Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 29, 2014

This week I wrote about obsessive and competitive founders and how this forms the basis of what I look for when I invest. I had been thinking a lot about this recently because I’m often asked the question of “what I look for in an entrepreneur when I want to invest?” I had invested in myself for years.

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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. 4) The diverse background of the founder is not the main reason why most diverse founders get turned down for investment. However, if you don't want to evaluate your inbound deal opportunities, that's the job, my friend.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 1, 2021

When I look at all of the opportunities we are currently considering plus all of the investments we have made this year to date, what stands out most to me is the location of the founders and teams. And very little of it is in western Europe where most of our non-US investing has been for the last decade.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. It’s not uncommon for a VC to ask you how much capital you’ve raised and what the post-money valuation was on your last round. So why does a VC ask you?

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This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 3, 2020

Fund investing, like adulting, is boring. That’s the first thing anyone trying to raise a fund needs to understand, as well as anyone thinking about investing in one. The partner at the fund, the VC, gets to do the fun part—the meeting with founders, vetting deals, negotiating, helping, etc. So what’s the point?

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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).

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500

JUNE 9, 2020

As a VC firm, we’ve had to adapt many aspects of our business as well. From taking all aspects of our accelerators digital (including our Demo Day) to rethinking the opportunities of the future, we’ve taken this moment to analyze what innovations can come from this time and new opportunities that arise from our changing environment.

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Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

We have global opportunities from these trends but of course also big challenges. 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. How our VC Firms Like Ours Organizing to Meet the Challenges?

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 11, 2015

As a single GP (a firm with one investment decision making professional), I get asked a lot of questions about how I manage my time considering the number of investments I make. I think that's probably less than most early stage VCs take, but I think I've gotten pretty good at being decisive about what I'm *not* likely to invest in.

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This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 4, 2018

When you get an investment from Brooklyn Bridge Ventures—you get me. My investment thesis is shaped by the sum of my personal experience and so are my values. My goal is to make Brooklyn Bridge Ventures the most accessible VC firm not just because I think it’s good business, but because I think it’s a based on good values.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 23, 2014

When I turn down the opportunity to invest in a startup, I really turn it down. If I don''t have clarity on something, it means that I don''t think the space and the opportunity size is big enough to get clarity. You''d rather know exactly why I didn''t do a deal than scratch your head over some opaque "VC speak".

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Dream It

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

With our 2020 Robotics + AI sessions event on the horizon in early March, we’re diving back into the sector to learn about the attributes of construction attracting robotics VCs the most and which types of startups VCs are actually writing checks for in 2020. How much time are you spending on construction robotics right now?

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Both Sides of the Table

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 As a result Matt feels compelled to give back to Harvard Westlake to provide similar opportunities for economically challenged individuals.

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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. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 22, 2020

To a VC, $50,000 a pre-sale isn’t really that much. VCs are less interested that you sold 10 customers, 20, or 100—they want to understand how many you’re selling per week and whether or not that kind of pace would be profitable for your sales & marketing efforts. That’s why we invest in a portfolio.

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pitching VC peer-to-peer founder 351

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2016

The firm scaled assistance to startups in a way that for outpaced the resources any investment team could provide as individuals. I got to work with Brett for two years while I was investing at First Round, before I started Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. For the last six years, Brett had been building the platform team at FRC.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting. Remember that the goal of an email to a VC or an introduction from a trusted mutual connection is simply to get you the meeting.

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This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 6, 2015

I''m just trying to invest in the best opportunities. 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. Are there existing larger VC funds that you''d consider joining, or are you BBV for life?

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The Seraf Compass

SEPTEMBER 23, 2024

Join Seraf for an engaging and informative webinar on VC investing in BRICS countries, with an emphasis on the exciting opportunities in Brazil. This event is tailored for venture capitalists, startup founders, and investors eager to delve into the high-growth potential within Brazil's dynamic market.

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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. YC''s best investing days may be behind it. A couple of years ago, I went to a networking event sponsored by a top tier VC firm. They picked up Airbnb, Heroku and Dropbox.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 14, 2021

It may be silly and crazy, but it has also been a good investment for my friend and anyone who bought it in the early years. The combination of memes and investing is a powerful cocktail that I have been ignoring for a long time, probably incorrectly. It is easy to dismiss meme investing. That may change. Or it may not.

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investing investment communities board 243

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 16, 2024

This is something I talk about a lot with my VC coaching clients. What if you could draw that same-sized opportunity around a different set of criteria—not a vertical, but a theme that affects multiple verticals? When Roger Ehrenberg set out to professionalize his angel investing into a fund, he used “Data” as the theme.

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This is going to be BIG.

MAY 10, 2020

VCs are notorious for kicking tires. VCs take a meeting just to learn about an area. If deal flow is slow, a VC will take a meeting if you and your team seem mildly interesting even if your product isn’t. Some VCs have no money left in their funds, but they still like playing VC. Do you have dry powder for this?

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Both Sides of the Table

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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Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

This is largely driven by large investment flows from strategic and tourist investors. VC firms are not blameless — over 1.8K VC investors wrote checks into proptech deals over the last five years. Strategics in this space typically have a portfolio of hard assets (i.e.,

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real estate venture capital VC innovation 278

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2015

We set out to understand this market a little bit better along with our friends at CB Insights and I hope you find this data valuable as you try to understand the opportunity as it relates to your business. If you’re an LP and want to know who these emerging funds are please call me and/or attend our Annual VC Summit.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business. These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. would you want to give up the right to invest in subsequent rounds?

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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. ” I’m not so sure.

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This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 6, 2017

I can't tell you how many times I've heard an entrepreneur make a generalization about VCs based on a few meetings that was completely wrong--and they were usually basing their statement off what the VC told them. VCs don't invest in brick and mortar (WeWork). VCs invest in exceptions. Yeah, you get it.

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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. If someone actually did check all these boxes, it would be a Series B deal, not a seed investment. In my mind, that creates the opportunity for increasing returns. Go to them with a prototype and they''ll tell you to launch it. No risk, no return.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2014

That’s a shame because many of these people missed out on what will be a few great VC vintages. I wrote about this in a blog post last year titled “ It’s Morning in VC ” but I never made the full deck available until now. This is the opportunity set for venture capitalists. Thus is a key point.

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Revolution

MAY 11, 2023

We named this summit after a report we wrote with Pitchbook at the end of 2021 to explore the impact of the pandemic on investment patterns. Executing on opportunities at the intersection of utility and disruption allows for exponential innovation. There are untold impacts of climate change many of us don’t see.

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real estate energy innovation VC 296

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

I was having a conversation last night with another VC who was suggesting I monetize the pro-ratas that I don't take by creating SPVs. It made me think of an investment I just made where the entrepreneur found an extremely profitable niche that he is already taking advantage of. But you could charge fees or at least carry for that.

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advice VC opportunity entrepreneurs 389

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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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 22, 2014

How many more investments could I do? These are things that other VCs think about, but founders who come to pitch don''t think about too much. as a VC, sometimes your own website becomes an afterthought. Was the fund enough to keep me going? How where things going? When you blog, tweet , Instagram , etc., So there ya go.

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This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 5, 2015

Now, the community is orders of magnitude larger and the number of investors who invest here has grown significantly. You can''t rise up as fast taking a job at a VC firm in NYC the same way you could 10 years ago--and you can''t get that USV job as easily as you could. Who''s the VC that everyone *isn''t* trying to network with.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

Sometimes the opportunity set forces you to go faster. As I wrote then: I don’t think a VC firm should manage to a pacing number. It should manage to the opportunity set that it sees. ” Making sound investment decisions in a week is doable. But even so, the VC business has turned into a sprint.

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