financing incumbents VC 
Both Sides of the Table
MAY 28, 2018
There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. It goes something like this … VC: “How much money are you raising?” Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” A VC is looking for reasonableness.
Both Sides of the Table
FEBRUARY 13, 2011
I run Revolution’s VC investments. We look at huge markets where there are large incumbents that might not be incented to innovate or react to what they perceive as an insurgent. Both AOL and Time Warner had existing VC operations. In that way, you could say that we are stage agnostic. Can you talk about it?
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Both Sides of the Table
MAY 17, 2017
I’ve been involved with several startups where a giant incumbent attacks you and tries to sue you out of existence. The deal fell through at the last minute and ADT chose not to continue financing the company, which was forced to shut down. The first instinct is fear, then dread, then panic.
TechCrunch
JULY 12, 2022
With a large population, Pakistan is geographically smaller, well-connected with fewer provinces, has lower regulatory barriers and doesn’t have strong incumbents,” Khurshid, who is originally from Pakistan, said via email. This allows Pakistani startups to scale faster throughout the country and expand into other markets.”.
TechCrunch
SEPTEMBER 8, 2021
This works for some, but too often founders find themselves diluting their equity to unrecoverable portions rather than considering other financing options that allow them to hold on to their company — options like debt capital. People tend to think that category creation is less risky than incumbent disruption.
Both Sides of the Table
APRIL 18, 2019
This is only true when: 1) there is funding available to finance short-term losses and 2) when there is a lucrative positive unit-economics business when you become the winner. You can’t simply drop a bunch of electric scooters in a market and hope to compete with the data and software advantages of the incumbents.
TechCrunch
APRIL 20, 2021
“Challenger” startups in banking and insurance have upended their industries, and picked up significant business, by building more customer-friendly tools and services — more personalized, easier to access and usually competitively priced — than those typically provided by their bigger, incumbent rivals.
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