This is going to be BIG.

JULY 16, 2014

Venture Capital & Technology' I am not trying to build a big firm, employ a lot of people, or manage the most money possible. I just want to do my thing for as long as my investors and the future founders I have the opportunity to back will let me.

VC 399

VC frameworks venture capital opportunity 399

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 16, 2014

How long does it take from first meeting a VC to getting cash in the bank? I went back across the 21 investments I''ve made both at First Round and at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures --a period that dates back to January 28, 2010, when I closed on Backupify. Venture Capital & Technology' That''s an interesting question.

VC 417

VC pitching networking venture capital 417

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

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 31, 2014

VC is a service industry and the best investors are always looking for ways to help. Venture Capital & Technology' Maybe it''s an intro to a customer or maybe it''s helping you work through a particular issue. Either way, I''m a big fan of givers--people who offer something before they get something back in return.

VC 379

VC pitching venture capital capital 379

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 12, 2014

How does one make money raising a venture fund of this size? That means I have a total budget of a little over $200,000 to run the entire operations of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Venture Capital & Technology' Thankfully, that''s what I raised--$8.3 So how does it work? Not easily, let me tell you. That''s a big help.

VC 419

VC venture capital capital ventures 419

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.

VC 247

VC capital financing finance 247

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 26, 2020

Today we’re announcing that my partner Kara Nortman is becoming Co-Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to welcome her to her new role. She worked for 5 years as a VC at Battery Ventures and co-headed M&A at IAC working with Barry Diller. She had all of the skills and traits we sought?

ventures 361

ventures leadership mentorship venture capital 361

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 24, 2014

Not every potentially good VC previously worked for Fred Wilson and Josh Kopelman. Not every VC used to get pitched by VC funds for a living and has seen hundreds and hundreds of VC pitch decks. Venture capitalists play an important role in burgeoning ecosystems. Venture Capital & Technology'

accelerator 371

accelerator mentorship VC incubation 371

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 26, 2015

One of the least understood parts of the venture capital industry and venture capital firms is how investment decisions actually get made. You’d be surprised how many firms are “dictator VCs” – even those that don’t formally acknowledge it internally. ” Some firms are collegiate.

venture capital 336

venture capital peer-to-peer capital ventures 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2022

Photo by Scott Clark for Upfront Ventures (no, Evan is not standing on a box) Last year marked the 25th anniversary for Upfront Ventures and what a year it was. 2021 saw phenomenal returns for our industry and it topped off more than a decade of unprecedented VC growth. What do you do with a $650 million platform?

ventures 408

ventures startup peer-to-peer venture capital 408

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling In order to understand how to “get to yes” with a VC you first need to understand how VC partnerships make decisions and then you can understand how to increase your odds of closing a deal. What do you want to know?

VC 314

VC board investing investment 314

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JUNE 1, 2021

It takes a long time, at least five years and more likely a decade, to know how changes in the startup economy and venture capital will play out. And we are doing exactly that. We won’t know how this move to invest globally will impact returns and founder success.

venture capital 279

venture capital capital investing investment 279

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.

VC 223

VC venture capital capital investing 223

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 28, 2013

However, in this moment, I think one''s career in venture capital depends on changing your perspective. 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. It was exactly how you''d imagine a venture firm to throw a party.

venture capital 407

venture capital VC ventures capital 407

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. As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture.

investing 328

investing investment VC venture capital 328

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.

APRIL 14, 2014

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures came in first, with a whopping 61%. Lerer Ventures was second, with just under 20%. Take the most widely used number--that way fewer women are getting venture funding than guys. Most companies don''t ever raise venture capital and they do just fine. Well, it''s gotta mean something, right?

founder 392

founder pitching mix-use venture capital 392

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'

pitching 367

pitching VC venture capital opportunity 367

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 392

venture capital pitching health VC 392

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2013

He talked about how for centuries education had “no technological core” (meaning it was bound by physical locations) and thus disruption was very difficult. Internationalization of Technology. We spoke about what succeeds early in technology market evolutions. Venture Capital. So what did he actually say?

education 403

education disruption entrepreneurship venture capital 403

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. That would probably signal the end of the asset class.

VC 243

VC angel investing networking pitching 243

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.

venture capital 409

venture capital creativity VC financing 409

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. As I’ve written about recently, at Upfront Ventures we started talking a couple of years ago about wanting to fund stuff with more meaning. The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless.

VC 418

VC ventures leadership board 418

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 5, 2015

Ten years ago, in 2005, I started working for Union Square Ventures as their first analyst. I reiterated the notion of risk taking when giving career advice the other day and how when I joined Union Square Ventures, it wasn''t the USV it was now. Who''s the VC that everyone *isn''t* trying to network with.

startup ecosystem 316

startup ecosystem VC networking venture capital 316

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 9, 2014

I only say that because after years as a VC I can always tell when my peer group invested in something because “it seemed like it would make money” versus when they invested out of passion. On reflection of the role that I want to play as a VC it is clearly in the camp of passion. I’m a VC.

peer-to-peer 373

peer-to-peer VC pitching entrepreneurs 373

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. It got me thinking about the advice that I often give to new VCs. Somehow the world seems to be spinning faster these days than just a few years ago. It’s exhausting.

peer-to-peer 317

peer-to-peer pitching VC accelerator 317

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 18, 2022

Every quarter our firm goes through a process to value our entire portfolio. Those values, on a schedule of investments we publish to our investors every quarter, flow through to our financial statements and capital accounts and establish how much an interest in our partnerships are worth at that time.

venture capital 235

venture capital capital ventures creativity 235

A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 14, 2022

There is a lot of criticism of venture capital in web3. Bitcoin did not have or need venture capital. Ethereum did not have or need venture capital. So why would any web3 project need venture capital? In the age of community-funded projects, why would a web3 project want to take funding from venture capitalists?

venture capital 239

venture capital capital ventures communities 239

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

Sesie Bonsi is the founder and CEO of Bleu , a financial technology platform focused on enabling touchless payment experiences. But most venture-backed startups are “still overwhelmingly white, male, Ivy-League-educated and based in Silicon Valley,” according to a study conducted by RateMyInvestor and Diversity VC.

startup ecosystem 129

startup ecosystem ventures founder startup 129

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 Unlike venture capital funds, they don't make money directly off the multiples of their return.

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

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

Back in 2009, I wrote a post called The Venture Capital Math Problem. This 2009 piece from @fredwilson (literally the best in the biz) predicted significant venture industry contraction when in fact the last 10yrs have seen massive expansion. So what did I get wrong in my attempt to solve the venture capital math problem?

venture capital 199

venture capital capital ventures VC 199

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

I become a venture capitalist in September 2007 – exactly 6.5 As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” years ago. None have exited.

VC 387

VC venture capital financing finance 387

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

Besides, there were a limited number of places where I could do my job in venture capital anyway—and while I might be a go to for a pitch from super early stage pre-seed and seed founders looking for quick answers and decisive term sheets in New York City, the reality is that I would be pretty far down the list in the Valley. Plenty of bros.

culture 360

culture VC communities education 360

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.

real estate 279

real estate energy VC financing 279

David Teten VC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

It’s hard enough to raise capital from VC, private equity fund, and family offices. The vastly larger universe of B2B companies, many of which have teams focused on pushing VC and private equity funds to evangelize their product to their portfolio. We share insights on technologies, data, and processes that generate alpha. .

venture capital 126

venture capital capital ventures VC 126

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.” It was more hedge fund than venture capital.

culture 339

culture VC communities venture capital 339