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.

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Revolution

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Case in point: only 1% of 2022 VC dollars went to Black founders, a marked decrease year over year. As COVID kept us off the road, we launched a Rise of the Rest Equity Tour in partnership with Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, Opportunity Hub, and 100 Black Angels & Allies.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 23, 2023

In my testimony, I explained to the DFS staff that the difference between the US and China is that the US respects the freedom to innovate: REMINDER: ANYTHING THAT CHINA BANS, INVEST IN! We hired a law firm, answered the subpoena, and that ultimately landed me in public testimony in front of the DFS staff.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 14, 2020

There is real innovation happening in the IPO process for example. The crypto markets are also innovating in areas like lockups, vesting, and governance. The global nature of the crypto markets is also a challenge for regulators, who have stood in the way of innovation and continue to do so. Anyone can do it. USV TEAM POSTS:

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Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

Nearly every successful tech startup I’ve observed over the past 20 years has gone through a similar growth pattern: Innovate, systematize then scale operations. Innovate In the early years of a startup there is a lot of kinetic energy of enthusiastic innovators looking to launch a product that changes how an industry works.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 5, 2021

The Secretary Of Treasury, in his last month in office, is giving us a textbook case of how not to regulate important technology innovation. The issue is “unhosted wallets” and how regulated exchanges and other “hosted wallets” interact with them. Let’s start with why this is important.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 15, 2020

I wrote yesterday , about the quarterly numbers for VC investing activity: If this was a student coming home with a report card, it would be straight As. I have not seen the data to back that up but if it is true, that is also a failing grade for the VC sector. It feels like positive change is happening.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 28, 2020

The NYC Fintech Innovation Lab is a program which accepts fintech entrepreneurs to develop their businesses with the assistance of senior execs at the leading NYC banks and insurance companies.

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Both Sides of the Table

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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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

I’m over-paying for every check I write into the VC ecosystem and valuations are being pushed up to absurd levels and many of these valuations and companies won’t hold in the long term. However, to be a great VC you have to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at the same time. Where are Things Headed for VC in 2031?

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 14, 2020

The NVCA and Pitch Book are out with their Q3 report on the VC industry and what they report is that the VC industry continues to be very active throughout the pandemic. USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Oct 10, 2020 Innovation Upends Extrapolation: Urbanization. Deal counts and deal values are stable to up over last year.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. What Did I Learn From the First VC Check I Ever Wrote?

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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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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 8, 2019

I believe business model innovation is more disruptive than technical innovation. A good example of this was moving from web apps to mobile apps, which was largely a technical innovation. I think it opens up the possibility that some very large new companies will be created that innovate largely on entirely new business models.

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AsiaTechDaily

JANUARY 26, 2025

vc, a venture capital firm based in Singapore, has finalized a $30 million fund to support innovation in the deep tech sector. The fund is dedicated to helping early-stage startups […]

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

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 . innovated in social media advertising and for a variety of reasons wasn’t ultimately successful and went to zero. My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca.

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AsiaTechDaily

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Register Gyeonggi-do Business and Science Accelerator (CEO Kang Sung-cheon) is holding an online event to match global venture capital firms with innovative startup companies in Pangyo. In addition, GBSA plans to help Korean startups enter the global market by collaborating with global VC firms.

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Revolution

NOVEMBER 18, 2021

At the time, restaurants and food tech were on the margins of most investors’ minds and there was skepticism around VC-backed food concepts. A First Mover Mindset: Sweetgreen had a digital-first approach early on in a sector that wasn’t quick to adopt tech innovations. What did we see in the then-regional salad company?

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Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 20, 2015

VC funding. We love capital efficiency until we love land grabs until we abhor over funding until we get huge payouts and ring the bell for more funding until we attract every non-VC on the planet to invest in startups until it crashes and we start the cycle all over again none the wiser. It forces innovation.

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Founders Coop

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

But VC bubbles deflate slowly. The money fountain is sputtering just as the first real innovation in a decade roars into view. Building a generational company from scratch is the hardest thing you can do in capitalism. It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be, a YOLO lark with other people’s money. The tide will keep going out.

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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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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 21, 2021

A well-known entrepreneur turned VC, who will go unnamed because I am not sure he would want me to share this conversation publicly, once told me “if you remove a founder, you must sell the company within a couple of years or it will start to decline in value.”

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

I remember about fifteen years ago, a well-known VC said to me “you need to sell a company within a few years of the founder leaving. Companies can’t sustain their innovation after a founder leaves.” ” I told that VC that my experience has been different on that measure and that I did not agree.

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Revolution

AUGUST 2, 2022

Because there’s no replacement for meeting people where they are and experiencing innovation economies in real life. an event showcasing the innovation and economic growth possible in the middle of the country. an event showcasing the innovation and economic growth possible in the middle of the country.

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This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2015

You are innovative. When I set out to raise my next fund (which is thankfully going quite well), I wrote the deck based on why I thought others would want to work with me--because it seemed like the only important question you had to ask when considering a VC. You enjoy helping others and want them to succeed.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

I have written about Deflationary Economics (one of my most read posts ever) & The Innovator’s Dilemma before. We spoke about the disruption of VC through crowd funding. VC can’t don’t invest in these kinds of companies because they can’t get out (no liquidity event). Venture Capital.

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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. So What Impact Did the Drop in Tech Founding Costs Have on VC?

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Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

It’s where the truly innovative separate themselves from the pack. It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. Make sure your board challenges you enough about long-term vision & innovation. It’s when the game slows. What to do to Avoid Shelfware?

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Entrepreneur's Handbook

NOVEMBER 17, 2020

Since then, I’ve founded several startups, was employee #3 at a $65m VC firm in San Francisco, and realized that there is a similar phenomenon to what Robert Kiyosaki is talking about in Rich Dad, Poor Dad currently occurring in Silicon Valley. Let’s tastefully call this phenomenon: Rich Founder, Poor Founder.

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Revolution

MAY 11, 2023

Our findings confirmed a significant shift away from the traditional tech hubs of the Bay Area, New York City, and Boston, with the proportion of seed- and early-stage VC dollars funneling into the Bay Area falling below 30% for the first time in more than a decade. Seed- and Early-Stage U.S, Here are some key insights from the event.

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David Teten VC

MAY 26, 2021

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: . I maintain a proprietary database of the communities I’ve found most valuable, which I share with the other members of the Versatile VC team.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2015

Try to imagine if you *didn’t* already know Amazon and the company walking into VC meetings telling people they were going to disrupt the selling of all goods starting with books but then extending into electronics, apparel, toys and so forth. Innovation. How valuable are these legacy businesses? And they have. ” Ha.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2015

They are getting a sense that as VR and AR become more an important part of the computing landscape that the history of film-making and camera innovations not to mention special effects and talent will continue to propel LA’s tech market growth. Everybody now knows that LA produced SnapChat, Tinder and Maker Studios.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 4, 2022

million seed funding led by Los Angeles–based early-stage VC firm MaC Venture Capital. For years, proptech, unlike fintech, hasn’t witnessed exploding growth in Africa despite real estate needing as much innovation as financial services in the region. Closing on $103M, MaC VC is changing the face of venture capital.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2015

I wish all of them well and feel confident that anybody employed at one of the most innovative companies of the past 10 years will land on his or her feet. I spoke at Michael Kim’s excellent annual Cendana VC/LP conference today. So what can we learn from this? Is it a bone headed move by Twitter? Here’s my take away.

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American Entrepreneurship

FEBRUARY 15, 2024

Partnering organizations advance regional health innovation ecosystems To advance healthcare access, quality, and equity, the Ohio -headquartered managed care organization CareSource is partnering with Indiana -based Boomerang Ventures, an early-stage venture studio, specializing in connected health solutions. Overall, the U.S.

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Revolution

OCTOBER 25, 2023

What we did: Revolution Ventures Managing Partner, Tige Savage , and Associate, Carl Leacock , reconnected with the Houston innovation ecosystem during a jam-packed day planned by local startup, Rivalry Tech. Read soundbites from their conversation in Dallas Innovates. Where we went: Bozeman, MT? Where we went: Detroit, MI?

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