Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

I had a chance to discuss AngelList Syndicates with Naval at Michael Kim’s Cendana LP/VC conference on a panel with Naval, Roger Ehrenberg (IA Ventures) and Mike Brown, Jr. lack of traction, lack of downstream financing availability. Many of the good and great of our industry are talking about AngelList. Bowery Capital).

Syndication 356

Syndication Syndicate Cofounder Early Stage 356

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 20, 2019

A-round venture capital firms will almost certainly make it a requirement that they get a board seat upon financing. If you are a super hot commodity then you may possible retain some board control through the B-round of financing with a 3–2 structure where the 2 is one seat for the A investor and one for the B investor.

Venture Capital 236

Venture Capital Startup Angel Investor Silicon Valley 236

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 27, 2018

I was asked if any existed the other day by an LP, so following is a list of papers I am familiar with. Accelerators and Crowd-Funding: Complementarity, Competition, or Convergence in the Earliest Stages of Financing New Ventures? If you know of any others, please put links in the comments or send me an email with the info.

LP 114

LP Incubator Venture Capital Technical Review 114

Babbling VC

OCTOBER 3, 2011

For those of you not in the know, they are one of the largest limited partners ( LP's : investors in venture capital funds) in Europe and are basically in almost all the funds throughout the market. If you see the new funds which have recently been launched you can tell the LP's are putting their money with former entrepreneurs.

LP 82

LP Europe Germany Venture Capital 82

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

100M is a meaningful increase from our $50M third fund, though it’s still quite small in the grand scheme of venture, especially amid the recent wave of late stage financings and SPACs. As a small fund, NextView has a tight-knit LP base, many of whom have been with us from our earliest days. We will never take it for granted.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

In general, these investments were rarely competitive at the time of their first financing. As an LP, I’ve had the good fortune to be an investor in many funds, including some exceptional ones. This investment generates additional evidence that they are confident in their strategy while creating more alignment with their LPs.

Founder 77

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 77

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2021

This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004. LPs Haven’t Yet Grokked the Long Game While the VC community realized 5ish years ago that short-termism in venture capital didn’t make sense and has capitalized on the scale advantages of letting companies go long, the LP community by and large hasn’t totally grokked this.

Venture Capital 363

Venture Capital LP Valuation Later Stage 363

VC Cafe

APRIL 29, 2020

This is part of Israel’s Ministry of Finance NIS 1.2 The Israeli Innovation Authority (IIA) announced last week an immediate infusion of NIS 500 million (approximately $141 million) to qualifying startups (significant IP, previous funding) and less than 12 months of runway.

Israel 124

Israel SBA Technical Review Startup 124

Haystack

JULY 20, 2018

Will the next company to raise $100M in financing just poach from decent seed-stage companies and pay triple the amount to lock up talent? Will folks be able to buy a house and raise their families here? Will the Bay Area’s cost structure compress the precious runway these newco’s have? These questions have been rattling around my brain.

San Francisco 116

San Francisco Silicon Valley Seattle Venture Capital 116

David Teten

DECEMBER 3, 2019

Tim Friedman, Founder, PE Stack , said, “If I could offer one piece of advice to today’s managers, it would be to take the time to understand the demands of the modern institutional LP. We are also seeing technology evaluation as an increasingly important part of LP operational due diligence.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Software Review Analytics Private Equity 78

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2013

Garcetti worked with LegalZoom, ShopZilla, Hulu and others to try and change the tax ordinance to support the emergence of our biggest tech companies in LA city only to be stymied by the head of the office of finance, Antoinette Christovale as outlined in this article. To attract LP money to local VCs. As does the mayor of Austin.

Los Angeles 325

Los Angeles San Francisco LP Austin 325

Hunter Walker

APRIL 27, 2014

Last week we held our first annual LP meeting, when venture funds get their investors together with updates on operations and results. I’ve written before about our fundraising process and how it very much resembles that of a startup. There were four basic sections: 1) What We Said We’d Do & What We Did.

LP 116

LP Cofounder Term Sheet Valuation 116

Austin Startup

AUGUST 10, 2017

Although we were studying finance, we were always more interested in tech. Before graduating, I decided to forgo the finance path and instead dove into engineering and later sales and product management roles at VersaSuite (health IT) in Austin. But we never lost the finance bug. We were infatuated with tech.

Technical Review 48

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Austin 48

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

VI: Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment. This is a summary of: Revenue-Based financing: State of the Industry 2020. The fund’s network of mentors are all invested LPs, ensuring they have “skin in the game.” IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 10, 2013

You think investors will continue to finance you – they promised they would – but you never really know. It’s not that you don’t believe in your ultimate outcome – you have to believe in order to be insane enough to continue the journey against all odds – it’s just that there is nagging self doubt.

Startup 412

Startup San Francisco LP Bankruptcy 412

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 25, 2019

Here are some observations I have from this exposure: If a company moves from strength-to-strength with predictable outcomes, easy financings, low staff turn-over, limited competitive threats then the composition of the board probably doesn’t matter as much.

LP 269

LP Startup Burn Rate Stock Options 269

David Teten

JANUARY 19, 2021

Part of the magic of revenue-based financing is how historical performance and strong, achievable financial projections are ultimately the backbone of how RBI/RBF investment decisions are made.” Further reading: The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Finance: A New Typology. as that will determine how easy collection is for the investor.” .

Cofounder 78

Cofounder Technical Review Equity Dividend 78

Agile VC

DECEMBER 6, 2012

Unlike a startup that might raise equity financing across several rounds all combined in a single balance sheet, VC’s do not simply commingle these funds into a single bucket to be allocated across all the companies in that firm’s portfolio. Or public policy changes may force GPs or LPs to end longstanding relationships.

LP 178

LP Balance Sheet Differentiation Limited Partner 178

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 24, 2015

It will make follow-on financings much harder and people will have to consider whether or not to do inside rounds. These are all normal things but in this big run since 2009 we’ve all gotten used to nearly 100% follow-on financing rates, valuations only moving up, deals clearly the convertible note caps and low mortality rates.

Stock 150

Stock Finance Marketing Valuation 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2016

I was asked again in an LP meeting later in the week and then again at a founder breakfast gathering we hosted yesterday. I spend hours thinking about the products, competitors, market opportunities, recruiting and financing of these businesses. I answered in the same way I always do so I thought I’d just write it publicly.

Early Stage 254

Early Stage Non-Compete LP Later Stage 254

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Because VCs tend to “mark to market” for private investments so you would often value a company based on the last financing. What’s an LP to do in deciding which funds to invest in? The day before the deal was struck it’s very possible that Sequoia could have held the total value of the WhatApp deal at $1.5 We can’t know.

Jordan 264

Jordan LP Cofounder Limited Partner 264

Hunter Walker

MARCH 24, 2025

A memorable piece of advice I received from my first LP was that: the ideal investor is a finance bro with a dash of Engelbart. Another piece of advice I received from an early LP was to find a great coach who pulls from enneagram in order to better understand your own motivation and become more cognizant of your failure modes.

LP 78

LP San Francisco Silicon Valley Framework 78

Babbling VC

JANUARY 7, 2011

I personally believe that one of the major drawbacks to venture capital in Europe is chronic under-financing and people skirt around this issue. Hence, financing rounds have been smaller (roughly a ratio of 5 to 1 when comparing US to EU). Even Dropbox and Etsy have done far larger rounds to finance their growth.

Finance 76

Finance LP Europe Valuation 76

Board Effect

SEPTEMBER 24, 2024

Martin Schneider , Chief Audit Executive, META Matt Mabel , Vice President – Internal Audit, American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc Naohiro Mouri , Executive Vice President and Chief Auditor, AIG Global Operations Paul Lee , Sr Manager Internal Audit, Medline Industries, LP Rian Boncay , Program Project Manager, Dell Inc.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Government South Africa LLC 52

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 8, 2014

Our fund has more interest from potential LP investors than our fund needs. In LA we have entertainment, finance, textiles, aerospace, transportation, fashion and so forth. So when my friend Willis Jackson from Kansas City asked Cintrifuse the question “how did you get Mark Suster to Cincinnati” the answer was obvious.

Silicon Valley 390

Silicon Valley Kansas City Startup Los Angeles 390

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Two Sigma is a technology and finance company in Soho filled with incredibly bright engineers and developers, so I’m really excited about leveraging that partnership in a number of cool ways. I'm ecstatic to announce that Brooklyn Bridge Ventures has just completed a first close of $3.5

LP 112

LP New York City New York Chad 112

Haystack

JUNE 1, 2018

Perhaps because of this success and the unique elbow grease they supply to their portfolio, it was shocking to many to see that one of the storied seed franchises would contract, become its own sole LP, and scale back its operations. There is a tremendous amount of money and new deals and financings.

LP 116

LP Global Social Media Portfolio 116

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 24, 2014

It’s for reasons like these that I support getting startup founders some liquidity during their company’s first few years, perhaps as early as Series A financing when appropriate. Or put startup expenses on their credit cards, far beyond their savings, hoping they can close financing for the company by end of the month.

Founder 132

Founder San Francisco Liquidity Event LP 132

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

Most of this discussion is about ‘playing offense’ — working towards being a good steward of LP capital and the risk/reward associated with VC. And finally, a more robust (but still somewhat opaque) secondary market emerged for transacting equity among parties.

Venture Capital 154

Venture Capital Cap Table LP Equity 154

View from Seed

DECEMBER 11, 2019

Yes, there are intermittent points of feedback along the way, like valuation marks from subsequent rounds of financing. The median average investment time period to liquidity for a venture investment is currently 6.5-7.5

Venture Capital 204

Venture Capital Cap Table Partner LP 204

Hunter Walker

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

As a side note, another thing I wish people (especially women and other underrepresented talent) understood is that while venture is a money-management and investment business, it doesn’t require a deep finance background to do it (at early stages). Having a strong POV also helps with finding… LP/GP fit.

Venture Capital 106

Venture Capital LP Cap Table Portfolio 106

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 6, 2010

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about The Proliferation of Standardized Seed Financing Documents. LPs : I only had one email from an LP. While some people hate the phrase “failing fast”, I find it instructive when it’s used to signify that one isn’t going to pursue a particular path in the context of a larger set of activities.

Term Sheet 124

Term Sheet LP Finance Email 124

Hunter Walker

AUGUST 8, 2023

Obvious caveats to my POV here, most specifically: exposure is limited to largely the US/SiliconValley ecosystem, driven by our own portfolio, my friends and co-investors, the funds I’m a LP in, and our institutional LP relationships. Whatever gets reported is just the tip of the iceberg.

Portfolio 118

Portfolio Cap Table LP Valuation 118

VC Adventure

AUGUST 13, 2014

The data I site below is from Foundry LP StepStone. And more importantly the data were financing level, not company level. This analysis is on a company basis, not a financing basis (the chart is labeled “Deal” but in this case that means company, not round). Quick update here.

LP 99

LP Distribution Portfolio Finance 99

VC Cafe

JUNE 18, 2012

TechStars – the Denver/NY based incubator in collaboration with Cooley, LLP , offers an equity financing structure and a debt one, drawing on its experience funding hundreds of startups. SECA – the represnetative body for Switzerland private equity has LP and VC documentation templates, including models: [link] mplates.aspx.

Open Source 110

Open Source Switzerland Private Equity LP 110

Feld Thoughts

MAY 8, 2012

Many of these companies raise less than $3m coming out of TechStars – all of them are subsequently in our zone for the next round financing. We don’t expect anything for this other than a role as a typical LP, but we view it as increasing the seed ecosystem.

Seed Stage 138

Seed Stage LP Warrant Syndication 138

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2016

If you want to see what was on my mind – I started foreshadowing change publicly in October 2015 with a forecast of what I expected in 2016 VC funding markets at a presentation I gave at the annual Cendana VC/LP conference hosted by Michael Kim. Great companies get financed.

Balance Sheet 150

Balance Sheet Burn Rate Valuation Forecast 150