TechCrunch LA

MARCH 25, 2021

The partners at MaC Venture Capital , the Los Angeles-based investment firm that has just closed on $103 million for its inaugural fund, have spent the bulk of their careers breaking barriers. MaC Venture Capital co-founders Marlon Nichols, Michael Palank, Charles King, and Adrian Fenty.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 13, 2018

The most important advice I could give you before you set out in fund raising mode is to understand that fund-raising a sales & marketing process and needs to be managed. I always tell founders … “An investors job is to deploy capital and make a return. In sales there are also three rules: Qualify, qualify, qualify.

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

New research has found that San Francisco and London have become two of the world’s leading hubs for VC investment into tech solutions that address one or more of the 17 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), more commonly referred to as “Impact Tech” They are followed by Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Shanghai and Beijing.

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Venture Capital Press Invest Research 357

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Picking a VC is hard. So I thought I’d write about out with what I would look for in a VC knowing what I know now and why. Most VCs are book smart. VCs should be more of a coach than proscriptively telling you what to do. You want a VC who will spar with you but then STFU and let you get on with things.

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Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 30, 2018

One of the hardest things about the fund-raising process for entrepreneurs is that you’re trying to raise money from people who have “asymmetric information.” VC firms see thousands of deals and have a refined sense of how the market is valuing deals because they get price signals across all of these deals. So why does a VC ask you?

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socalTECH

JUNE 28, 2021

Newport Beach-based Ankona Capital, a new, venture capital company founded by Josh Harmsen, Brian Mesic, Newth Morris, and Jared Smith, has raised $66M in its first, venture capital fund.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 28, 2018

There’s a quick litmus-test conversation any early-stage VC will have with the founder and it’s one that you should be as prepared for as your elevator pitch. It goes something like this … VC: “How much money are you raising?” Founder: “$8–10 million” VC: “What’s your current burn rate?” A VC is looking for reasonableness.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

I was having dinner with a friend last night and we were chatting about venture capital and a bit about what I’ve learned. I know I can’t be in every deal and I know that the easy part of being a VC is writing the first check in a deal. Hedge funds, other public investors, corporates, etc. I don’t.

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Venture Capital Invest Press Startup 374

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 6, 2017

I titled this post “We Must Have Zero Tolerance in Venture Capital” but of course I could just say “zero tolerance anywhere” because that’s true. As a VC let me specifically just speak out for our industry. I have known Shervin, liked him and respected his big bets as a VC like Uber and Hyperloop. I was wrong.

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Venture Capital Capital Course Report 254

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2020

I had originally signed up to talk about the “VC Market Trends” overall but it seemed inauthentic to speak about VC funding without addressing the virus in the room. So I wrote a brand new deck outlining some Upfront views on what we may see in the funding markets ahead. I welcome any feedback.

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TechCrunch LA

NOVEMBER 10, 2018

Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. The SaaS VC gap: China & other markets trail the US. Early-stage SaaS VC slip snaps recovery as public software stocks soar. 2018 is already a record year for venture funding worldwide. Contributor. 2018 in perspective.

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Venture Capital SaaS News Los Angeles 231

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 10, 2021

how on Earth could the venture capital market stand still? One of the most common questions I’m asked by people intrigued by but also scared by venture capital and technology markets is some variant of, “Aren’t technology markets way overvalued? How our VC Firms Like Ours Organizing to Meet the Challenges?

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Venture Capital Writing Invest Pricing 471

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 13, 2018

One of the hardest things to know when you’re new to fund raising is what you’re supposed to send to an investor, when and will they keep your information confidential. As a VC and former entrepreneur let me offer you some advice. This is part of a series on how to improve your fund raising game. The key is WHAT you send.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 29, 2017

I am so proud and humbled to be able to formally announce that Upfront Ventures has raised its 6th venture capital fund in the past 21 years. Upfront VI is our latest core fund and is $400 million to invest in early stage entrepreneurs. This brings our combined funds under management to nearly $2 billion.

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Funding Venture Capital Santa Monica Invest 287

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 24, 2018

If you’ve read any of my ongoing series on fund raising from venture capitalist (episode 1?— ?controlling controlling your psychology ) you no doubt have heard me say that raising capital is a sales & marketing process. VC Partnerships Start by understanding how many partners are at the firm you are approaching.

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Venture Capital Technical Review Invest Slides 314

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FEBRUARY 12, 2019

Seed investments are down by any measure (funds, deals, dollars) over the past 3 years in deals < $1 million AND in deals between $1–5 million. Over the past month a colleague ( Chang Xu ) and I sifted through data on the venture capital industry (as we do every year) and made a bunch of calls to VCs and LPs to confirm our hypotheses.

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Venture Capital Invest Seed Funding Startup 328

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 11, 2016

Gregg Johnson, CEO of Invoca For the first 5 years or so after I became a VC I didn’t talk much about what I thought a VC should be excellent at since frankly I wasn’t sure. It’s easy to think the role of a VC is to have strong opinions about markets, trends, tech dynamics and so forth. The role of VC is sparring partner.

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Venture Capital Capital CTO Coach Startup 150

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 7, 2014

My view: “Spending any time or energy trying to game the ‘definition’ of your round of fund raising is a total waste. No VC will be so naive as not to see straight through it. When I first became a VC, seed rounds were typically $500k – $1.5 If you''re newer to VC math here''s a great primer].

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Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 11, 2022

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. How might our next phase of the journey seem brighter, even with more uncertain days for startups and capital markets? billion fund. billion fund.

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Venture Capital Startup Marketing Pricing 466

TechCrunch LA

JULY 3, 2019

Upfront Ventures , a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, has filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to raise its third growth-stage investment fund. Though the firm typically invests at the seed and Series A, capital from Upfront Growth III will be used for follow-on or late-stage deals.

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Venture Capital Funding Los Angeles Invest 193

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

Most of the venture capital firms covered in TechCrunch and other tech publications compete for a spot on the cap table of the hottest Bay Area, New York or Los Angeles companies of the moment. Today, Washington, DC-based Revolution is announcing its latest fund. Revolution Ventures managing partner David Golden.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2014

We are often asked how companies get funded, why VCs make the decisions we make and what we’re looking for in entrepreneurs. I think this is a Seriously great example of how this process works for at least one VC – Upfront Ventures. But I’m guessing the narrative is similar elsewhere. The results?

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Funding Technical Review Startup Screening 373

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

Venture Capital is a tricky industry. If you’re funding the same stuff as everybody else and if you started your activities when the clues were obvious you’re much less likely to drive enormous returns. When Fred Wilson funded Twitter I guarantee you it wasn’t obvious that it was a billion dollar idea.

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Funding Technical Review Ideas Startup 362

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 24, 2014

As a result I didn’t write my first venture capital check until March 2009 – exactly 5 years ago. That company was Invoca, which just announced a $20 million fund raise led by Accel. In 2010 somebody posed the question on Quora, “Is Mark Suster a Successful Venture Capitalist?” 5 years ago.

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Venture Capital Downey Writing Press 387

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2014

We all know that funding markets have changed for startups. The trends are well understood: more angels, more seed funds, more crowdsourcing and so forth. They asked LPs to rush to get into their next side-car fund to have access to this great deal plus the LPs also get the “benefit” of investing in their next fund.

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 17, 2019

I became a VC 12 years ago in 2007 when the pace of deals was much slower. As I was trying to figure out the role I wanted to play in the VC world I decided I wanted to focus on businesses that were building deeply technical products to solve problems for business users. We not only have our Series A funds that can write $500k?—?$15

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Venture Capital IP Startup Google 223

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 28, 2021

On Funding?—?The The Denominator Effect I recently wrote a post about funding for investors to think about having a diversified portfolio , which I called “shots on goal.” If you funded 30–40 deals perhaps just 1 or 2 would drive the lion’s shares of returns. This is Venture Capital. Venture is a numbers game.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 8, 2018

Upfront Ventures has a deep-seated commitment to equality in funding & building diverse teams across all ethnicities, nationalities and genders. If you’re an entrepreneur who would like to see this clause in more startups please ask your VC to include it in future term sheets and link to it from their home page. “We

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Venture Capital Coach Ideas Startup 284

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2021

On Funding?—?Shots When you’ve been playing the game a bit longer or when you have responsibilities at the fund level you start thinking more about “portfolio construction.” billion When Ring started, even the folks at Shark Tank wouldn’t fund it. We know this going into a new fund. It sold to Amazon for > $1 billion.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2018

the most counter-intuitive fund-raising advice you’ll ever get I’m about to offer you some fund-raising advice that flies directly in the face of what most conventional wisdom will tell you. Let me start out with my premise: “Data rooms are where fund-raising processes go to die.” I have to back up and give you more context.

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Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 23, 2017

Fund raising is hard for everybody. The perverse nature of raising capital is that “no’s” almost always precede “yeses” because it’s very easy for a VC to tell you that you’re not a good fit without doing any real work to evaluate your company so you hear “no” far before others start doing more work.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Course 238

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 13, 2014

Investment experience (5 years a VC at Battery Ventures). People often ask me what VCs look for when we hire partners and many have asked how to become VCs themselves one day. I can’t speak for other VCs but it may interest you to at least know our thought process at Upfront. Upfront Ventures VC Industry'

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Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 12, 2014

These tensions seep out in some angels or seed funds publicly or semi-privately deriding later-stage VCs for their “bad” behavior. I have seen bad behavior from later-stage VCs, believe me. They often create the biggest tensions between investors who are investing at different stages in the business.

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Guide Venture Capital Startup Writing 336

socalTECH

OCTOBER 8, 2019

Pasadena-based Thin Line Capital announced this morning that it has launched a brand new, energey and sustainability fund, which will invest in cleantech investing. The new firm, led by serial entrepnd investor Aaron Fyke, said its seed stage fund has had its first close of over $5 million.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 6, 2018

Fund raising. But it’s critical for your business, for you as a leader and people who excel at fund raising have an extreme advantage over those who do not. As a VC I also have to fund raise every three years and these posts 100% apply to VCs raising money, too. Below is the outline Upfront.

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Funding Venture Capital Startup Entrepreneur 236

socalTECH

MARCH 29, 2019

MiLA Capital , the venture capital firm that is behind the Make In LA hardware accelerator, says it has raised its first official venture capital fund, officially closing its first fundraise. Size of the fund was not announced. Source of the funding for the new venture capital fund was not announced.

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Capital Funding Startup Venture Capital 191

socalTECH

JUNE 17, 2021

The Alliance for Southern California Innovation said on Thursday that it is launching a new program, the SoCal Venture Pipeline. According to the company, the new program will provide companies that have demonstrated clear market traction and provides targeted introductions to venture funds.

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