Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

But any entrepreneurs raising capital should keep in mind that this opening of the markets could possibly be temporary. They should heed the age old advice that raising slightly more money while you can is always better than trying to optimize future valuations. It is no wonder why they had less time for new deals.

Burn Rate 263

Burn Rate Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Private Equity 263

ReadWriteStart

OCTOBER 7, 2010

Before I do, however, I want to talk about a thumb rule that I'd like to propose to entrepreneurs about raising money. So at any point, if you are trying to raise money, and you are hearing from investors that you are too early and have too little validation, it may be a good thing. I encouraged Todd to keep building.

Valuation 119

Valuation Silicon Valley Pre-Money Valuation Bootstrapping 119

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

And the loosening of federal monetary policies, particularly in the US, has pushed more dollars into the venture ecosystems at every stage of financing. What Has Changed in Financing? And the truth is that several entrepreneurs prefer it this way. So in our earliest stages we’re about 70% seed and 30% pre-seed.

Pre-Money Valuation 471

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Venture Capital Early Stage 471

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

If you do a capped note it’s bad for the entrepreneur. But Paul Graham really did have a point in his “ high resolution fundraising ” post – that there is a problem – particularly in angel financing – with herding cats. We plan to raise at a $5 million pre-money valuation.

Pre-Money Valuation 294

Pre-Money Valuation Finance Liquidation Preference Warrant 294

Lightspeed Venture Partners

OCTOBER 7, 2012

This does neither, so I’m out” Cuban said, “I see you guys not as entrepreneurs but as wantrepreneurs” I agree with him. In this way, they remind me of the Lifter Hamper entrepreneur. That’s why most entrepreneurs do not make a specific ask on valuation, but wait to hear offers from investors.

Technical Review 110

Technical Review Technical Cofounder Valuation Pre-Money Valuation 110

Gust

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014

To begin with, it is important to understand some basic facts about the world of entrepreneurial finance: There are many more entrepreneurs than there are investors, with the result that only one company out of every 400 that seeks venture funding actually receives it.

Angel Groups 159

Angel Groups Elevator Pitch Software Review Deal Flow 159

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 26, 2013

If there’s one video 1st time founders should watch to understand VC financing it’s this one – [link]. Q1 Venture Capital Spending & Number Of Deals Down, M&A Activity Drops 44 Percent And Pre-Money Valuations Plummet – [link]. 3 Biggest Mistakes When Choosing a Cofounder – [link].

Social Media 90

Social Media Small Business Design Media 90

Up and Running

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

That’s because obtaining a pre-money valuation for a concept level technology company in excess of $1 million is difficult, particularly for a startup founder without a proven track record. Background: Adam Carlson is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully raised private capital at three different technology startups.

Private Equity 94

Private Equity Pre-Money Valuation Equity Startup 94

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 26, 2012

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number.

Valuation 270

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 270

Altgate

DECEMBER 16, 2010

@altgate Startups, Venture Capital & Everything In Between Skip to content Home Furqan Nazeeri (fn@altgate.com) ← Pre-Money Valuation vs Number of Founders Where Do Tech VCs Invest? The first thing I noticed was that the vast majority (76%) of financings have a “one x&# preference.

Liquidation Preference 39

Liquidation Preference Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet Valuation 39

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Seat on the board.

Term Sheet 227

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Post-Money Valuation 227

Tim Keane

JANUARY 12, 2010

Term-sheets and Valuations: Thinking about Negotiations. Please see later version of this post on May 16, 2010 Entrepreneurs are often not experts in the area of term-sheet negotiations and all of the surrounding issues.   Investors sometimes “present” the terms they’d like and expect the entrepreneurs to react.

Term Sheet 68

Term Sheet Valuation Dividend Liquidation Preference 68

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 27, 2012

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an Angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that Angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Seat on the board.

Term Sheet 223

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Angel Investor 223

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number.

Pre-Money Valuation 246

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 246

Berkonomics

JUNE 5, 2014

One entrepreneur has a company which appears to be scalable to a $30 million exit value in five to eight years, and a second entrepreneur’s venture seems to be scalable to $200 million in exit value in the same time frame. Yet, at the pre-revenue stage of development, angel investors price both companies at a pre-money valuation of $1.5

Pre-Money Valuation 92

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Angel Investor Dilution 92

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 6, 2010

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, playing coy, or quoting an exorbitant number. Marty Zwilling.

Valuation 234

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Startup 234

View from Seed

OCTOBER 21, 2014

In short, more and more entrepreneurs are signaling their price expectations earlier in their seed fundraise process. Or, in the case of a convertible note, they’ll explicitly state a valuation cap. In theory, there are three levels of pricing for an entrepreneur to potentially signal to a prospective investor: 1.

Valuation 336

Valuation Founder Seed Stage Angel Investor 336

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 27, 2014

(not in video but late stage valuations have grown 24% compounded years for the past 4 years which is higher than any segment. Four years ago people paid $66m median pre-money valuation and are now paying $155m. This can’t all be driven by increased company performance).

Valuation 309

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Non-Compete Later Stage 309

Gust

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

Once you have a potential investor excited about your team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask “What is your company’s valuation?” Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying “make me an offer,” or quoting an exorbitant number.

Valuation 187

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation NPV Intellectual Property 187

Gust

OCTOBER 17, 2011

Entrepreneurs sometimes assume an initial agreement with an angel is a commitment, so they start spending before any money is received. It’s true that angel investors typically do not present entrepreneurs with overly complicated deal structures, especially when compared to venture capitalists. Seat on the board.

Term Sheet 158

Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Due Diligence Angel Investor 158

Feld Thoughts

JULY 29, 2011

Finance Friday’s gets off the ground with today’s post by introducing you to an imaginary startup, the entrepreneurs that we’ll being following throughout the series, and their first challenges: splitting up the founders’ equity and addressing the case where one of the founders provides the initial seed capital for the business.

Equity 137

Equity Finance Denver Pre-Money Valuation 137

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 14, 2010

It’s meant to be a bit provocative but the reality is that I give this advice to entrepreneurs all the the time and I usually leave the “e&# off of the end. I learned all of this myself on your side of the table raising money at my first company. The list goes on. Legacy deals have “hair.&#. But pass they will.

Venture Capital 289

Venture Capital Liquidation Preference Common Stock Dividend 289

Professor VC

JANUARY 17, 2008

I think the title of this post is a TV show, but fitting as there has been much debate in the venture community as to the whether angel investors are good or bad for entrepreneurs and VCs. One group charges entrepreneurs "an administrative fee" to present to the group. Touched by an Angel.

Pre-Money Valuation 28

Pre-Money Valuation Angel Investor Angel Groups Valuation 28

Gust

OCTOBER 12, 2011

Last week , we took the plunge and began dissecting an example term sheet for a convertible debt financing round piece by piece. In Part II, we looked at the mandatory conversion language that is at the heart of any convertible debt financing. First, a word about the maturity date.

Finance 107

Finance Term Sheet Pre-Money Valuation Early Stage 107

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 5, 2015

I am reminded of this problem every time my firm does a financing where a note went before us but more specifically I was reminded by this great post by Brad Feld to talk about the pre-money vs. post-money conversion issue. In the old days VCs funded off of a “pre-money” valuation.

Pre-Money Valuation 150

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Post-Money Valuation Dilution 150

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 4, 2017

For startup founders and CEO’s it’s also just as common to see them place too much focus on the amount of money raised, and the pre-money valuation, rather than the value that each investor can bring to the table. Entrepreneurs, business owners, senior managers at large corporations.

Pre-Money Valuation 187

Pre-Money Valuation Seed Stage IP Deal Flow 187

K9 Ventures

MARCH 23, 2011

The convertible note was really intended as an instrument for a “bridge financing” – when an equity round was imminent, and likely to occur, but the company needed some money in between. In that case, it made good sense to have a debt instrument, where the note holder then converted into equity when the financing occurred.

Pre-Money Valuation 132

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Equity Liquidation Preference 132

Gust

OCTOBER 21, 2011

This week we move on to something near and dear to the hearts of entrepreneurs and investors alike: The exit, more formally known as a “ liquidity event.” Entrepreneurs generally don’t ask for this kind of language, but most sophisticated investors will insist on it in one form or another.

Finance 79

Finance Pre-Money Valuation Term Sheet Liquidity Event 79

Genuine VC

JULY 30, 2012

In theory, there are three levels of pricing for an entrepreneur to potentially signal to a prospective investor: Lower than “market.” This approach is almost never a good idea. By definition, all entrepreneurs should think that their endeavor is truly exceptional. Above market.

Valuation 136

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Angel Investor Syndicate 136

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

.” There are a lot of data points that one can observer to get a sense of the venture capital markets – both LP fundings into venture and VC financings of startups. They point to some widely known facts: financings & valuations are up massively over the past 7 years and non-VC money has entered the system.

LP 150

LP Valuation Burn Rate Pre-Money Valuation 150

David Cohen

AUGUST 1, 2018

In many cases the caps are very high because the entrepreneurs are telling the investors that they’re super confident they’re about to raise a larger round and they just need to “bridge” the company to that larger round. For example, a company may be raising $1M in notes at $15M pre-money valuation cap with a 20% discount.

Pre-Money Valuation 87

Pre-Money Valuation Valuation Equity Finance 87

Scott Edward Walker

APRIL 9, 2012

Introduction We are in the golden age of seed financing. Venture capital funds, seed funds, super angels, angel groups, incubators, and “friends and family” are all playing the seed financing game and investing early in startups in an attempt to land the next Facebook. What is a Convertible Note? price the round).

Preferred Stock 87

Preferred Stock Finance Common Stock Liquidation Preference 87

Gust

NOVEMBER 4, 2011

Entrepreneurs and investors who have spent any time dealing with convertible debt seed financing transactions are likely to have encountered the subject of valuation caps. The cap is irrelevant if the next equity financing is at a valuation below the cap amount.) Intermix and its advisors weren’t fools.

Valuation 98

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Merger Vesting 98

David Teten

NOVEMBER 15, 2013

I have frequently heard the expression from other investors, “We can put a lot of money to work here.” This is the psychology that drives VCs to load up a company with more capital, rationalizing that $5m at a $20m pre-money valuation is little different than $10m at a $40m pre-money valuation.

Management 114

Management Pre-Money Valuation Venture Capital New Hampshire 114

ithacaVC

JANUARY 14, 2014

I was giving some advice the other day on how to approach Series B investors in terms of valuation. Company X raised its Series A at a pre-money valuation of $5mm and it raised $4mm dollars. So the post-money valuation after the Series A was $9mm. What should the pre-money valuation be for the Series B?

Pre-Money Valuation 58

Pre-Money Valuation Post-Money Valuation Valuation Term Sheet 58

Seeing Both Sides

JULY 15, 2009

VCs have an unfair advantage when it comes to financings. A typical start-up company will do 2-4 venture capital financings before a successful exit (or, conversely, an ignomious ending). In contrast, the typical venture capitalist, either individually or across their partnership, will do 5-10 financings in any given year.

Pre-Money Valuation 49

Pre-Money Valuation Option Pool Stock Options Post-Money Valuation 49

venturehacks.com

OCTOBER 21, 2010

If you don’t keep your eyes on the option pool while you’re negotiating valuation, your investors will have you playing (and losing) a game that we like to call: Option Pool Shuffle You have successfully negotiated a $2M investment on a $8M pre-money valuation by pitting the famous Blue Shirt Capital against Herd Mentality Management.

Option Pool 68

Option Pool Pre-Money Valuation Dilution Warrant 68