This is going to be BIG.

NOVEMBER 3, 2014

I just respectfully don''t see the same opportunity as her investors do, and I reserve the right to be 100% wrong. For her sake, the company''s sake, and their lead investor''s sake, I hope I''m tremendously wrong on this. I''ve been wrong many times before. We all have. I like Mark Suster a lot, too.

Venture Capital 161

Venture Capital Marketing Valuation Lead Investor 161

Professor VC

APRIL 1, 2010

While this may certainly be the case with unsophisticated angels (much less of these now) or in cases with no lead investor, Id argue the opposite. In my experience, venture investors are more focused on percentage ownership, which obviously requires a trade-off with the amount invested and valuation.

Term Sheet 32

Term Sheet Angel Investor San Jose Venture Capital 32

BeyondVC

JULY 7, 2010

We launched an initial prototype, landed a few customers, and brought in Mission Ventures as a new lead investor for the restart of the company. When we sold GoToMyPC to Citrix, we also restarted the company from the initial business model that we had and did a complete 180 degree change.

Portfolio 109

Portfolio Architecture Open Source Database 109

BeyondVC

JULY 7, 2010

We launched an initial prototype, landed a few customers, and brought in Mission Ventures as a new lead investor for the restart of the company. When we sold GoToMyPC to Citrix, we also restarted the company from the initial business model that we had and did a complete 180 degree change.

Portfolio 109

Portfolio Open Source Architecture Database 109

OnlyOnce

JULY 26, 2018

Or you negotiate the highest possible valuation from a new lead investor, only to discover that new lead investor, now on your Board, expects you to triple it in four years and is way out of alignment with the rest of your cap table. On the other side, what’s an example of a “good” loss?

Cap Table 61

Cap Table Lead Investor Valuation Reputation 61

Growthink Blog

JULY 23, 2012

Since 2005, they have been the two leading investors in Africa, investing $31 billion and $16 billion on the continent, respectively. How / must your business model evolve to leverage these new opportunities? So from a business perspective, how can we make the Black Swan work for, and not against, us? This is HARD.

Africa 76

Africa Brazil India China 76

OnlyOnce

JULY 26, 2018

Or you negotiate the highest possible valuation from a new lead investor, only to discover that new lead investor, now on your Board, expects you to triple it in four years and is way out of alignment with the rest of your cap table. On the other side, what’s an example of a “good” loss?

Cap Table 48

Cap Table Lead Investor Valuation Reputation 48

BeyondVC

JULY 7, 2010

We launched an initial prototype, landed a few customers, and brought in Mission Ventures as a new lead investor for the restart of the company. When we sold GoToMyPC to Citrix, we also restarted the company from the initial business model that we had and did a complete 180 degree change.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Architecture Open Source Database 60

Professor VC

OCTOBER 20, 2009

In how many of those were you a lead investor? What percentage of your members are not active angel investors (i.e. At Sand Hill, we are very active and often lead investor and Series A board representative. I am an active angel investor and on the board of Sand Hill Angels. Average size?

Angel Investor 35

Angel Investor San Jose Due Diligence Silicon Valley 35

SoCal CTO

SEPTEMBER 8, 2010

How I Think About Seed Investing As A VC - Feld Thoughts , August 2, 2010 Last week saw an explosion of discussion around seed investing, including plenty of negative comments around VCs as seed investors. While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed investors.

Startup 191

Startup CTO Hire Cofounder Venture Capital 191

Professor VC

JANUARY 20, 2009

Mid-way through the process, we took another cut at our business plan and built a model where $5 million would be sufficient to get us beyond breakeven. This brought in a new set of prospective investors and required a lower investment from the lead investor as our existing investors were committed and on board.

Venture Capital 28

Venture Capital Silicon Valley San Jose Bootstrapping 28

Growthink Blog

NOVEMBER 8, 2010

Since 2005, they have been the two leading investors in Africa, investing $31 billion and $16 billion on the continent, respectively. How / must your business model evolve to leverage these new opportunities? Check your ego firmly at the door when evaluating business models. Your India strategy? •

Africa 104

Africa Brazil China India 104

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

August 2010 Two years ago I wrote about what I called " a huge, unexploitedopportunity in startup funding :" the growing disconnect betweenVCs, whose current business model requires them to invest largeamounts, and a large class of startups that need less than theyused to. forstartups was to find one angel to act as the lead investor.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

reidhoffman.org

NOVEMBER 12, 2013

But with so many investors still licking their wounds from the dot-com bust, many focused on proven business models, such as advertising or e-commerce. As a result, we knew that our pitch would need to steer into investors’ biggest concern: the lack of revenue. The general rule is one business model drives the business.

Entrepreneur 111

Entrepreneur Viral Revenue Networking 111

www.xconomy.com

JUNE 9, 2012

Here’s some big news for San Diego’s innovation economy: There’s a new venture capital firm in town—and its investment methodology represents a fundamentally different approach to the conventional business model for venture investing. A deal typically begins with an introductory phone call from the lead investor.

San Diego 40

San Diego Venture Capital Technical Review San Francisco 40

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 17, 2023

Similarly, founders of these companies are looking for lead investors who can de-risk their path forward. Being a pure generalist VC makes it very difficult to convince savvy founders that you have the industry relationships, relevant pattern-matching, and density of experience to be their best lead investor.

Early Stage 107

Early Stage Lead Investor Matching Software 107

Reid Hoffman

JANUARY 26, 2021

This is one of the reasons why the best practice for a startup is to raise investment rounds from different lead investors rather than simply doing internal rounds, even if an internal round requires less work. This is why advertising is a really good business model. Or when should a board member be fired?

Startup 36

Startup Equity Early Stage Green 36