Rob Go

SEPTEMBER 4, 2018

Most of these rhyme with what we’ve said in the past, but some have also evolved to fit the changing landscape and our own convictions about what really matters for founders and their investors at the seed stage. However, our overall goal is to invest in the full spectrum of seed. Belief #1: The best time to invest is early.

North America 36

North America Seed Stage Early Stage Lead Investor 36

Agile VC

APRIL 17, 2011

How They Make Money: Majority of Kayak’s revenue actually comes from advertising on their site (55%), not lead generation or referral fees to travel suppliers as you might think (more on this below). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $170 million. Revenue growth: 51% YoY (2010), 1% YoY (2009), 131% YoY (2008).

Pre-Money Valuation 113

Pre-Money Valuation Liquidation Preference Dividend Common Stock 113

Genuine VC

MAY 29, 2014

It’s been five years now since large VC ‘signaling’ entered the seed stage entrepreneur’s lexicon. It seems as though it’s been talked about ad nauseum in the blogosphere, but we see first-hand as entrepreneurs we’re investing in at NextView Ventures work through building their seed round syndicates, it really is a tough issue.

Syndicate 166

Syndicate Syndication Seed Stage Valuation 166

Gust

OCTOBER 20, 2011

In 2011, the valuation of pre-revenue, start-up companies is typically in the range of $1.5–$2.5 Such comparisons can only be made for companies at the same stage of development, in this case, for pre-revenue startup ventures. As can be seen the average (mean) pre-money valuation for recent pre-revenue deals is $2.1

Valuation 146

Valuation Pre-Money Valuation Intellectual Property Technical Review 146

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will allow us to potentially lead the seed round, while maintaining an active engagement with these companies (as with Fund I).

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

K9 Ventures

JULY 19, 2012

which was a $6.25M fund designed to be deployed over 3-4 years, making initial investments between $100K – $250K in concept and seed stage technology companies located in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will allow us to potentially lead the seed round, while maintaining an active engagement with these companies (as with Fund I).

Technology 132

Technology Seed Stage San Francisco Limited Partner 132

View from Seed

JANUARY 26, 2016

In the next post, I’ll talk about how we think about pre-seeds at NextView. It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are known as “pre-seed” (or “genesis”) and institutional seed rounds.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Early Stage Cofounder Finance 120

View from Seed

JUNE 16, 2015

And that product is a highly engaged seed-stage investment where we are usually the lead or co-lead in a round and will often take a board seat. In my opinion, VCs shy away from directly answering the questions pertaining to “at what point a company is fundable” or give a generic answer regarding revenue.

Boston 120

Boston Syndicate Syndication eCommerce 120

Agile VC

AUGUST 12, 2011

The simple answer is “be able to convince a partnership of smart investors that your startup has a good probability of being a $100M+ revenue company within 5ish years.” I was in a board meeting for a seed stage company recently and a successful GP at a larger fund said “you know it when you see it” which is true.

Seed Stage 113

Seed Stage Silicon Valley B2B Acquisition 113

Agile VC

JANUARY 12, 2012

When a startup doesn’t match the stage where a particular investor focuses, founders may get a response along the lines of “This is interesting to us, but come back once you get from X phase to Y phase” That could be from seed stage to a larger Series A financing need, or to progress from pre-product to post-revenue.

Seed Stage 100

Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate Syndication 100

Agile VC

JANUARY 27, 2012

There’s lot of anecdotal evidence for this: Seed stage investors (including NextView and many of our peers) are seeing more startups progress from seed to Series A stage in 6-9 months rather than 12-18. Multi-billion dollar valuations for late stage startups like Dropbox, et al. Read More ».

Hockey Stick 113

Hockey Stick Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 113

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 7, 2012

As a seed-focused VC fund we invest comparatively small sums of capital at the very beginning of a startup’s life. A company that in time can generate $100M+ in revenue and have an enterprise value measured in the hundreds of millions or more (what some VCs refer to as a “venture scale” outcome). Read More ».

South Korea 124

South Korea Seed Stage Silicon Valley Syndicate 124

Agile VC

DECEMBER 5, 2011

Objective Logistics has created a game layer on top of very sophisticated scheduling algorithms which increase revenue, save time, and improve customer and staff satisfaction. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. We’re psyched to help in whatever small ways we can. Author howerl.

Silicon Valley 100

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 100

View from Seed

JUNE 30, 2015

Over a third of our investments happen pre-product (so by definition, before PMF), and two-thirds are pre-revenue. Does that mean we are invest “pre-seed”? Does this mean we are an “institutional seed fund”? FWIW, at NextView, we invest from inception to strong PMF.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication Dilution 120

Agile VC

AUGUST 22, 2011

Even Amazon isn’t a platform… yes they have AWS but it accounts for <3% of their revenue and isn’t terribly profitable given the capex & opex currently going into growing it. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Not Groupon. Not Dropbox. Author howerl.

Silicon Valley 113

Silicon Valley Seed Stage Startup Syndicate 113

mashable.com

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

Joshua Baer is the co-founder and CEO of Otherinbox , a prolific angel investor and the director of Capital Factory , Austin’s seed-stage incubator. Include screenshots of your product , a video walk-through and one or two charts that display traction or revenue. Global Syndication Partners. Don’t focus on press.

Social Media 80

Social Media Startup Angel Investor RSS 80

Agile VC

MARCH 30, 2012

Some believe that there are “new” revenue models being created by consumer web companies, like virtual goods or “freemium” services. Their first revenue stream is simply inserting affiliate links to e-tailers into the pinboards that users create. But I still firmly believe the overall framework holds true.

Business Model 113

Business Model Silicon Valley Advertising B2B 113

Agile VC

MAY 23, 2012

E-commerce accounts for the vast majority of LL Bean’s revenue today ( it crossed 50% in 2010 though was as low as 15% in 2000 ), but because LL Bean is over a hundred years old and started as catalog & physical store retailer we typically don’t refer to it as an internet company. . link] leehower. Your welcome. .

Internet 182

Internet Silicon Valley IPO Seed Stage 182

Agile VC

MARCH 18, 2012

Costolo clearly wants to position Twitter as a complementary part of the media ecosystem (which it is by and large) rather than a competitor, and there remains a chance that Twitter will have other forms of revenue besides ads. Here’s why: Virtually all of Twitter’s revenue comes from advertising.

Media 113

Media Advertising Silicon Valley Revenue 113

Agile VC

MARCH 8, 2012

For SaaS or other recurring revenue businesses these figures might be on a bookings basis rather than GAAP revenue, but conceptually they’re similar. Bill Gurley’s post last year does a great job analyzing why some businesses are valued at 10x+ revenue and most aren’t. Zynga – 8x+ trailing revenue.

IPO 100

IPO Silicon Valley Revenue Seed Stage 100

Agile VC

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

How They Make Money : Facebook’s primary revenue stream is of course selling advertising on Facebook.com, which in total accounts for 85% of revenue. The next chunk comes from Facebook’s platform, in essence “taxing” the revenues of app developers like Zynga, which represents 15% of revenue.

IPO 100

IPO South Korea Venezuela Revenue 100

Hunter Walker

DECEMBER 21, 2014

17 core investments have been made, I’d say our investment model was, and continues to be, consistent with the type of firm we want to build but if you’re not constantly evaluating how to get better and serve entrepreneurs, you won’t last very long in the early stage venture business. No more, no less.

Cofounder 105

Cofounder Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 105

Rob Go

AUGUST 26, 2013

. “Institutional seed” rounds on the other hand tend to look like this: >$750K. Post-product, early customer data, somtimes real revenue. Institutional seed investors or larger VC funds. This led to a period of seed stage exuberance, and that led to higher valuations, larger rounds, etc.

Valuation 68

Valuation Seed Stage Syndicate Syndication 68

Rob Go

JANUARY 7, 2013

Actually, growth equity firms I find are best at this, because they have very specific financial criteria that they look for, such as ranges for revenue, ebitda, growth, etc. We don’t have such a section on our website (yet) and in some ways, the seed/early stage is more amorphous. Stage: Pre Product: 12.

Portfolio 49

Portfolio Seed Stage Cofounder B2B 49

Agile VC

APRIL 13, 2012

I think the long-tail (size in terms of market cap, revenue, employees etc – pick one doesn’t matter) is moving towards the city. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. link] leehower. Thanks Chris, good read and hadn’t seen it before. link] Matthew Tagg. Read More ».

Silicon Valley 185

Silicon Valley San Francisco San Jose Startup 185

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

There never has to be atime when you have no revenues. Some angel investors join together in syndicates. So seed investors usually care lessabout the idea than the people. This is true of all venture funding,but especially so in the seed stage. Like VCs, one of the advantages of seed firms is the advice theyoffer.

Technical Review 76

Technical Review Startup Software Review Angel Investor 76

Agile VC

MAY 26, 2011

I certainly bear no ill will to the various firms that ultimately passed on our fundraise… as a seed stage VC myself now I can appreciate how hard it is evaluating companies at the earliest stages of development. I co-founded NextView Ventures , a seed-stage VC firm based in Boston, in 2010. Read More ».

Term Sheet 178

Term Sheet Silicon Valley Technical Review Social Network 178

Agile VC

JUNE 5, 2011

They’ve grown from nothing to >$2B in revenue in 30 months time, making the company among the fastest growing businesses in the histroy of the world. How They Make Money: Groupon keeps a share of the coupon value (typically 40-50%) as its net revenue (1). Financial Snapshot: 2010 Revenue: $713M. to the merchant.

North America 100

North America Chicago Boston Silicon Valley 100

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 18, 2015

“Trade in an asset at a price that strongly deviates from an asset’s intrinsic value” The arguments against that, “This time the startups have real revenues!” And what many people don’t realize is that most syndicates get what is known as “deal-by-deal” carry. ” ring hollow.

IPO 150

IPO Venture Capital LP SEC 150