235 Posts Found

In the July/August 2010 issue of IBJ, these co-authors described the “caste system” and other secrets of venture capital (VC) firms in America. In this article, they summarize their interviews with VCs in Europe. While firms in Europe and America share similarities, the authors note that there are important differences that may explain why European VC firms perform poorly in comparison to those in America. … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Hatim Tyabji, Vijay Sathe | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Industry Specific, International, Venture Capital

Joe Kraus says that analysts have discovered research that overturns some of Silicon Valley’s most cherished bits of lore. Take that old idea that it pays to fail in the Valley: Wrong! Google Ventures’ analysts found that first-time entrepreneurs with VC backing have a 15% chance of creating a successful company, while second-timers who had an auspicious debut see a 29% chance of repeating their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Farhad Manjoo, Joe Kraus | Source: Fast Company | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

During a recent visit to Wharton’s San Francisco campus, Tom Perkins, co-founder of the fabled Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talked about risk-taking, his mentor David Packard, the downside of corporate VC, ethically challenged Wall Street, and networking vs. “cronyism,” among other topics.

Content: Thought Leader | Author: Tom Perkins | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Why would anyone good join a high-risk startup? Remember, this is early stage stuff. What you need to do is develop the idea, get the risk out up front, then roll the money in and develop the company. At that point, experienced high-profile executives can be brought in.

Content: Quotation | Author: Tom Perkins | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

[Entrepreneurs] make lots of mistakes. They overestimate market size and underestimate how long things will take. But what happens most often is that entrepreneurs underestimate the importance of what they don’t know. They know their competition as it is today, and they know that their own product is going to be significantly better. But they don’t know what’s going on in the backroom of their … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Bill Draper | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Jeffrey Bussgang, author of Mastering the VC Game and a principal at Flybridge Capital Partners, on how to get funded.

Content: Article | Authors: Bobbie Gossage, Jeffrey Bussgang | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Entrepreneurs who dream of building the next Amazon, Facebook, or Google have the opportunity to take advantage of one of the most powerful economic engines the world has ever known: venture capital. To do that, you need to woo, impress, and persuade venture capitalists to back your endeavor. That task alone is a challenge. But finding and choosing the right investor can be harder still. … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Jeffrey Bussgang | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

The Carlyle Group and the Robert Toigo Foundation will launch a private equity MBA fellowship intended to attract minority MBA candidates to the sector.

Content: Prospective MBA Content | Subjects: Venture Capital, Women & Minority MBA Issues | Industry: Finance / Banking

VCs have an unfair advantage when it comes to financings. They simply have more experience doing deals.

One area that has always struck me where this asymmetrical relationship comes into sharp focus is when there’s a discussion around the price of the deal. Entrepreneurs often mistakenly focus solely on the pre-money valuation while VCs look at multiple knobs in the negotiation to drive … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Jeff Bussgang | Source: Seeing Both Sides | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

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A great pitch deck is concise (15 slides) and highly focused. And in the deck, VC Ed Sim likes to see the following points covered.

Content: Article | Author: Ed Sim | Source: BeyondVC | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Jeff Bussgang at Flybridge Capital Partners explains the three stages to the VC due diligence process and how it works.

Content: Article | Author: Jeff Bussgang | Source: Flybridge Capital Partners | Subject: Venture Capital

Here’s Guy Kawasaki’s advice to all the Biffs, Sebastians, Brooks, and Tiffanys who want to be kingmakers: “Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.” He’s also concocted the venture Capital Aptitude Test (VCAT) to help people decide whether they are right for the venture capital business.

Content: Article | Author: Guy Kawasaki | Source: How to Change the World | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Sometimes venture capital can be a little intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start and whom to approach. And it can be hard to cut through the noise in order to reach investors. This application aims to help by aggregating biographical, and other basic information on many of the venture investors located in the US. A simple search can take you one step closer … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Author: Matt Winn | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Fred Wilson follows up his original venture economic post with this look at venture returns, specifically the impact on returns of management fees and carry.

Content: Article | Author: Fred Wilson | Source: A VC | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

Angelsoft was founded in 2004 with a simple idea: to bring the power of collaboration technologies to the early-stage investment industry. Today, with 410 angel groups and VCs, 11,251 investors, and 2,100 new company applications a month, Angelsoft has become a vital ecosystem where real entrepreneurs and real investors meet and collaborate in the effort to build the best new companies of the 21st Century. … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Finance, Venture Capital

Fred Wilson explains the basics of venture fund economics. It appears to be the first of several posts he’s planning to write on this topic. [Hat Tip to Brad Feld]

Content: Article | Author: Fred Wilson | Source: A VC | Subjects: Industry Specific, Venture Capital

There is nothing investors like more than a startup that seems like it’s going to succeed even without them. Investors like it when they can help a startup, but they don’t like startups that would die without that help.

The reason they like it when you don’t need them is not simply that they like what they can’t have, but because that quality is what … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

The average investor is a pretty bad judge of startups. It’s harder to judge startups than most other things, because great startup ideas tend to seem wrong. A good startup idea has to be not just good but novel. And to be both good and novel, an idea probably has to seem bad to most people, or someone would already be doing it and it … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Graham | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital

Private equity firms manage some $1 trillion of global capital, yet because they are highly secretive, much remains unknown about their internal economics. How do PE firms organize themselves, for example, and how do they capitalize on their success? Some answers emerge from a paper by Wharton finance professor Ayako Yasuda and Yale School of Management finance professor Andrew Metrick presented at a recent … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew Metrick, Ayako Yasuda | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Finance, Venture Capital