crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 21, 2014

These posts and videos are about logo design , web design , startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! “The deal values WhatsApp users at $35 each but the current market cap of Facebook values its MAUs at $140 or so.” WhatsApp: The inside story | Wired UK - crowdspring.co/Mexzv0.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Seed is about showing initial product market fit. Below are just a few contributors to the rise of pre-seed in the current market: Explosion of Micro funds – In recent years, there’s been a steep increase in the number of micro funds, which are generally below $100M in size. who’s talking to customers?)

Valuation 186

Valuation Software Review Generative AI Technical Review 186

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Taking stock of the venture capital market in 2023, it’s clear to see that we’re in a transition point. Prices went up from round to round, and startups were encouraged to grow, grow, grow, and not to worry about profitability. In today’s market, I believe small is beautiful, and that specialisation matters.

Venture Capital 215

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Institutional Investors 215

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 8, 2016

And when prices are dropping on a VCs existing companies in market, there is a substantial reduction in FOMO (fear of missing out) for new deals, which means that investors take their time in making investment decisions. Don’t assume that you can “just do a down round” if necessary. Down rounds are corrosive.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Startup Dilution 150

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 26, 2022

Before product-market fit… just care about speed of iteration according to your customer feedback. But valuations, especially those in the private market, are not necessarily a predictor of growth/ success. A good way to think about valuation in seed/pre-seed is to reverse engineer the next round. Team, product, market.

Founder 187

Founder Startup Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 187

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 1, 2020

The next reason is to establish a competitive advantage over your competition and quickly acquire a substantial market share. Let’s take an example – In the case of an internet or app business, the user traction and market penetration is a must. Establish a competitive advantage. Both of which are expensive and time-consuming.

Startup 150

Startup Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Seed Stage 150

Genuine VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

Plus, VCs often will have met the Founder/CEOs of many of a particular startup’s competitors, so they’ll have an even richer understand of the market landscape. So most of your calculus in selecting the right startup role should involve understanding the company’s market and business plan in executing toward a grand vision.

Startup 146

Startup Burn Rate Technical Review Down Round 146

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 7, 2012

This isn’t a company yet, it’s an idea, and the founder could do a lot more on his own to validate product-market fit before raising capital. As Cuban pointed out, this is a “down round” Zomm is seeking $2M for 10% of the company, implying an $18M pre money valuation today. They were right to do so.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 110

ReadWriteStart

JANUARY 13, 2024

Startups in the cybersecurity sector are facing a daunting market environment , contending with decreased valuations and increasing pressure to sell while competing for vital funding and collaborations. Additionally, these down rounds can decrease employee morale, as they may dilute shares or pay cuts, affecting the overall work environment.

Down Round 154

Down Round Marketing Artificial Inteligence Startup 154

Steve Blank

APRIL 26, 2022

For the common shareholders (employees, advisors, and previous investors), a cram down is a big middle finger, as it comes with reverse split – meaning your common shares are now worth 1/10th, 1/100th or even 1/1000th of their previous value. (A A cram down is different than a down round. Why do VCs Do This?

Cram Down 417

Cram Down Founder Venture Capital Recapitalization 417

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 25, 2020

Unreasonably high early valuations hurt the entrepreneurs, as well as professional investors, later when a second round becomes a down round or can’t be negotiated. Your options for funding just increased, or at least you have a new way to get some real market feedback on the demand for your solution.

Equity 411

Equity Angel Groups Accredited Investor Due Diligence 411

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Once again, as we find ourselves in the middle of a significant public market correction, especially around technology stocks, there’s an enormous amount of noise in the system, as there always is. Then, if you end up doing a down round, it suddenly matters a lot. Go read it now – I’ll wait.

Cap Table 70

Cap Table Down Round Liquidation Preference Founder 70

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. VCs hate “down rounds” and many don’t even like “flat rounds.” If a VC prices a flat or down round it means that management teams are often taking too much dilution.

Valuation 324

Valuation Post-Money Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Cofounder 324

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

We need venture debt, factoring companies and public markets. There is no way for people to keep prices down – it’s a competitive market. The only solution as an investor is to sit the market out as Chris Sacca said he’s inclined to do. In public investing you can get in and out even in a bull market.

Silicon Valley 308

Silicon Valley Liquidity Event Seed Stage Finance 308

VC Cafe

JANUARY 2, 2023

As growth investments (and valuations) go down, unicorns might struggle to survive, according to Globes. Israeli public tech companies saw market cap decline of 65% in 2022. The recent valuations analysis by Carta shows the valuation benchmarks across industry (note that the valuations are for the US market, so discretion is advised).

Valuation 158

Valuation Down Round Israel Venture Capital 158

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

I recently survey more than 150 VC friends from all stages and geographies what they thought about the market by asking “Which of the following statements best describes your mood heading into 2016?” I’ll spare you the math and point out that this means we funded 0.104% of the market. In short – no.

Valuation 150

Valuation Down Round Startup Later Stage 150

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 6, 2023

Unreasonably high early valuations hurt the entrepreneurs, as well as professional investors, later when a second round becomes a down round or can’t be negotiated. Your options for funding just increased, or at least you have a new way to get some real market feedback on the demand for your solution.

Angel Groups 201

Angel Groups Accredited Investor Due Diligence Equity 201

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 21, 2016

Bill Gurley wrote an incredible post yesterday titled On the Road to Recap: Why the unicorn financing market just became dangerous … for all involved. Also, they have a strong belief that any sign of weakness (such as a down round) will have a catastrophic impact on their culture, hiring process, and ability to retain employees.

Marketing 70

Marketing Down Round Startup IRR 70

YoungUpstarts

JUNE 26, 2020

To do that you have to show how your market is big enough (a multi-billion dollar market) to support that kind of valuation. Like Mark Zuckerberg, who built a site only for college students, we are looking for a small, protected market that you as an entrepreneur, can dominate. Why does it need to be a small market?

Finance 205

Finance Silicon Valley Valuation Startup 205

VC Cafe

JANUARY 29, 2024

That’s the case for most companies that are already in the market, especially if they raised funding at imaginary valuations before. Seed valuations are down “only” 57% compared to Q4 2021. Many startups extended runway, cut costs and took on painful down rounds or expensive debt to avoid raising in 2023.

Global 171

Global Generative AI Venture Capital Valuation 171

VC Cafe

SEPTEMBER 6, 2024

and team Somite Therapeutics on your $10M seed round to leverage AI and big data to develop cell replacement therapies! Mazel tov Amit Monheit and team Odeeo on your $5M funding round to expand your global audio advertising for games to the US market! billion compared to $6.7 billion in Q1-Q2-Q3/2023. AI and all the rest.

Israel 97

Israel Down Round Silicon Valley Stealth 97

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2016

The funding environment for tech startups is an ever shifting ground as we go through predictable shifts that go hand-in-hand with the slowing of the overall market. This works in a booming market or in a company that never hits any headwinds. Non VC Growth Rounds. The market eventually slowed down. VC Infighting.

Venture Capital 150

Venture Capital Silicon Valley Burn Rate LP 150

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 20, 2016

Unreasonably high early valuations hurt the entrepreneurs, as well as professional investors, later when a second round becomes a down round or can’t be negotiated. Your options for funding just increased, or at least you have a new way to get some real market feedback on the demand for your solution.

Angel Groups 136

Angel Groups Accredited Investor Equity Due Diligence 136

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

It is an heroic accomplishment in a brutal fund-raising market in which only market leaders can bring in that sort of money. Every VC who’s been the business for a long time realized first hand that the VC markets were changing rapidly as early as Q3 of 2015. But of course public markets had begun gyrating. $30 million.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Forecast 150

www.quora.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

There's more visibility for the company, sure, but how clear is that vision after they've raised a seed round? This is a far cry from a sustainable business, product-market fit, and a long ways from profitability in most cases. They've got a handful of customers, maybe a few thousand users, and some initial traction.

Equity 40

Equity Employee Founder Cofounder 40

Mike Michalowicz

SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

. $10,000 is a round number and that means that it is not specific. The client is either going to figure you have no real idea what something costs, or that you’re rounding up in anticipation of expecting to be negotiated down. Round numbers are “ball park numbers.” Keep practicing.

Down Round 117

Down Round Cost Customer Marketing 117

ithacaVC

FEBRUARY 23, 2012

Most of my stomach turning results from the fact that this exercise is purely about unrealized return values of purely non-liquid assets (unless of course there is an active secondary market for the stock – this applies to a few handfuls of VC backed companies). It is easy to tell your LPs that the valuations are conservative…

Valuation 49

Valuation Institutional Investors Marketing Down Round 49

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

The one thing that does effect them all is the cyclicality of funding and exit markets, but if you go back over the last 20 years, there's really only been a very short timeframe where you literally could not get a company funded. If you're doing seed deals, how often does a down round in a seed deal even happen? Down from what?

Later Stage 99

Later Stage Down Round Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 99

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

At the time, this is last quarter and the stock market has trended upwards nicely since then (a potential leading indicator of private tech valuations), we all agreed venture portfolios were probably still 25-40% overvalued. Restructures, Down Rounds, and Pay to Plays. Soft Acquisition Market.

Portfolio 118

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 118

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 30, 2022

Atomico’s founder Nicklas Zennstrom recently called the end of the high valuations era and urged founders and VCs to remove the stigma from down rounds. But how will the current market affect future unicorn creation? Global unicorn club (source: CB Insights ).

Israel 97

Israel Europe Balance Sheet Valuation 97

thebarefootvc

JULY 26, 2015

After a tumultuous week in global markets, today the US stock market ended higher on the session. As a former investment banker who followed the markets closely once upon a time (especially when I was in the midst of public market M&A transactions), I now have the luxury of watching from an arm’s length.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

After a tumultuous week in global markets, today the US stock market ended higher on the session. As a former investment banker who followed the markets closely once upon a time (especially when I was in the midst of public market M&A transactions), I now have the luxury of watching from an arm’s length.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

thebarefootvc

AUGUST 26, 2015

After a tumultuous week in global markets, today the US stock market ended higher on the session. As a former investment banker who followed the markets closely once upon a time (especially when I was in the midst of public market M&A transactions), I now have the luxury of watching from an arm’s length.

Marketing 40

Marketing Investment Bankers Valuation China 40

NZ Entrepreneur

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

This means that even though founders invest many years of their life studying markets and building their companies, and even though experienced investors pour billions of dollars into startups every year, 90% of the bets are wrong. Other variables include major expenses of startups such as salaries, sales & marketing , etc.

Startup 94

Startup Sales Cycle Down Round Revenue 94

Berkonomics

MARCH 15, 2012

One way to mitigate this is by using early money to create a prototype, to perform market research, to complete the first generation of the product, or to deliver the service to a satisfied customer. Second: Market risk. Are you ahead or behind the market with your product or service? And fifth: Competitive risk.

Valuation 80

Valuation Down Round Demand Management 80

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

Technical progress and market traction are much slower and cost a lot more than anticipated. A " black swan " investor appears out of the blue and backs the company - less impressed by the technology than by the talent, desire, and grit of the entrepreneur. There are a lot of dark, hard days.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

ithacaVC

NOVEMBER 14, 2014

A founder is about to raise their first round and asking me how to value their company. [1]. You evaluate the team, product, market and other variables – then, make a general guess. Market size. A big market determines the upside potential. Don’t risk a down round. Accelerator.

Valuation 69

Valuation Startup Down Round Early Stage 69