The Seraf Compass

MAY 10, 2023

Staying on top of the early stage investing world requires a lot of reading. One of the biggest trends we witnessed over the past few years is the rapid pace of new early stage venture fund formation combined with significant growth in the amount of capital invested.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

The world around us is being disrupted by the acceleration of technology into more industries and more consumer applications. Technology solutions are now used by authoritarians to monitor and control populations, to stymie an individual company’s economic prospects or to foment chaos through demagoguery. Of course we can’t.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 10, 2014

It says a lot about the evolution of mobile technology. Venture Capital & Technology' Either you dump your phone into the black hole known as your bag, never to be heard from again, or it sits right there on the table as the third wheel. Same thing for GPS. You should check it out.

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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). One event held by a few investors focused on Black founders is clearly not enough.

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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?

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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. I'm sorry, but I can't take those people seriously.

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners

JANUARY 3, 2024

In a significant boost to the venture capital landscape of Central Pennsylvania, the region is set to benefit from the establishment of the Keystone Innovation Fund II, thanks to a generous grant of $412,598 from the US Economic Development Administration’s ‘Build to Scale Capital Challenge.’

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 18, 2022

Those values, on a schedule of investments we publish to our investors every quarter, flow through to our financial statements and capital accounts and establish how much an interest in our partnerships are worth at that time. If you might lose money on an investment, it is always best to signal that ahead of time.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 2, 2023

The venture asset class seems to have already decided that AI is the next great investment opportunity, but I’m not so sure it’s going to disrupt business and create the across-the-board wealth that has been predicted. Technology has already made the world pretty efficient. I got to see all of the top VCs pitching their funds.

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opportunity investing investment disruption 269

This is going to be BIG.

JULY 16, 2014

There''s been some writing about how VCs and founders interact with each other and it inspired me to take a step back and reflect on what my role is supposed to be with regards to the investments I make and the founders I deal with. Venture Capital & Technology' Here''s what I came up with. I am not an expert.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. For anything that would be considered a normal investment for the partnership most firms try to make sure every partner has seen the deal and has a chance to weigh in.

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Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative

APRIL 12, 2022

Investing in a Sustainable Future. When it comes to preserving and protecting the Earth for our communities and the generations to come to have access to green spaces, clean water and air, and health, it’ll take a collective investment far more significant than any individual. Maximizing Human Capital. Maximizing Human Capital.

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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. Investments that don’t work haunt me. And investments that don’t work are often failures of execution.

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investing investment VC venture capital 205

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 14, 2014

Last week, there was a Business Insider article measuring the percent of female founded companies that NYC seed funds invest in. Most companies don''t ever raise venture capital and they do just fine. That''s a much better picture of female entrepreneurship than the 2-4% of venture capital dollars going to women.

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AsiaTechDaily

JANUARY 19, 2024

India-based fintech firm FinAGG Technologies has secured $11 million in its Series A funding round to expand in the MSMEs’ fintech space. The investment was co-led by global impact investment manager BlueOrchard and Tata Capital Limited.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 14, 2022

There is a lot of criticism of venture capital in web3. Bitcoin did not have or need venture capital. Ethereum did not have or need venture capital. So why would any web3 project need venture capital? That’s why you might want to take venture capital for your web3 project. It is a good question.

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Ben Franklin Technology Partners

MARCH 25, 2024

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Central and Northern PA (Ben Franklin CNP) continues its mission of catalyzing innovation and fostering growth in the technology sector with its recent investments in four dynamic companies.

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innovation technology investing investment 98

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 8, 2015

How I got to this investment was another long term story. I was a huge Fab.com buyer in the early days when we backed it at First Round Capital. Venture Capital & Technology' It was the only marketing e-mail I opened up everyday--because it always had the coolest stuff.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Sam Altman of YC recently pointed out that pulling back during the downturn in 2008 would result in several big misses: In October of 2008, Sequoia Capital—arguably the best-ever in the business—gave the famous “RIP Good Times” presentation (I was there). These sound fundamentals drive the venture capital market over the long term.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 8, 2014

” I hear it when I visit LPs (the people who invest in VCs) all across the country, “Yeah, I haven’t been out there for a few years but I keep hearing that something is going on there.” Given how efficient markets are when a large market like LA starts to blossom it attracts capital pretty quickly.

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AsiaTechDaily

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Delve into his story as it unfolds with lessons from filmmaking, startup ventures, and the fascinating world of technology innovations and investing. This gave me a front-row seat to the world of tech/innovation, and I began making some personal angel investments along the way.”

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Dream It

MARCH 6, 2020

Jeff Berman is General Partner at Camber Creek , one of the first venture funds dedicated to real estate technology and the built world. Jake Fingert Jake identified new investments and managed operations for the Federal Government’s infrastructure and real estate portfolio of approximately 350 million square feet.

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real estate pitching VC opportunity 406

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.

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AsiaTechDaily

DECEMBER 19, 2023

The European Investment Bank (EIB) Global has committed to investing up to $40 million in the private equity fund Amicus Capital Partners Fund II, focusing on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across various sectors in India.

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investing investment capital startup 98

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. Louis, MO St.

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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). 15 years ago we were at the peak of Internet hype with the launch of many over-capitalized businesses with a market size & opportunity was limited.

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VC venture capital peer-to-peer ventures 398

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 10, 2014

Since January of 2010, when I led my first seed investment in Backupify , I have led or committed to 27 investments. Venture Capital & Technology' It would have lots of philosophy, religion, theory, fiction, and pontification. However, since I only have time for a blog post, I''ll settle for actual data.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 12, 2014

If I was optimizing for cash, I would have been an investment banker a long time ago. The fund''s dollars are used both for investments and for administration--so lets''s say I wind up putting about 85% of the fund to work in actual investments. So, ten years from now, investments I make three years from now might be exiting.

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American Entrepreneurship

DECEMBER 11, 2024

Cakes mission is for businesses of any size to readily deploy the latest technologies without requiring an army of engineers. Recently funded Cake addresses that concern with the launch of its open-source AI infrastructure platform enabling all businesses to deploy the latest technologies cost-effectively.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Venture capital is about backing the leaders of tomorrow who imagine the world as it should be and aren’t constrained by what it is today. As an industry we’re not always as good as we could be about our own “creative destruction” to create the tomorrow of venture capital. So What Does All This Mean? And all the platform stuff.

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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.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2020

It will require countries and institutions to re-allocate capital from other endeavors to fight against a warming planet. This is the decade we will begin to see this re-allocation of capital. We will see massive capital investments made in protecting critical regions and infrastructure.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2021

It helps me invest and advise the companies we are invested in. Like our investing, I will get some of these right and some wrong. It will require countries and institutions to re-allocate capital from other endeavors to fight against a warming planet. I find it useful to think about what we are in for.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Back in 2009, I wrote a post called The Venture Capital Math Problem. In that post, I argued that the venture capital business could not sustain more than $20bn a year of new capital coming into it and continue to produce good returns to the investors in VC funds. link] — Ben Siscovick (@bsiscovick) February 26, 2020.

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venture capital capital ventures VC 199

Entrepreneurs' Organization

JUNE 19, 2024

My entrepreneurial story didn’t start with an invention or a groundbreaking technological breakthrough. Instead, it began with 15 years of hands-on learning in capital markets, working closely with entrepreneurs, investors, and bankers. Weren’t entrepreneurs tired of the golden handcuffs of venture capitalists and bankers?

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finance entrepreneurship financing mentorship 255

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

"Square, the payment technology company founded and led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, this evening raised $243 million by pricing its initial public offering at $9 per share, which would imply an market value of around $2.9 The only people who should be disappointed where the regular folks invested in these T. A "major disappointment".

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2024

As we enter 2024, the capital markets have found their footing and are moving higher. That is good news for the innovation economy because healthy capital markets are a necessary support system. However, optimistic capital markets are necessary but not sufficient for a healthy innovation economy. Let’s start with litigation.

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