Feld Thoughts

JUNE 9, 2021

Fred Wilson was his lead investor. I was the lead investor for Veripost. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. That year, we merged two companies: Return Path and Veripost. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path.

Fractional CTO 195

Fractional CTO Cofounder Startup Lead Investor 195

Gust

DECEMBER 27, 2012

Accelerators typically provide several months of intensive mentoring, at the end of which they host a Demo Day to introducing all their graduating companies to a large number of local angel investors. Your goal in all this is to try to find a lead investor. He or she will be your primary champion, and often mentor.

Software Review 164

Software Review Term Sheet Technical Review Angel Investor 164

Steve Blank

FEBRUARY 26, 2013

When my co-founders and I got the company scalable and repeatable, we hired an operating executive as the CEO and returned a billion dollars to each of our two lead investors. We established a team of founders who worked collaboratively. Lessons Learned. Six stages of failure and redemption.

Redemption 225

Redemption Cofounder Silicon Valley Burn Rate 225

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 18, 2009

But then I got a call from my lead investor (coincidentally it was GRP Partners where I now am a partner) and they told me not to lose confidence. We started drafting out plans for what we were going to do in order to have an orderly winding up of the company. We spent a couple of hours (and drank a couple of pints).

Germany 298

Germany Entrepreneur Merger Los Angeles 298

David Cohen

MARCH 18, 2019

Let me explain why you should never ask anyone to be your lead investor. If they want to invest, they’re going to want to lead and will throw out a term sheet. If they want to invest, they’re going to want to lead and will throw out a term sheet. You never have to ask them to be your “lead investor.”

Lead Investor 129

Lead Investor Term Sheet Seed Stage Venture Capital 129

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 17, 2012

That means investors are going to buy that much of your company at a time. It means lead investors can get to 10, 15 or 20% ownership depending on whatever math they have that makes their own success model work. It's a function of a few things. That's just roughly the equilibrium we've come to in this world.

Venture Capital 121

Venture Capital Framework Dilution Equity 121

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 16, 2017

We felt proud to be the lead investor in Maker Studios at a sub $5 million valuation. Because that would a very long and bitchy article I’m sure. There will be more enormous successes in Los Angeles and it’s our job to get into enough of these.

IPO 214

IPO Los Angeles Technical Review Silicon Valley 214

Gust

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014

As such, your public profile should include everything non-confidential about your business that may attract the interest of potential investors, and your private profile should contain complete, accurate information about all the details of the business that will lead investors to request an in-person meeting with you.

Angel Groups 159

Angel Groups Elevator Pitch Software Review Deal Flow 159

Genuine VC

JANUARY 15, 2015

However, in my personal experience, the come-from-behind lead investor is worth incorporating into the process, as it turns out more often than you’d expect that they end up leading the round. The post The “Come-from-Behind” Lead Investor appeared first on GenuineVC.'

Lead Investor 100

Lead Investor Term Sheet Venture Capital Portfolio 100

David Teten

MARCH 31, 2012

I’m exceptionally excited to announce that I’m now Chairman and lead investor with some other angels in a new company, Spright Governance Inc. (An aerial view of Parliament House in Singapore. Photo credit: Wikipedia).

Government 154

Government Singapore New York City Non-Compete 154

NZ Entrepreneur

AUGUST 4, 2021

Lead investors and term sheets. Now that you’ve got investors undergoing due diligence, you must secure a lead investor. Typically, lead investors take up a significant portion of an investment round, and act as a signal to other investors that the round is getting traction.

Technical Review 63

Technical Review Software Review Founder Due Diligence 63

View from Seed

OCTOBER 24, 2019

The reality is that if a founder raised every one of these rounds, and lead investors always got their “target” ownership, the level of dilution would be ridiculous. As seed rounds have atomized, it’s not uncommon for founders to raise 3 or even 4 rounds prior to a series A.

Dilution 149

Dilution B2B Burn Rate Early Stage 149

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 12, 2017

Obtaining term sheets, note agreements, or even emails from lead investors stating their intentions to continue funding the entity may help support management’s assertion that they can raise more capital. If there is insufficient cash, then the company should have a plan to obtain sufficient capital.

San Francisco 133

San Francisco Forecast Early Stage Term Sheet 133

The Next Web

OCTOBER 7, 2013

You might assume the lead investor wants a 20 percent stake and 15 percent option pool each time there’s a Series ‘Blah’ every 12 to 18 months, but this is admittedly too simple. Here’s an eye opener: Wilson’s quick and dirty analysis reveals teams will see between 80 to 90 percent dilution when all’s said and done.

Engineer 129

Engineer Dilution Option Pool Vesting 129

David Teten

JANUARY 10, 2012

He is an active angel with many successful angel investments including: Rent.com, (purchased by Ebay in 2005 for $415 million), Golfnow.com (purchased by Comcast in June 2008), and Lifelock (lead investors include Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers). and Tweetdeck (purchased by Twitter in June 2011).

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Technology North Carolina Switzerland 128

View from Seed

OCTOBER 11, 2022

Specifically: – We are high-conviction, hands-on lead investors. We see the new fund and the addition of Stephanie as cementing what has become true about NextView over the past several years. We make very few investments on a per-partner basis, which is why we are quite top-heavy as a firm.

Cofounder 156

Cofounder San Francisco Portfolio Limited Partner 156

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

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 15, 2016

There are ways to do this politely and even if your investors don’t answer as directly as you may like – there is at least something that can be read into this. If you have mostly angels or don’t feel your existing investor can support you without new capital from the outside then you might want a smaller burn rate.

Burn Rate 150

Burn Rate Cap Table Valuation Software Review 150

ReadWriteStart

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Though still in early funding stages, Truora left Y-Combinator with regional investors Magma Partners and Kaszek Ventures, and foreign investors Y-Combinator and Accel. Elmer Ortega ’s Bogotá-based fintech company offers credit and digital financial services and raised $14M this year with lead investor Andreessen Horowitz.

Colombia 146

Colombia America Technical Review Startup 146

Gust

NOVEMBER 16, 2013

This is changing as the whole world of venture/angel/seed funding is rapidly morphing, but typically a ‘real’ Series A round is small enough for one traditional venture fund to do the whole thing itself. Very occasionally, they might split it with another fund, but that would probably be the exception.

Lead Investor 150

Lead Investor Term Sheet Early Stage Angel Groups 150

crowdSPRING Blog

AUGUST 4, 2010

Lead Investors, Dipshit Companies, and Funding Every Entrepreneur – [link]. If You Build It, They Won’t Come – [link]. Lessons from working for startups – [link]. Interesting perspective on why New York City could never compete in tech – [link]. Bootstrapped, Profitable & Proud: Github – [link].

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

Gust

SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

By searching for a lead investor in your next funding round. The lead investor is the first step in Read more >. The post How To Secure A Lead Investor appeared first on The Gust Blog. How do you continue to build your business?

Lead Investor 70

Lead Investor Security Search Founder 70

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 7, 2015

And from Nancy Hua … “Too many angels can also hurt a start-up and be taken as an indication that a company is not strong enough to attract any one “lead” investor, said Ms. “They hear your story and you send them the paperwork.”. Hua of Apptimize. ” Uhhuh.

Cap Table 150

Cap Table Cofounder Silicon Valley Startup 150

The Startup Magazine

MARCH 1, 2021

She’s also our lead investor interface, and great at articulating our vision to investors and partners alike. David has built a solid reputation for developing exceptional client and partner relationships and successfully delivering large-scale commercial construction projects.

Technical Review 128

Technical Review Founder Saudi Arabia Cofounder 128

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

Favor investment rounds with strong leads that haven’t raised millions of dollars before you. If a company does not have a strong lead investor AND has raised a lot of money before, there is probably some baggage that you may not really be equipped to decipher. Remember the power law.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

View from Seed

AUGUST 26, 2015

Favor investment rounds with strong leads that haven’t raised millions of dollars before you. If a company does not have a strong lead investor AND has raised a lot of money before, there is probably some baggage that you may not really be equipped to decipher. Remember the power law.

Technical Review 120

Technical Review Angel Investor Software Review Silicon Valley 120

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

In the future, angel rounds will less often be for specific amountsor have a lead investor. forstartups was to find one angel to act as the lead investor. Youdnegotiate a round size and valuation with the lead, whod supplysome but not all of the money. Then the startup and the lead wouldcooperate to find the rest.

Startup 93

Startup Valuation Non-Compete Deal Flow 93

This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2011

The right lead investor and the right amount of cushion in a raise can help with the best defense against scaling disaster—hiring. If you’re a company, perhaps less than a year old, and you’re entering the first phases of strong growth, you’re in an interesting position in the talent market.

Dilution 104

Dilution Equity Hiring Partner 104

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Look for Your Lead Investor. First you’ll want to find a lead investor — someone many other investors will recognize and respect. This list of top angel investors is a good start. I use a service like Tout to manage my email templates for quickly replies. Here are some valuable templates you can use.

Social Media 80

Social Media Startup Angel Investor RSS 80

techcrunch.com

APRIL 26, 2013

First, AngelList Invest is available to any company on AngelList that has a top-tier lead investor. And the lead investor has to be putting in at least $100,000 in capital, says Ravikant. Using today’s data on AngelList, that includes 300 startups. Other criteria include that the startup needs to be U.S.-based,

SEC 61

SEC Accredited Investor San Diego New York City 61

ithacaVC

MARCH 9, 2017

I have now done 2 deals where there has been a lead investor (not CVF) who did not mind the “founder as sole board member” trap. We followed in line with the lead investor and went along with the structure. From my perspective, this is typically a sign of paranoia. .

Seed Stage 58

Seed Stage Software Review Institutional Investors Lead Investor 58

View from Seed

JANUARY 27, 2021

Investors take chances when they invest in seed stage companies, but founders take a profoundly larger chance when selecting a lead investor or board member for their company. Most importantly, we want to say thank you to each and every founder that we’ve had the privilege to work with.

LP 411

LP Early Stage Seed Stage Venture Capital 411

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 9, 2021

Fred Wilson was his lead investor. I was the lead investor for Veripost. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. That year, we merged two companies: Return Path and Veripost. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path.

Fractional CTO 70

Fractional CTO Cofounder Startup Lead Investor 70

BeyondVC

SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

When you closed your first round of funding years ago, the lead investor did his diligence and found out that the technical co-founder’s existing employer may have a right or may even own the startup’s technology.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Intellectual Property Cofounder Due Diligence 78

Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Lead investors are few. Leads that are true force-multipliers are exceedingly rare. Although seed funding has exploded since we started Nextview, we continue to hear the refrain from founders that there are tons of investors that will pile-in on a round that is coming together, but that lead investors are few and far between.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

David Teten

DECEMBER 15, 2018

Existing investors have said they’d be glad to invest…if she gets a new lead investor, which 6 months of searching have failed to generate. Almost all VCs will have companies that fail. The CEO comes to us. She has 3 months of cash left.

Startup 60

Startup Later Stage Technical Review Software Review 60

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. IPO by far this year will be the government ward General Motors. And with their capital and confidence, China and India are stretching their wings.

Africa 104

Africa Brazil China India 104