This is going to be BIG.

MAY 12, 2014

Venture Capital & Technology' With these economics, doubtful, but you''ll never see me complaining about money, or frankly, anything about my job. I feel very lucky to be doing this.

VC 419

VC venture capital capital ventures 419

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. And my friend and Invoca co-founder Colin Kelley has done both.

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VC venture capital capital investing 223

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.

VC 345

VC innovation founder investing 345

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 16, 2024

Add on the fact that some people theorize that the need for venture capital dollars will peak, or potentially already has, and then decline because of the ever-decreasing cost of technology infrastructure as well as the increasing capability of AI to replace expensive humans. This is something I talk about a lot with my VC coaching clients.

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This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 23, 2014

It just feels like the VC wasn''t that interested in the first place and so they''re not sure what the interest was in the first place. You''d rather know exactly why I didn''t do a deal than scratch your head over some opaque "VC speak". Venture Capital & Technology' At the end of the day, my bet is that you''d rather get that.

pitching 364

pitching VC venture capital opportunity 364

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. Deal counts and deal values are stable to up over last year. The massive expansion of later-stage private capital continues unabated. Valuations continue to rise.

ventures 362

ventures VC pitching innovation 362

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. The reality is that as a result of two major trends the costs of starting a technology startup went down massively.

investing 328

investing investment VC venture capital 328

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Go pitch a VC with an idea, and they''ll tell you to build it. Technology is moving faster, markets are changing more quickly and uncertainty seems to be increasing. Venture Capital & Technology' 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.

venture capital 390

venture capital pitching health VC 390

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.

venture capital 406

venture capital VC ventures capital 406

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 . My first ever investment as a VC was Invoca. He then went on the create an early-stage VC that I track closely?—? Maker Studios?—?sold Entrada Ventures? —?that

venture capital 363

venture capital capital ventures VC 363

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. Venture Capital & Technology' Each e-mail brought with it something that I felt that need to tweet and share--and many, probably too many times, something I bought. It was built around his design sense.

venture capital 408

venture capital creativity VC finance 408

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 technology based products and services are benefitting from these losses. 3/ Technology based commerce solutions gain when less people venture into stores to buy groceries, clothes, and other consumer products. And that is a good thing for society.

real estate 279

real estate energy VC financing 279

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 15, 2020

In the most recent Pitchbook 2021 predictions , they project that Silicon Valley will make up less than 20% of all VC deals in 2021. If there is one megachange in VC from the pandemic (there may be many), I think it is the comfort with making investments over video without the founder or the VC traveling to meet each other.

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VC entrepreneurship board investing 279

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 25, 2021

When you look at the recent Q3 numbers on seed and early-stage VC fundraising, you might think we are in the late stages of a VC bubble: The words I would use to describe the current environment in early-stage VC are “fast and furious.”

startup 304

startup VC technology entrepreneurship 304

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 19, 2015

"Square, the payment technology company founded and led by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, this evening raised $243 million by pricing its initial public offering at $9 per share, which would imply an market value of around $2.9 What's worse is that this end of the market is even affecting early stage VC mindset. A "major disappointment".

angel investing 407

angel investing venture capital VC media 407

Revolution

MAY 23, 2023

To shed additional light on this issue and its ultimate impact on startups, I partnered with the Center for Real Estate Technology & Innovation to ask proptech founders about their capital and strategic partners. VC firms are not blameless — over 1.8K VC investors wrote checks into proptech deals over the last five years.

real estate 278

real estate venture capital VC innovation 278

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 5, 2021

There has been this narrative about investing in VC funds that you have to get into the top quartile (25%) or possibly the top decile (10%) in order to generate good returns. I have heard that for as long as I have been in VC and probably have written it here a few times. As you can see, investing in VC funds can be very profitable.

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VC board investing investment 279

Hunter Walk

MARCH 3, 2025

Mediocre VCs get wealthy themselves but they won’t make money for their LPs, and are, at best, just a WITHDRAWALS ATM for average startups. “ Different & Excellent ” equates to something that doesn’t exactly look like other VCs. I could even ask you directly which one of these you think you are and why.

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peer-to-peer VC investing investment 83

TechCrunch

JANUARY 18, 2022

Maria Lepskaya is a senior associate at Runa Capital , leading investments in different branches of quantum technologies and advanced materials. While they don’t perfectly reflect technological progress, they showcase investors’ willingness to write checks for the industry. Take IonQ, a U.S.-based

VC 141

VC consulting technology enablement 141

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 30, 2014

Today I’m handing her the largest A-round check I’ve ever written as a VC as we lead her $10 million A-Round at uBeam. I said simply, “That’s the most ambitious project I’ve seen since I became a VC.” The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless. That was three months ago this week.

VC 418

VC ventures leadership board 418

This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 15, 2020

There was what seemed like an endless stream of bombshell announcements for four months: Alphabet’s Waymo unit filed a lawsuit against Uber claiming that a former Waymo employee, Anthony Levandowski, stole secrets related to autonomous vehicle technology. VC David Sacks tweeted “?? I’m quite sure I didn’t get it all right.

coworking spaces 545

coworking spaces hospitality culture coworking 545

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

NOVEMBER 15, 2021

In almost twenty years of producing some of the highest performing VC funds in the business, USV has never had a portfolio company become worth over $100 billion. The exit values in VC have increased significantly over the last decade leading to escalating entry values. So it can happen, but it is very unlikely. That makes sense.

VC 363

VC sustainability investing investment 363

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

For most of my career as a VC, the IPO has been the holy grail. I don’t take as much offense to this situation as others in the VC business have. I have viewed it as a mutually beneficial relationship between the top banks, VC firms, and the founders and CEOs who lead our portfolio companies. We will see.

VC 279

VC capital board founder 279

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. We have an amazing team of W2 drivers in NYC, Washington D.C,

real estate 364

real estate startup disruption incumbents 364

Both Sides of the Table

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.” So Silicon Valley massively shifted to San Francisco.

culture 339

culture VC communities venture capital 339

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

I know all of this because every VC knows this because we’ve all either funded companies that have marketing technology or we’ve seen a pitch with a company that does this. If you haven’t read the other VC fund-raising posts I’ve done as part of this series you can find the whole outline and this first in the series here.]

VC 239

VC pitching strategy investing 239

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2024

But like web3 before it and the internet before that, this new technology will bring litigation and regulatory scrutiny that will raise, and ultimately resolve many important issues. But as important as regulatory clarity is to web3, it pales in importance with the need for a “ChatGPT moment” for blockchain-based technologies.

energy 236

energy venture capital innovation capital 236

This is going to be BIG.

APRIL 14, 2014

That means you actually have a *better* shot, statistically, of getting VC investment at these firms, statistically, once you actually pitch. Venture Capital & Technology' I guarantee you that if you ask any of the firms listed in the Business Insider article, and ask them if their dealflow is 15-20% women and they''ll say no.

founder 390

founder pitching mix-use venture capital 390

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

You’d be surprised how many firms are “dictator VCs” – even those that don’t formally acknowledge it internally. When you’re newer in VC many partners choose to play it safe, doing smaller investments and not trying to bet on something that a “far out” risk.

venture capital 336

venture capital peer-to-peer capital ventures 336

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

. “I think the best VCs help drive exits alongside their entrepreneurs. I have done 6 VC investments – all within the past 20 months. But the truth is only time will tell whether I’m financially a successful VC and I’m comfortable in my skin saying that. None have exited. That’s normal.

VC 387

VC venture capital finance financing 387

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 14, 2013

I’ve been involved with technology product design in one form or another for nearly 25 years and seen one mistake consistently repeated. The single biggest mistake most product teams make is building technology for what they believe the user would want rather than what the actual end-user needs.

advice 408

advice education VC technology 408

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 28, 2022

So I saw this tweet by Semil Shah yesterday: A friend who works in an industry far from tech startups & VC asked what would be the single article I’d share to read on each topic. It is about how a VC can compete and win a deal that many others want. That is a failure of the system. But this post is not about that.

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VC entrepreneurs venture capital strategy 261

Founders Coop

SEPTEMBER 30, 2024

But VC bubbles deflate slowly. After half a generation of overhyped trivialities, Large Language Models have reminded us what real technological breakthroughs look like. But unlike prior technology waves, LLMs won’t just give humans superpowers, they will increasingly replace those human workers entirely.

VC 143

VC innovation incumbents energy 143

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Since the majority of VC returns come from a small number of deals, “obvious” investments seldom return such incredible multiples. One such theme was “water conservation” and we morphed it into a broader theme of agriculture technology or “ag tech” for short. Apeel Technologies.

funders 362

funders culture incumbents technology 362

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

As I wrote then: I don’t think a VC firm should manage to a pacing number. In the last two years, the VC business has been operating at a blistering pace, the fastest I’ve witnessed in my 35 years in the business (including the 99/00 era). But even so, the VC business has turned into a sprint.

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VC opportunity investing investment 235

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

DECEMBER 31, 2019

6/ Cryptography emerged in the 2010s as a powerful technology that can solve some of the web and mobile’s most vexing issues. 7/ Technology inserted itself right in the middle of society this decade. Our elections are conducted using machine learning technology to segment and micro-target important voting groups.

sustainability 278

sustainability technology media strategy 278

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 5, 2020

Most of USV’s big wins have been in companies where we were the first institutional VC to talk to the company or where we had way more conviction about the opportunity than other investors at the time of our investment. ” He was surprised and said “You are the first VC to say that.”

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VC pitching investing investment 254