This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

I believe that the next generation of top companies are far more likely to be founded by people not on VC radars today. Opening up our circle to create and scale genuine engagement for people outside of typical venture networks is how we do business—and we’re getting exceptional deal flow because of that.

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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. The diversity is the direct result of our mission—to build the most accessible venture capital fund in NY. Twenty-five of them have at least one female co-founder. Five have LGBTQ+ founders.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2013

His imagination of what is wrong with VC has captured perfectly in satirical format what ails our industry. It is Nikolas Tesla pitching a VC firm. The back-and-forth between Andy & me if anything I hope just raised the issue a bit more about entrepreneur & VC relationships. He knew me then. by Dorrian Porter.

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JULY 16, 2014

Fifth , as I intend to be a long term participant in the innovation ecosystem, I have a role to support and champion the community at large. Venture Capital & Technology' This means that it''s important to me to be supportive of everyone''s success, not just those I back, since it''s not a zero sum game.

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NOVEMBER 11, 2013

Nearly four months ago we rebranded at Upfront Ventures. You can watch the video above for a very brief overview of why we rebranded and where we see our place in the VC ecosystem along with what has changed in our industry. Relaunching our brand is part of our larger initiative to build a VC firm of the future.

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JUNE 16, 2014

How long does it take from first meeting a VC to getting cash in the bank? I went back across the 21 investments I''ve made both at First Round and at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures --a period that dates back to January 28, 2010, when I closed on Backupify. Venture Capital & Technology' That''s an interesting question.

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MARCH 5, 2014

About seven years ago, I wrote a post on breaking into venture capital and I continue to point the five or six people a week who ask me how to break into venture. Today, I want to add two addendum to it, based on the work of two up and coming women in the NYC tech community. That''s a benefit to the VC firm.

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NOVEMBER 13, 2014

After years of trying to persuade Kara Nortman to become a partner at Upfront Ventures I can officially announce now that she’s joined us effective immediately. Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). As a result we need somebody well networked into these communities already.

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SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

I am thrilled to announce that we have added Hamet Watt as a Partner at Upfront Ventures. This is a big news day at Upfront Ventures. Hamet started his career in Venture Capital working for the first post-apartheid VC fund in South Africa. He will be a venture partner. So he had had a taste of it. Los Angeles'

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NOVEMBER 16, 2015

It's a story that just hit a milestone--a $4mm round of venture funding that I'm ecstatic to say Brooklyn Bridge Ventures just led. But just because you could see them everywhere doesn't make them an obvious venture bet--nor does it tell the story of how the round even came to be. At least, I thought it was.

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APRIL 10, 2016

My partner Greg Bettinelli (worth following on Twitter) was recently named by The LA Business Journal as the “ Top deal maker in Los Angeles in Venture Capital.” And Greg has had the most influence on Upfront Ventures’ strategy since he joined. He’s pushed us to be out in the community more.

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JUNE 15, 2020

There have been a lot of calls for VC firms to make more hires from the Black and Brown community, as well as to hire more women. In venture, it’s all about getting an opportunity to make partner and being included in the carry—the economic upside of a fund. Not all hires, however, are made equally.

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DECEMBER 3, 2020

The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc. Having a better overall portfolio of venture capital by adding funds into the mix. In fact, that number is probably even more than the average VC fund has the bandwidth to make. So what’s the point?

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JUNE 24, 2015

By now most of you know that Chris Sacca invested in what is now thought to be one of the best performing VC funds of all time having invested an $8.4 In many ways I wanted to focus on Matt because to those of us in the LA Venture community Matt really has become the public face of Lowercase Capital over the past several years.

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JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

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JUNE 8, 2014

I have never been more optimistic about the impact that the tech startup community is having on cities in America or about the role that cities outside of San Francisco / Silicon Valley can play in our future. Changes in the Software World & in Venture Capital. The Foundations of the Seattle startup community.

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SEPTEMBER 11, 2016

I got to work with Brett for two years while I was investing at First Round, before I started Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Over that time, I watched him foster thriving online communities, creating engaging events, and making them better. For everyone who has aspirations to venture capital, it's a lesson well earned by Brett's hard work.

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SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Viewing the article through the lens of a venture capitalist there’s much to agree with under the mantra of “growth!” He also nails the reason why venture capital is still necessary to grow large businesses quickly in a world where the costs of running startups have fallen dramatically. So I like that bit, too.

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FEBRUARY 23, 2016

You run X amount of capital and Y percentage of that is allocated to venture capital. For the VC that means if you're returning money to your institutional investors, that's about all you need to worry about. Either way, VC funds aren't really built around creating much of an experience for their Limited Partners.

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JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Increasingly local entrepreneurs are finding they don’t have to “take the trip up North” quite as often because on a weekly basis venture firms are down in LA — it’s only an hour’s flight.

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DECEMBER 28, 2013

However, in this moment, I think one''s career in venture capital depends on changing your perspective. The biggest question I think VC''s face right now is whether or not, in the future, the best founders will look and act like the best founders of the past. It was exactly how you''d imagine a venture firm to throw a party.

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MARCH 12, 2013

He had joined a young startup in LA called HauteLook and was interested in getting to know the local tech community. Because my role as a VC requires me to take and endless stream of meetings I long ago decided I need to learn as much as I can from the meetings I attend so I often just ask tons of questions and assimilate knowledge.

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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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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? In the age of community-funded projects, why would a web3 project want to take funding from venture capitalists?

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NOVEMBER 19, 2015

I’m often asked about the differences between being at a VC and being an entrepreneur and whether I prefer one or the other. The biggest difference I cite is that Venture Capital often feels like an “individual sport” while startups are a “team sport.” It was more hedge fund than venture capital.

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AUGUST 16, 2020

One of the core beliefs that I had when I started Brooklyn Bridge Ventures was that most of the next 50-100 important companies to be built in New York City were going to be started by people not on most VC’s radars today. Brooklyn Bridge Ventures will support these professionals with our event and community-building experience.

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JANUARY 5, 2015

Ten years ago, in 2005, I started working for Union Square Ventures as their first analyst. I reiterated the notion of risk taking when giving career advice the other day and how when I joined Union Square Ventures, it wasn''t the USV it was now. You could literally get to know everyone in the local tech community at the time.

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JANUARY 8, 2014

And there’s none that makes me happier than to announce that Jordan Hudson has been promoted to a Principal at Upfront Ventures. What is a principal at a VC firm and how does it work at Upfront Ventures? ” Associates have different functions at different VCs. Portfolio community building. VC firm admin.

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MAY 16, 2024

There are more active VCs alive today than have ever existed in the history of modern human existence—and that dates back 300,000 years! Until then, venture investors—GPs, Principals and junior professionals alike—have a lot of lanes to carve out to try to differentiate from each other. The question is what to focus on.

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Revolution

AUGUST 2, 2022

miles to visit founders, college campuses, co-investors, ecosystem builders, and communities in rising cities. The panel took place at The Ion, a 266K-sqft space designed to bring together Houston’s entrepreneurial, corporate, and academic communities. While we may not show up on a big red bus every time, showing up?—?figuratively

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MARCH 8, 2018

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. 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

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David Teten VC

MAY 26, 2021

How do you raise money for your venture capital or private equity fund from family offices and high net worths? . I see five innovative new methods for raising capital which emerging managers such as Versatile VC are using, which I’ve ranked in roughly descending order of popularity: . To dive in deeper: 1.

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David Teten VC

MARCH 1, 2022

The easiest way to work with and for VC funds is to become a part-time scout, getting paid for sourcing investments. How to win consulting, board, operating, and investment roles with private equity and venture capital funds (video). How to find a job as a VC scout. How to get a job in venture capital.

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FEBRUARY 26, 2014

But for now … Every year we run a big VC, LP & Tech Summit in Los Angeles (this year downtown) to showcase the best of our community and invite others from around the country. Upfront Ventures' And what’s up with this crazy new blog design? Well … more on that next week. I will tell more.

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Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

Unpacking Proptech: A data-driven series on advancing built world innovation As mentioned in Part 1 , an outsized portion of the proptech investor base comes from the real estate community — a reality I would argue is complicating the industry’s growth. VC firms are not blameless — over 1.8K

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DECEMBER 14, 2014

and I thought if we brought the community together for common purpose we could create more of a sense of community to help new entrepreneurs get funded, assemble teams, raise profiles and help with biz dev, product, etc. Throughout all of these years I was a full-time VC so Launchpad really came out of evenings and weekends for me.

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David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

It’s hard enough to raise capital from VC, private equity fund, and family offices. The vastly larger universe of B2B companies, many of which have teams focused on pushing VC and private equity funds to evangelize their product to their portfolio. See my list of due diligence questions for VC and private equity funds. .

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