Berkonomics

AUGUST 24, 2023

Professional investors usually bring “smart money” to the table, defined as money that comes along with good advice and great relationships for corporate growth. Each of these companies needed more cash than professional angel investors were willing or able to provide, and we turned to the venture community for larger investments.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 23, 2012

I'm often the last one to leave an event, held back by the most persistant of entrepreneurs trying to squeeze as much advice as they can out of me. I've only recently started leading investments a little over two years ago. Often times, the advice is terrible or impractical. I mean, what do I know? It doesn't stop anyone else.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. These collective sets of documents form the basis of what somebody looking at investing would call “financial due diligence.” It doesn’t.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 3, 2015

It spoke to me because it so resonates with my nearly daily advice to entrepreneurs and VCs alike. I went as far as to call it the best Tweet of 2015 so far because it encapsulated my advice so succinctly. I am often asked how we make decisions on investments at Upfront Ventures. He took two words where I take 1,000!

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David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

Versatile VC is hosting a one-hour interactive webinar on Thursday, September 28, at noon EST. We’ll discuss Versatile VC ‘s strategy, how we see the market, and some of the opportunities we think are exciting. are an aggressive user of technology internally to manage the firm and make better investments.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

As a VC with scores of startups in our portfolio we have ringside seats to many, many fund raising processes plus I had to raise money across about 5 different rounds of capital as an entrepreneur so I’ve developed some thought on the process that I hope can be helpful to some of you before you start. Just send me your dog damn deck 7.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. So why does a VC ask you?

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

For some aspiring to be tech entrepreneurs, I often suggest a two-step process, as I argued in this post that “ The First Startup Founder You Need to Invest in Is You.” But I also have advice for the 15% that really do want to be a startup CEO. I often tell people in this scenario to focus on a VC “fixer upper.”

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 7, 2022

After talking to marketing leaders for a year, here’s my advice for CEOs. ” After talking to marketing leaders for a year, here’s my advice for CEOs. . “It appears that the new OpenSea valuation is cheap compared to recent fundamentals, but a little expensive when we consider how much its market booms and busts.”

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 23, 2018

I've seen this so many times over: A founder pitches a VC, or several of them, and then they come back from that process with all sorts of new strategy goals or worries that they need to be doing something differently. They don't want to invest in your company. Any advice they have for you is going to be a bit broken.

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Jason Malki

MARCH 9, 2023

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Sheffield, the Founder & Managing Partner of Pachamama Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in US early-stage climate tech companies. How did you break into tech investing? I was already investing in public stocks, bonds, and preparing to make my 1st home purchase.

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

I can't tell you how many times even insiders--people already invested in some of these companies--are telling diverse founders to go for incremental fundraises and not for bigger rounds. So if you're a super early stage with just a prototype, you might not think that a VC fund is the right fit for you--so you wind up at an angel group.

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TechCrunch

MARCH 6, 2023

Serial entrepreneur and seasoned investor Vinod Khosla has some strong, contrarian advice for the venture capital industry: don’t sit on your founders’ boards. Onstage, he pointed to a TechCrunch piece he wrote in 2013, titled: “70-80% Of VCs Add Negative Value To Startups.” The advice comes at a reflective time for the industry.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2015

So here’s advice I give people all the time when they’re raising money. Or they’ll remind me of my common advice to take “ 50 coffee meetings.” ” The report also notes that 75% of mega financings are led by non-VCs. Show me your unicorn. Honestly, just searching the term yield many results.

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David Teten VC

AUGUST 21, 2019

Most founders who are raising capital look first to traditional equity VCs. Revenue-Based Investing (“RBI”) is a new form of VC financing, distinct from the preferred equity structure most VCs use. For more background, see Revenue-Based Investing: A New Option for Founders who Care About Control.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We We strive to invest in companies that are consciously working to create a diverse leadership team?—?one Ours is: upfront.com/inclusion. It takes a village.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Picking a VC is hard. So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Most VCs are book smart. VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. You want a VC who will spar with you but then STFU and let you get on with things.

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Startup Grind

AUGUST 15, 2018

Prior to co-founding CCV, Marlon was an investment director at Intel Capital where he completed his Kauffman Fellowship. At Cross Culture Ventures we take a thematic approach to investing that we have coined 'cultural investing' - the impact of the convergence of global popular culture and consumer behavior on technology and innovation.

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TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Indeed, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and the Italian Trade & Investment Agency in London have even been known to fund Italian entrepreneurs abroad to help them gain more experience. The good news: VC funding in Italy has grown. billion investment plan, which includes its first cloud data center in the country.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2018

This will be the post where I dangerously attempt to walk the minefield of a white male VC opining on the topic. 4) The diverse background of the founder is not the main reason why most diverse founders get turned down for investment. That pitch has never excited any VC in the history of VC funding. Ducks head.]

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 26, 2021

GDP, so it’s no surprise that digital health is attracting record levels of investment. This year, VCs have flowed $14.7 Simon Wu, an investment director with Cathay Innovation, says he’s paying particularly close attention to these areas of convergence : Data and the transition to value-based care. billion in all of 2020.

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Venture Hacks

APRIL 17, 2019

Spearhead asked me to write a post on angel investing when they first launched. Charlie Munger says investing requires a latticework of mental models. Here are 11 lessons for your angel investing lattice: If you can’t decide, the answer is no. Investing takes years to learn, but improves for a lifetime.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 18, 2024

These are people that didn’t make their money through a tech startup or startup investing. They might have a more flexible time horizon than a VC because the money doesn’t come from a fund with a limited lifespan. I’m not talking about active angels. I’m talking about what someone I know recently referred to as “dentists”.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

This is part of a series of advice for founders who need to raise money from venture capitalists. The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. an investment in your company.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

In order to understand how to “get to yes” with a VC you first need to understand how VC partnerships make decisions and then you can understand how to increase your odds of closing a deal. VC Partnerships Start by understanding how many partners are at the firm you are approaching. It’s super easy to suss all this out.

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TechCrunch

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Many of us invest much of our identity in what we do for a living, which means layoffs can transform social and emotional lives overnight. I surveyed six seed- and early-stage investors to get their tactical advice for laid-off tech workers who are thinking about starting up. Many, many more are coming, obviously.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

What is a principal at a VC firm and how does it work at Upfront Ventures? ” Associates have different functions at different VCs. VC firm admin. VC firm policy or fund analysis. Helping be the VC “presence” at key events. inside insight into VC decision-making. Industry reviews.

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AsiaTechDaily

MARCH 28, 2023

“Founders should also evaluate which VC is able to add-value to their growth, rather than just focusing on the amount of money the investor has to offer,” Lou told AsiaTechDaily. Indelible Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in B2B SaaS startups that can scale internationally.

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Haystack

SEPTEMBER 16, 2018

As lines of code continue to proliferate through the world, as the rate of startup formation increases to seize those opportunities, and as the VC industry expands to support those new teams and opportunities, there is no shortage of people to visit for advice — not to mention all the resources online.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

JUNE 21, 2022

You’ll receive the best practical startup advice straight to your inbox every week. In this week’s edition, we discuss: Approaching the funding raising process from a VCs point of view The future of cryptocurrency in 2022 Is your side hustle profitable or a waste of time? That way, you can anticipate questions that a VC might ask.

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Founder Bounty

DECEMBER 19, 2022

Having been in touch with top tier VC's for pre seed and seed these are the best ones. Its aim is to invest $20k into each of its accepted companies at an early-stage and then provide six months of hands-on support, advice and mentorship as they build their product or service.

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Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 3, 2016

In the VC insider baseball world a discussion has gone on about “VC platforms” over the past 5 or so years. While firms define platforms differently, let’s just say they are the services that a VC offers outside of investment capital and partner time on boards or providing intros.

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This is going to be BIG.

JULY 30, 2012

A number of VC firms have hired specialists in the area of recruiting. One of my potential investors called me the "lean VC". I suppose it doesn't really matter much when it seems like most of the money that wants to invest in startups when they need it most--in a seed round--doesn't really want to be that active.

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TechCrunch

DECEMBER 16, 2021

I’ve sat at both sides of the table as a founder and a VC, and I understand how difficult it is to get them on the same page. I’ve participated in a number of accelerators, including Disney and Techstars, and these programs gave me a noticeable advantage when I stepped into VC. Reconnect with impact investing.

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

AUGUST 2, 2021

Photo Credit: Fortune Adding to the lack of female representation in the industry, research also shows that only 8% of the investment professionals at the top 25 VC firms are women. While much remains unsure, I’m certain of one thing: I have to step aside and pay attention to the women who are navigating the complex world of investing.

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