500

APRIL 28, 2020

Long before diversity and inclusion became buzzwords, we decided to make venture capital inclusive from day one at 500 Startups. The post Why Investing in Female Founders Matters Now More Than Ever appeared first on 500 Startups. Since 2010, we have expressed our commitment to those values in multiple ways.

founder 282

founder investing investment venture capital 282

Source Link

APRIL 14, 2021

From Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, a former slave who ran a prosperous dressmaking business that eventually led to her designing and sewing dresses for Mary Todd Lincoln, to Anne Wojcicki, founder of genetic testing and analysis firm 23andMe, women have proved they have what it takes to reach the top of the entrepreneurial mountain.

entrepreneurial ecosystem 246

entrepreneurial ecosystem entrepreneurs capital investing 246

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Most VCs did well academically and had enough career success that a venture firm was willing to give them an investment role or they were able to raise their own fund. We then help surround founders with other talent who want to join important causes but don’t have the startup idea themselves. Venture Capital is a people business.

venture capital 363

venture capital capital ventures VC 363

Revolution

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

In 2017, we partnered with iconic leaders in American business to turn the thesis we developed on the road — that great companies can start and scale anywhere when given a chance — into an investment vehicle. In the last decade, we’ve socialized several Rise of the Rest-isms to describe investments that check those boxes.

founder 246

founder transportation innovation education 246

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 18, 2019

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures , the pre-seed and seed stage VC fund I run in NYC, has invested in 64 companies in the last six and a half years. Twenty-five of them have at least one female co-founder. Fifteen had co-founders over 40. Five have LGBTQ+ founders. Three teams have African-American founders.

venture capital 413

venture capital capital ventures peer-to-peer 413

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses.

investing 328

investing investment VC venture capital 328

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 16, 2015

It just seemed like a fitting title for a company built around narrative by a founder who used to write stories for a living. I'm joined by Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Red Sea Ventures, NucleasHG, the founders of Seamless, a host of extremely helpful angels, and a CircleUp syndicate led by my friend Tom Potter, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery.

venture capital 378

venture capital ventures capital consumer retail 378

Dream It

JANUARY 13, 2021

The venture capital screening call is an important step to get right in due diligence. In this Dreamit Dose, associates Alana Hill and I, Elliot Levy , offer five things we wish founders knew after screening over 1,000 startups in the last year. It’s honestly refreshing when we hear a founder that’s no BS and succinct during the Q/A.

VC 364

VC founder consulting networking 364

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 7, 2015

After checking out The Information's "open dataset" on diversity in venture capital , I felt pretty disappointed. Who is actually building a portfolio whose founders reflect the diversity of the greater population? A whopping 17 of the 32 companies (53%) have founders that fit into those groups. Not directly, anyway.

venture capital 387

venture capital capital ventures VC 387

The Seraf Compass

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Have you ever been in a situation where you are negotiating an investment with an entrepreneur and you can’t agree on the pre-money valuation? Any early stage investor who makes more than one or two investments will certainly run into this issue.

capital 296

capital education entrepreneurs investing 296

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 25, 2023

A recurring theme in a lot of my BSList posts is that, if an investor thinks they can make a boatload of money with you, they’ll go to all sorts of lengths to invest. That includes investing way earlier than they would normally, investing outside of scope, investing with their personal capital outside of the fund, etc.

founder 368

founder VC board pitching 368

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 22, 2018

In almost every single investment I’ve ever made, I can think of a singular moment in my relationship with a founder that, no matter what came before or what might come after, defined our relationship. The key to having difficult conversations with founders is setting expectations.

founder 1003

founder strategy communities investing 1003

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).

innovation 264

innovation investing investment pitching 264

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

Investing in startups is hard and it's going to be hard for you, too. The trusted celeb manager who doesn't know anything about startups, never made an angel investment before, and thinks they're big s**t because some celeb picked them out of a hat to look at deals for them. Don't ask for a special deal if you're not a co-founder.

investing 373

investing investment startup angel investing 373

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Today's top founders will undoubtedly start something new in the future, but they won't make up the majority of innovators going forward--just as prior generations of venture backed founders don't make up a majority of those who are succeeding today. I didn’t say venture investing was easy—but at least we got a look.)

venture capital 252

venture capital communities ventures capital 252

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? On the one hand, you’re over paying for every investment and valuations aren’t rational.

ventures 471

ventures VC venture capital funders 471

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 9, 2020

While I got some very kind words on my recent writings , I heard from some founders that didn't feel like they got treated fairly—specifically around feeling patronized or dismissed—and that I wasn't showing enough action to improve on that. Founders from communities of color are less likely to have personal wealth to fall back on.

founder 299

founder pitching VC opportunity 299

Revolution

MARCH 7, 2024

In Their Own Words: Female Founders and CEOs Discuss the Discourse That’s Missing (and Hitting) the Mark This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “ Inspire Inclusion ” — a call to recognize the unique perspectives and contributions of women from all walks of life, in all facets of life, including the innovation economy.

founder 214

founder leadership innovation venture capital 214

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. Matt Murphy and Grace Ge, Menlo Ventures Which trends are you most excited about in construction robotics from an investing perspective?

construction 259

construction investing investment opportunity 259

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 24, 2020

Investors are going to want their investment dollars to be going towards growth than going directly into your pocket—but what does that mean for how much you can actually pay yourself. If founder salaries are supposed to be no more than some set number, how does that work if a founder is a single mom with three kids and a mortgage.

founder 301

founder capital investing investment 301

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. The post Our Investment Framework Post-COVID-19 appeared first on 500 Startups.

frameworks 202

frameworks investing investment disruption 202

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 17, 2020

I woke up to a dream this morning where I was playing a game that was very similar to Turntable.fm , a failed effort to create a social music experience that had a moment back in 2011 and that I had invested in via USV. I met the founders and was happy for them. Investments that don’t work haunt me. Then I woke up.

investing 205

investing investment VC venture capital 205

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

I’ve made over 100 investments in my career and nearly half of those went into diverse teams. I’ll be the first to back up the notion that diverse founders have just as much ambition, drive, intellectual horsepower, creativity—you name it—than anyone else. The reasons why are plentiful and probably overlapping.

ventures 435

ventures networking entrepreneurship creativity 435

American Entrepreneurship

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Private equity firm Rotunda Capital Partners focuses on transforming family-founder-owned companies into data-driven platforms that lead to accelerated growth. The firm’s latest investment into family-owned Mama Lycha, the leading provider of branded Latin American foods, was announced this week.

capital 105

capital investing investment accelerator 105

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 8, 2019

Just the immediate priorities seem to take up more than one person’s potential working hours—so it’s no surprise that when it comes to something like social media, many founders have trouble making it a priority. The consequences of failing to position a founder’s profile aren’t always obvious—and it’s usually all about missed opportunities.

media 284

media leadership founder opportunity 284

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 3, 2016

That was a question posed to me by a new analyst at a venture capital fund. While there are lots and lots of really kind, generous people working in venture capital--the recently retired Howard Morgan, Hunter Walk, Brad Feld, and Karin Klein for example--it's really tough to argue that there isn't widespread jerkery.

VC 405

VC venture capital entrepreneurship advice 405

Founders Coop

JANUARY 11, 2023

Founders’ Co-op turns fifteen this year. Our firm’s original premise was – and remains – dead simple: Seattle is a global gravity well for engineering talent, thanks to the sustained excellence and corresponding human capital needs of Amazon and Microsoft. By contrast, venture capital is a craft that defies both speed and scale.

founder 154

founder peer-to-peer VC sustainability 154

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 21, 2021

I’m a female founder. I don’t have a technical co-founder. These are all of the things I heard from a founder that I recently backed. So what about all of the above statements—things that founders widely hold to be true barriers to fundraising? Or that venture capital is a meritocracy? I don’t have enough traction.

advice 476

advice pitching venture capital VC 476

500

APRIL 6, 2020

On our end, we hosted our first-ever Digital Demo Day to ensure the safety and protection of our team and founders. Using YouTube Live and recorded presentations, as well as an investor-founder Slack channel, we found success in this new format. If you missed the event, watch it here. If you missed the event, watch it here.

investing 256

investing investment startup founder 256

Revolution

MARCH 8, 2023

population, but in 2022, companies with solely female founders garnered just 2% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups. The long and short of it: Female founders face systemic barriers to founding, funding, and scaling their businesses. Women represent 50.5% of the U.S. That ticked up to 15.4%

founder 278

founder leadership strategy support 278

Dream It

MARCH 6, 2020

Berman comes from a real estate background, and he co-founded Camber Creek after realizing an opportunity to “create a double alpha situation,” both investing in high-growth startups and using those startups to improve the operations of his own real estate portfolio. Does the founder know how to sell into real estate?

real estate 406

real estate pitching VC opportunity 406

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

and of course a relentless pursuit of helping founders succeed. So mostly we just had to listen to customer feedback from founders, VCs and LPs. She made the right decisions not joining back then because that founder empathy is the “++” that makes a difference in this business. So why now? So What Does All This Mean?

ventures 361

ventures leadership mentorship venture capital 361

Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

Part of the antidote for startups: employing a more prudent approach to raising capital and curating a diverse investor base. To shed additional light on this issue and its ultimate impact on startups, I partnered with the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation to ask proptech founders about their capital and strategic partners.

real estate 278

real estate venture capital VC innovation 278

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

We believe this consistency in leadership and intuition for where the markets were going in the heady days of 2019–2021 helped us to stay sane in a world that momentarily seemed to have lost its mind and since we have new capital to deploy in the years ahead perhaps I can offer some insights into where we think value will be derived.

ventures 408

ventures startup peer-to-peer venture capital 408

The Seraf Compass

JUNE 3, 2020

We are proud to share that Seraf Co-founder Christopher Mirabile was recently appointed to the SEC's Investor Advisory Committee.

founder 200

founder angel capital capital ventures 200

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 19, 2021

Over the last 18 months, the early-stage financing market has seen dramatic changes characterized by these three things: A shift from in-person fundraising to virtual fundraising A reduction in financing process timelines from months to weeks A continued increase in the amount of capital available for early stage companies.

board 276

board financing finance sustainability 276

TechCrunch

JANUARY 4, 2024

Exponent Founders Capital, an early-stage venture firm founded by alumni of startups such as Plaid, Robinhood and Ramp, has closed on $75 million in capital commitments, TechCrunch is the first to report. The firm, which is emerging from stealth today, raised $50 million for its first fund in November of 2021.

capital 102

capital founder investing investment 102