A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 10, 2020

Many founders want to do SAFE note financings for their early rounds to save time and money. My response to that is “let’s do a priced round, we can use a standard financing form we both like, we won’t use a lawyer on our side, and we can close in a week.” Everything else is pretty standard anyway.

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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. Besides, how effective of a filter is it that someone can get coffee with a non-VC and convince them that you'd want to see the deal? That pitch has never excited any VC in the history of VC funding.

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

It will make follow-on financings much harder and people will have to consider whether or not to do inside rounds. These are all normal things but in this big run since 2009 we’ve all gotten used to nearly 100% follow-on financing rates, valuations only moving up, deals clearly the convertible note caps and low mortality rates.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And the loosening of federal monetary policies, particularly in the US, has pushed more dollars into the venture ecosystems at every stage of financing. What Has Changed in Financing? However, to be a great VC you have to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. Of course we can’t. By definition?—?I’m

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The typical VC process is as follows: They say there are three rules in property: Location, location, location. The surest sign a fund-raising process has stalled is when you aren’t getting follow-up meetings or hearing from the VC or hearing from friends that they got a phone call or email asking about you. Same with VC.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 13, 2019

We expect we will see continued innovation in the open finance (finance 2.0) We have already seen an explosion of assets issued on blockchains and a number of very large and profitable custody/brokerage/exchange businesses built. sector in the next few years while the open data (web 3.0) sector will take longer to develop.

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This is going to be BIG.

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. In fact, that number is probably even more than the average VC fund has the bandwidth to make. Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. You get, if you’re lucky, a Powerpoint and some financials once a quarter.

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Dream It

DECEMBER 19, 2019

million Series A financing round led by San Francisco-based Builders VC. Partnering with Builders VC aligns us with a team of industry experts who understand both the challenges and opportunities in transforming the way behavioral health is addressed and treated.” This week, the company announced a $7.5

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

Scott and I agree on nearly everything: The VC structure is changing and there appears to be a bifurcation into small & large VCs with an impact on “traditionally sized” VCs. The only point we didn’t seem totally aligned on was what we happening to the “middle of the VC market.”

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SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

” From the hyperbolic Jason Calacanis weighing in that “The petty VC’s did everything to deride [Naval, the co-founder of AngelList]” as though the industry was collectively s g its pants that AngelList was going to put us out of business. This is the same way VC firms, by the way. Bowery Capital).

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OCTOBER 7, 2014

No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 There weren’t a lot of seed funds in 2007 so this was often done by angels, funding consortia or sometimes early-stage funds that existed then (First Round Capital, True Ventures, SoftTech VC, etc.).

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). Kara has worked in finance in Boston, NYC and Silicon Valley. Upfront Ventures VC Industry' It is rare to find somebody who matches exactly what I’m looking for in a partner so when you find it you act: Academic rigor (Princeton undergrad, Stanford MBA).

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 6, 2015

You''ve been in VC long enough to see lots of different funds, partners and deals. You get a lot of choice as a VC as to who you want to spend your time with. I think we originally connected via your blog - it''s great and you''ve been one of the longest running VC bloggers (as far as I can recall). It''s been over 11 years now!

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This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

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. My own track record as a VC across First Round Capital and Brooklyn Bridge Ventures actually starts in January of 2010, *after* the Airbnb class of Winter 2009.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

” This is a frequent theme of mine when asked to speak to audience about the VC industry. And this is fueled by the VC culture in Silicon Valley. I was recently talking to a VC about a business I was looking at and I was asking whether he found the business interesting, too. It is VC math, like it or not.

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MAY 24, 2021

This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004. Of the first four investments I made as a VC in 2009, two have exited and two (Invoca & GumGum) still are independent and likely to produce $billion++ outcomes . My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. Maker Studios?—?sold Entrada Ventures? —?that

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 12, 2019

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. why the hell has seed financing declined so much in the past 3 years?? So What Impact Did the Drop in Tech Founding Costs Have on VC?

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 4, 2022

million seed funding led by Los Angeles–based early-stage VC firm MaC Venture Capital. The investment will see Spleet scale its products: the flagship residential rent management and rent financing solution. monthly to finance rent payments. Closing on $103M, MaC VC is changing the face of venture capital.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 8, 2015

But Fab fell into the trap that many companies who go down the VC route fall into--too much money, too soon, and growing too fast. Small world, it turns out I also knew his husband from the finance world having met him over 10 years ago. That was the core of what Bradford brought to that company. It was built around his design sense.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Go pitch a VC with an idea, and they''ll tell you to build it. Finance is changing. Go to them with a prototype and they''ll tell you to launch it. Launch it, and they''ll tell you to get more users. Get users and they''ll tell you to get paying customers. Get paying customers and they''ll tell you to get bigger, enterprise clients.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

That’s what every VC is telling their portfolio companies these days. If you don’t realize that, just imagine you’re a VC fund with some dry powder in the second half of 2023. The one question every VC needs to be able to answer on the way to getting to a “yes” is, “Can this return a big chunk of my fund one day?”

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 31, 2020

So today, I will write about 2020 in the context of tech/startups/VC/crypto. And they finance the trend that they are directionally correct about. There is no question that crypto is in yet another speculative bubble, but like I said, it is speculative bubbles that allow emerging technologies to go mainstream and finance themselves.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

Helping companies get to next financing round successfully: I was just beginning this phase in Sept 2010 and said so. I’ve now been involved with many other successful foll0w-on financings. “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. Sourcing high-quality leads : 9/10. Since then?

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TechCrunch

MARCH 11, 2021

David Teten is founder of Versatile VC and writes periodically at teten.com and @dteten. 15 steps to fundraising a new VC or private equity fund. Stéphane Nasser is co-founder of OpenVC , an open-source initiative to collect and analyze all VC theses. VC websites by David Teten and Sam Sabin , co-founder of Hireblue.

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Between 2006–2008 I sold both companies that I had started and became a VC. SEEING THINGS FROM THE VC SIDE OF THE TABLE While I was a VC in 2007 & 2008 those were dead years because the market again evaporated due the the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). THE VC VALUATION GOD Valuation obsession wasn’t restricted to startups.

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AUGUST 11, 2021

Trust, which today has announced a $9 million financing (Upfront is an investor), is a platform designed to help make the most of marketing investment by providing both analytics and a community of likeminded executives to share what’s working, and what’s not, across platforms. Why Did I Invest in Trust?

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OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. So I hope that offers you insights into how companies move through the VC system.

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DECEMBER 6, 2013

Monitor had a little internal VC group so he got some experience there. More like a temporary VC just to get some experience and of course we’d pay him. We got a bit of extra help on company analyses and he got to see a VC from the inside. But we continued to meet over the years and swap experiences. I saw it as win-win.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 4, 2022

I’m a straight white dude who grew up in NYC and worked in finance. I’m the on-paper poster child for “who can get VC dollars”. Will the money have been worth it if you find yourself out on the street, fired from your own company, just a few years later—replaced by some guy that was in the same fraternity as your lead VC?

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to think the role of a VC is to have strong opinions about markets, trends, tech dynamics and so forth. The role of VC is sparring partner.

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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.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

Generally speaking in venture capital financings the legal documents will specify that only “major investors” (a threshold set in the agreement – which can be $500,000 investor or more). Fundraising / Negotiations Startup Lessons VC Industry' How party rounds can burn you if it takes time to find your groove.

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Founder Bounty

JANUARY 8, 2025

Our content is informative as well as education from VC-backed founders who have experience in building companies from scratch and helps you navigate the online world this year. At founderbounty we understand the importance of creating content that turns eyeballs. Google rewards legit good and high quality content.

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

I will speak with people earning good money at a larger company or even well-financed startup who are mulling over the choice of whether or not to quit. My starting salary when I joined a VC fund as a partner at the age of 39 (and after 2 exits)? That’s less than most startup CEOs who have raised a few rounds of VC are paid.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

In the old days there weren’t many fights about whether angels would take their prorata rights in financing rounds. Plus, many VC rounds traditionally didn’t guarantee angels prorata rights unless they were “major investors” which often means they wrote large checks in the angel round. Thus begins the dance.

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MAY 30, 2015

If a VC tried to do this to you on an early-stage deal they would get such a bad reputation that no other VCs or entrepreneurs would work with them. On VC financings this term is explicit so entrepreneurs understand they’re getting screwed.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 12, 2020

My partner Albert told me that when you factor in the financing costs of this swap, the average home in the Northeast United States could save $1000 to $2000 a year by doing this swap. It has gotten less expensive to do this swap out as solar and heat pump costs have come down.

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