, most recently, Sarah Guo moving on from Greylock, we are amid a wave of new emerging women managers. Thomas and Guo are not the first women to find a niche in venture and go after it.

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TechCrunch

JULY 6, 2022

Raising venture capital is rarely an easy lift for startups, but 2022 is turning out to be a more challenging year than we’ve seen for some time. As venture capital continues its slowdown after an aggressive 2020 and record-breaking 2021 , it’s clear that early-stage founders looking for their first dollars will require a new approach.

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StartupNation

OCTOBER 3, 2021

In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and nationwide protests, venture capital firms are making newfound commitments to invest in, or at least evaluate, potential investments that are led by diverse founders. ” It is important to note in this statement that this is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one, as well.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 23, 2020

Regular readers of The Exchange will recall that we last dug into overall wellness venture capital investment in August , noting that it was mental health startups inside the vertical that were seeing the most impressive results. The state of mental health venture investing. So this morning we’re going to dig into it.

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