INDUSTRY INSIGHTS YOUR PEERS ARE READING
October 2, 2019 – Techstars , the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed, and HBCUvc , a nonprofit fellowship program providing Black and Latinx students with training and mentorship in venture capital, today announced the launch of a joint 10-city Startup Weekend tour across the country. MORE
I was curious if there was any relationship between type of license used by startup commercializing open source software, and their ability to raise capital, and exit. However, looking at the chart above, we can see that Apache projects raise a disproportionate amount of capital, compared to their share of open-source projects. Developers chose the MIT license for 20% of code repositories, but commercial entities of MIT projects raised less than 1% of venture dollars. MORE
In venture capital (VC) land, you should view investors as long-term partners in value creation. Say a company has consumed $50M in capital but has only $5M in ARR to show for it. Career Development Startups Strategy Uncategorized Venture Capital MORE
Our own Nick Franklin spoke to Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital at the fourth edition of our inaugural event series, held in Berlin at Point Nine's headquarters. Participants: Christoph Janz ( @chrija ) — Managing Partner, Point Nine Capital. Events events mogul i/o venture capita MORE
customer success Sales Startups Uncategorized Venture Capital churn inception churnI think for many sales-aggressive enterprise SaaS startups, a fair amount of churn actually happens at inception. For example, back in 2013, shortly after I joined Host Analytics, I discovered that there were a number of deals that sales had signed with customers that our professional services (PS) team had flat out refused to implement. (Huh?) MORE
Most investors believe you could better maximize ARR by simply raising more capital and sticking with annual payments. Uncategorized Venture Capital SaaS Startups Metrics churn Retention net dollar retention gross dollar retention payment vs. renewal MORE
Every so often I post highlights from the quarterly Fenwick & West Venture Capital Survey , as much to share knowledge about the existence of the survey [1] as to share its current-quarter data. MORE
Whether buying, selling or growing, you are going to deal with capital. Rand Fishkin explains what venture capital did for him, how it falls short in certain situations and what other types of capitalization you can use to pursue your business dreams MORE
In 2016 I thought about the question of what it takes to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016 and tried to give an answer that would fit on the proverbial back of a napkin. venture-capital financing founders entrepreneurship saas MORE
Here are the slides : Uncategorized Venture Capital SaaS Strategy Startups Metrics LeadershipI’ve been making a few presentations lately, so I thought I’d share the slides to this deck which I presented earlier this week at the All Hands meeting of a high-growth SaaS company as part of their external speaker series. MORE
Yesterday I saw this post on the blog of Karlin Ventures. In response to a tweet by Paul Graham which was highlighted in Danielle Morrill's excellent Mattermark Daily newsletter, the guys at Karlin Ventures revealed the "days since last contact" numbers for their portfolio. MORE
CEO Competition Leadership Management SaaS SaaStr Strategy Venture CapitalA few days ago, Jason Lemkin from SaaStr sent me a link to the video of my SaaStr Annual 2019 conference presentation, The Five Questions Startup CEOs Worry About. MORE
saas series-a seed-investment marketplaces venture-capitalThe Journey to Series A?—? a look at our “Seed-to-A conversion rate” If you’d like to be notified of our next posts you can subscribe to our newsletter. MORE
planning saas venture capitalA couple of years ago I wrote a post titled “How fast is fast enough?”. The subtext of the question was “How fast do you have to grow if your ambition is to get to $100M in ARR and build a very large company”. It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy. MORE
To thrive, venture capital firms must perform three things well: raise capital from limited partners, source companies to invest in, and pick the best opportunities. In the last decade, venture firms have experimented with decentralized sourcing. Decision-making in venture firm is a dark art. Non-consensus means investing in areas competitors aren’t yet so the valuations are more attractive because there is less capital supply. MORE
Get the biggest name investors [3], raise the most capital, make the most noise about the capital you’ve raised, and use the money to make a few big-name hires, all in an effort to make it clear that Sand Hill Road has thoroughly evaluated the company and its technology and chosen you to be the leader. Spend a nice chunk of that capital on public relations [4]. Salesforce Ventures invests in Alation) to white label re-sale deals (e.g., MORE
We’re trying hard to make venture capital a little more human , and we really mean it when we say that we aspire to be good VCs. financing vc venture capital MORE
The second quarter of 2014 is the sixteenth largest by capital deployed sinced 1995, making it a top quartile quarter, but to break into the top five, that figure would need to triple. Which startup sectors should expect to benefit from this surfeit of capital? Each quarter, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters gather data on the VC industry. Through the first six months of 2014, VCs have raised about as much as all of 2013. MORE
He’s spent most of his recent career in private equity (PE) land; I’ve spent most of mine in venture capital (VC) land. So my two favorite podcasts are now The Twenty Minute VC on the venture side and The Private Equity Funcast on the PE side. Entrepreneurship Leadership Management Private Equity Recruiting Relationships Startups Venture Capital MORE
hr point nine recruiting venture capitalOnce a startup has released the first version of its product, raised some funding, started to get the word out and is getting some traction, the biggest challenge almost always becomes hiring. MORE
IPO Randomness SaaS Uncategorized Venture Capital Rule of 40 SaaSacre MORE
Our mission with the global directory of women in VC is to give women around the world the tools to better find each other, connect, and collaborate,” said Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, co-creator of the Women in VC directory and Partner at MDC Ventures. “We MORE
In partnership with Harlem Capital, Techstars Includes is an initiative aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion within the Techstars network and across global entrepreneurship communities. About Harlem Capital Partners: . Harlem Capital Partners. New York, N.Y. MORE
due diligence funding saas software as a service venture capitalThe founder of a portfolio company recently asked me what kind of numbers and other material he'll need when he goes into his next round of fundraising. MORE
I’ve watched many bridge rounds over time from a far, and took $500k in bridge capital at EchoSign myself when our seed round didn’t end up being quite enough to get us to the Series A. Simply put, it’s another round of venture financing from the same investors as the last round. Each bridge round requires a VC burning some political capital. If she/he has gone to another firm, there’s no political capital to spend. MORE
In addition, if you file a section 83b election within 30 days (and the grant was not in-the-money) then you pay no tax at exercise time and incur tax liability only when you eventually sell the shares, which if it’s more than a year away, results in long-term capital gains tax treatment [13]. MORE
Just where is the US venture market relative to the rest of the world? The chart above shows the compound annual growth rate of venture investment rounds A through D in ten fastest growing venture markets plus the US from 2010-2016. It’s wonderful to see the expansion of venture capital across these geographies and especially at very healthy growth rates. This chart illustrates the depth of the capital pool available to startups. MORE
As a reminder, in the original post I tried to give a "back of a napkin" answer to this question: What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016? So, what does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in early 2017? funding napkin saas software as a service venture capital MORE
More often than not, raising venture capital is a huge distraction for the founding team. If you are a founder or CEO and have raised venture capital it would be awesome if you could participate in the survey. fundraising typeform venture capital MORE
Board CEO Startups Uncategorized Venture Capital communicationsI am surprised by how many startup CEOs leave the board hanging at the end of the quarter. MORE
Today famed venture capital podcaster and now venture capitalist at StrideVC , Harry Stebbings , released a new episode of the Twenty Minute VC podcast with me as his guest. ( iTunes version here.). MORE
For entrepreneurs, more VCs investing into seed rounds means easier access to capital. vc venture capital MORE
Its meaning is described very well on Bessemer's website , and because it's so hilarious I want to quote it in its entirety: "Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest venture capital firm, carrying on an unbroken practice of venture capital investing that stretches back to 1911. MORE
Today we’ve announced Point Nine Capital III, our new €55M fund. Investors in PNC III include institutional investors like Horsley Bridge Partners , Sapphire Ventures , Flossbach von Storch and Vintage Investment Partners as well as a number of highly successful Internet entrepreneurs. MORE
For most companies which didn't raise venture capital this is completely irrelevant. saas venture capitalJudging from the number of Facebook likes and retweets, as well as comments on Twitter and elsewhere, my last post resonated with quite a lot of people. MORE
A few like Salesforce Ventures and GV are an exception, but let me explain: Corporate VCs often do not write a “second check”. Again, this is less likely with Salesforce Ventures and GV, etc. The post How do corporate venture capital firms different from conventional venture capital firms? They aren’t as dependable. This doesn’t mean they are “worse”. It does mean be careful how you use them. This is issue #1. MORE
However, as soon as a founder/CEO raises venture capital (VC) they have decided to take investing partners along on the journey. In most venture-backed firms, a hired CEO will find a board consisting of several different venture capital partners, each with their own opinion. Even though most venture boards do end up with an Alpha member [11], it’s still hard for the CEO to get confused and think of the Alpha member as the boss. MORE
Inspired by Ben Horowitz’ excellent “Good product managers, bad product managers” post and Stefan Smalla’s “Good leader, bad leader” masterpiece I’ve tried to put together my thoughts on what I think makes a great venture capital investor. venture capital MORE
They run out of money.” — Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital. Leadership Management Startups Strategy Uncategorized Venture Capital moribund stars stuck unbridled MORE
Mamoon Hamid of Social+Capital has coined the term "Quick Ratio" for the ratio between added MRR and lost MRR, and he's looking for companies with a Quick Ratio of > 4. financial plan saas software as a service venture capital MORE
Getting Funded Startup Help Business Model Funding SaaS TAM TAM slide Total Addressable Market Venture capitalI’ve seen hundreds of startup pitch decks in my time at Matrix, and have found total addressable market (TAM) slides to be among the most frequently mis-executed. I get the sense they are often included as a formality in an attempt to get VCs to check a mental box and continue on hearing about other. MORE
In the business world, the term generally refers to: “Financing and growing your business without the need for external assistance in the form of capital investment.” The growing divide between SaaS and venture capital. MORE
For VCs, the question is how many of these companies can become large enough to make the (admittedly somewhat weird) business model of venture capitalists work. Not yet convinced that you shouldn’t raise venture capital? :) Let us know ! saas venture capital MORE
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
Conventional wisdom, and advice, abounds: entrepreneurs should never include a venture firm in their seed round because it’ll scare other VCs off from pursuing the A. Getting Funded Entrepreneur Funding Raising capital seed deals Venture capitalThere is much hand wringing in the startup ecosystem about various forms of signaling between the seed and A rounds. MORE
Venture Capital Related Topics TechStars
OCTOBER 2, 2019
October 2, 2019 – Techstars , the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed, and HBCUvc , a nonprofit fellowship program providing Black and Latinx students with training and mentorship in venture capital, today announced the launch of a joint 10-city Startup Weekend tour across the country.
SaaStr
JUNE 20, 2019
I’ve watched many bridge rounds over time from a far, and took $500k in bridge capital at EchoSign myself when our seed round didn’t end up being quite enough to get us to the Series A. Simply put, it’s another round of venture financing from the same investors as the last round. Each bridge round requires a VC burning some political capital. If she/he has gone to another firm, there’s no political capital to spend.
SaaStr
JANUARY 28, 2019
A few like Salesforce Ventures and GV are an exception, but let me explain: Corporate VCs often do not write a “second check”. Again, this is less likely with Salesforce Ventures and GV, etc. The post How do corporate venture capital firms different from conventional venture capital firms? They aren’t as dependable. This doesn’t mean they are “worse”. It does mean be careful how you use them. This is issue #1.
Tom Tunguz
MAY 22, 2016
To thrive, venture capital firms must perform three things well: raise capital from limited partners, source companies to invest in, and pick the best opportunities. In the last decade, venture firms have experimented with decentralized sourcing. Decision-making in venture firm is a dark art. Non-consensus means investing in areas competitors aren’t yet so the valuations are more attractive because there is less capital supply.
Tom Tunguz
JULY 22, 2017
Just where is the US venture market relative to the rest of the world? The chart above shows the compound annual growth rate of venture investment rounds A through D in ten fastest growing venture markets plus the US from 2010-2016. It’s wonderful to see the expansion of venture capital across these geographies and especially at very healthy growth rates. This chart illustrates the depth of the capital pool available to startups.
Kellblog
MAY 8, 2019
Every so often I post highlights from the quarterly Fenwick & West Venture Capital Survey , as much to share knowledge about the existence of the survey [1] as to share its current-quarter data.
For Entrepreneurs with David Skok
SEPTEMBER 25, 2018
Conventional wisdom, and advice, abounds: entrepreneurs should never include a venture firm in their seed round because it’ll scare other VCs off from pursuing the A. Getting Funded Entrepreneur Funding Raising capital seed deals Venture capitalThere is much hand wringing in the startup ecosystem about various forms of signaling between the seed and A rounds.
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Tom Tunguz
JULY 22, 2014
The second quarter of 2014 is the sixteenth largest by capital deployed sinced 1995, making it a top quartile quarter, but to break into the top five, that figure would need to triple. Which startup sectors should expect to benefit from this surfeit of capital? Each quarter, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters gather data on the VC industry. Through the first six months of 2014, VCs have raised about as much as all of 2013.
For Entrepreneurs with David Skok
DECEMBER 6, 2017
Getting Funded Startup Help Business Model Funding SaaS TAM TAM slide Total Addressable Market Venture capitalI’ve seen hundreds of startup pitch decks in my time at Matrix, and have found total addressable market (TAM) slides to be among the most frequently mis-executed. I get the sense they are often included as a formality in an attempt to get VCs to check a mental box and continue on hearing about other.
Divestopedia
APRIL 3, 2019
Whether buying, selling or growing, you are going to deal with capital. Rand Fishkin explains what venture capital did for him, how it falls short in certain situations and what other types of capitalization you can use to pursue your business dreams
TechStars
JULY 31, 2019
Our mission with the global directory of women in VC is to give women around the world the tools to better find each other, connect, and collaborate,” said Jessica Peltz-Zatulove, co-creator of the Women in VC directory and Partner at MDC Ventures. “We
The Angel VC
NOVEMBER 8, 2018
We’re trying hard to make venture capital a little more human , and we really mean it when we say that we aspire to be good VCs. financing vc venture capital
Kellblog
AUGUST 18, 2019
In addition, if you file a section 83b election within 30 days (and the grant was not in-the-money) then you pay no tax at exercise time and incur tax liability only when you eventually sell the shares, which if it’s more than a year away, results in long-term capital gains tax treatment [13].
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The Angel VC
JANUARY 10, 2017
As a reminder, in the original post I tried to give a "back of a napkin" answer to this question: What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016? So, what does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in early 2017? funding napkin saas software as a service venture capital
Kellblog
JULY 18, 2019
In venture capital (VC) land, you should view investors as long-term partners in value creation. Say a company has consumed $50M in capital but has only $5M in ARR to show for it. Career Development Startups Strategy Uncategorized Venture Capital
Kellblog
OCTOBER 13, 2019
However, as soon as a founder/CEO raises venture capital (VC) they have decided to take investing partners along on the journey. In most venture-backed firms, a hired CEO will find a board consisting of several different venture capital partners, each with their own opinion. Even though most venture boards do end up with an Alpha member [11], it’s still hard for the CEO to get confused and think of the Alpha member as the boss.
The Angel VC
MAY 17, 2017
For VCs, the question is how many of these companies can become large enough to make the (admittedly somewhat weird) business model of venture capitalists work. Not yet convinced that you shouldn’t raise venture capital? :) Let us know ! saas venture capital
Kellblog
AUGUST 9, 2019
Board CEO Startups Uncategorized Venture Capital communicationsI am surprised by how many startup CEOs leave the board hanging at the end of the quarter.
Kellblog
JUNE 10, 2019
Today famed venture capital podcaster and now venture capitalist at StrideVC , Harry Stebbings , released a new episode of the Twenty Minute VC podcast with me as his guest. ( iTunes version here.).
The Angel VC
OCTOBER 13, 2015
More often than not, raising venture capital is a huge distraction for the founding team. If you are a founder or CEO and have raised venture capital it would be awesome if you could participate in the survey. fundraising typeform venture capital
The Angel VC
MARCH 11, 2016
For most companies which didn't raise venture capital this is completely irrelevant. saas venture capitalJudging from the number of Facebook likes and retweets, as well as comments on Twitter and elsewhere, my last post resonated with quite a lot of people.
Kellblog
MARCH 30, 2019
They run out of money.” — Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital. Leadership Management Startups Strategy Uncategorized Venture Capital moribund stars stuck unbridled
The Angel VC
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015
hr point nine recruiting venture capitalOnce a startup has released the first version of its product, raised some funding, started to get the word out and is getting some traction, the biggest challenge almost always becomes hiring.
TechStars
OCTOBER 21, 2019
In partnership with Harlem Capital, Techstars Includes is an initiative aimed at increasing diversity and inclusion within the Techstars network and across global entrepreneurship communities. About Harlem Capital Partners: . Harlem Capital Partners. New York, N.Y.
The Angel VC
SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
For entrepreneurs, more VCs investing into seed rounds means easier access to capital. vc venture capital
Kellblog
FEBRUARY 26, 2019
CEO Competition Leadership Management SaaS SaaStr Strategy Venture CapitalA few days ago, Jason Lemkin from SaaStr sent me a link to the video of my SaaStr Annual 2019 conference presentation, The Five Questions Startup CEOs Worry About.
Kellblog
APRIL 1, 2019
IPO Randomness SaaS Uncategorized Venture Capital Rule of 40 SaaSacre
The Angel VC
DECEMBER 12, 2014
Its meaning is described very well on Bessemer's website , and because it's so hilarious I want to quote it in its entirety: "Bessemer Venture Partners is perhaps the nation's oldest venture capital firm, carrying on an unbroken practice of venture capital investing that stretches back to 1911.
The Angel VC
NOVEMBER 1, 2014
Inspired by Ben Horowitz’ excellent “Good product managers, bad product managers” post and Stefan Smalla’s “Good leader, bad leader” masterpiece I’ve tried to put together my thoughts on what I think makes a great venture capital investor. venture capital
Kellblog
AUGUST 23, 2019
He’s spent most of his recent career in private equity (PE) land; I’ve spent most of mine in venture capital (VC) land. So my two favorite podcasts are now The Twenty Minute VC on the venture side and The Private Equity Funcast on the PE side. Entrepreneurship Leadership Management Private Equity Recruiting Relationships Startups Venture Capital
Point Nine Land
JUNE 25, 2019
In 2016 I thought about the question of what it takes to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2016 and tried to give an answer that would fit on the proverbial back of a napkin. venture-capital financing founders entrepreneurship saas
Kellblog
AUGUST 1, 2019
customer success Sales Startups Uncategorized Venture Capital churn inception churnI think for many sales-aggressive enterprise SaaS startups, a fair amount of churn actually happens at inception. For example, back in 2013, shortly after I joined Host Analytics, I discovered that there were a number of deals that sales had signed with customers that our professional services (PS) team had flat out refused to implement. (Huh?)
Kellblog
MARCH 6, 2019
Most investors believe you could better maximize ARR by simply raising more capital and sticking with annual payments. Uncategorized Venture Capital SaaS Startups Metrics churn Retention net dollar retention gross dollar retention payment vs. renewal
Chart Mogul
JUNE 8, 2018
Our own Nick Franklin spoke to Christoph Janz of Point Nine Capital at the fourth edition of our inaugural event series, held in Berlin at Point Nine's headquarters. Participants: Christoph Janz ( @chrija ) — Managing Partner, Point Nine Capital. Events events mogul i/o venture capita
The Angel VC
JUNE 3, 2015
Today we’ve announced Point Nine Capital III, our new €55M fund. Investors in PNC III include institutional investors like Horsley Bridge Partners , Sapphire Ventures , Flossbach von Storch and Vintage Investment Partners as well as a number of highly successful Internet entrepreneurs.
The Angel VC
DECEMBER 12, 2018
planning saas venture capitalA couple of years ago I wrote a post titled “How fast is fast enough?”. The subtext of the question was “How fast do you have to grow if your ambition is to get to $100M in ARR and build a very large company”. It’s an important question, as your target growth rate determines your hiring plan, budget, and fundraising strategy.
Kellblog
JUNE 2, 2019
Get the biggest name investors [3], raise the most capital, make the most noise about the capital you’ve raised, and use the money to make a few big-name hires, all in an effort to make it clear that Sand Hill Road has thoroughly evaluated the company and its technology and chosen you to be the leader. Spend a nice chunk of that capital on public relations [4]. Salesforce Ventures invests in Alation) to white label re-sale deals (e.g.,
Chart Mogul
NOVEMBER 6, 2017
In the business world, the term generally refers to: “Financing and growing your business without the need for external assistance in the form of capital investment.” The growing divide between SaaS and venture capital.
The Angel VC
APRIL 30, 2015
due diligence funding saas software as a service venture capitalThe founder of a portfolio company recently asked me what kind of numbers and other material he'll need when he goes into his next round of fundraising.
Kellblog
MARCH 4, 2019
Here are the slides : Uncategorized Venture Capital SaaS Strategy Startups Metrics LeadershipI’ve been making a few presentations lately, so I thought I’d share the slides to this deck which I presented earlier this week at the All Hands meeting of a high-growth SaaS company as part of their external speaker series.
The Angel VC
JANUARY 17, 2014
Yesterday I saw this post on the blog of Karlin Ventures. In response to a tweet by Paul Graham which was highlighted in Danielle Morrill's excellent Mattermark Daily newsletter, the guys at Karlin Ventures revealed the "days since last contact" numbers for their portfolio.
The Angel VC
MAY 8, 2015
Mamoon Hamid of Social+Capital has coined the term "Quick Ratio" for the ratio between added MRR and lost MRR, and he's looking for companies with a Quick Ratio of > 4. financial plan saas software as a service venture capital
Point Nine Land
JANUARY 25, 2019
saas series-a seed-investment marketplaces venture-capitalThe Journey to Series A?—? a look at our “Seed-to-A conversion rate” If you’d like to be notified of our next posts you can subscribe to our newsletter.
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