Fundraising During A Pandemic? 4 Ways For Startups To Be Most Effective
The fundamentals of pitching a startup during a pandemic are no different than pitching in normal times. In fact, there is a strong argument for looking at the crisis as an opportunity to start...
Raising A Startup Round? How And When To Share Fundraising Updates
How long does it take to raise capital?
Why am I not getting term sheets when other companies are?
Is that investor really interested?
These are among the most common questions entrepreneurs ask themselves and VCs. Rounds...
Hardware is Hard — 5 Practical Tips For Startups To Raise Successfully
You had a great idea. You built a great team. You know that hardware is a significant part of the product but also provides defensibility. Then why are you still hearing too many polite...
Have A Startup Idea? How To Raise A Pre Seed
The term pre seed has really become institutionalized in the last couple years, before that the idea / powerpoint stage wasn’t called by any other specific name. Let’s delve into definitions before
1) Definitions
There is...
Closing Your Startup Round? 5 Practical Guidelines
Previous articles have talked about party rounds and keeping momentum in your fundraising. This one will focus specifically on the close, which ideally is a foregone conclusion but sometimes becomes the period of highest...
Your Startup Is Doing Great? 5 Ways To Optimize The Fundraise Further
Examples of previous articles:
Raising A Bridge Round -- 3 Core Principles
Insider Rounds -- the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
How Best to Pitch to a VC
The Art And Science of...
Going Crazy Managing A Fundraise? 5 Practical Guidelines For Entrepreneurs
At Tau Ventures we believe the fundraising process is always a bit broken -- it works for some startups some of the time but by and large it’s inefficient. While part of it is...
Nitty-Gritty Details Will Make (or Kill) Your Valuations. Here’s Why.
Genius is in the details that other people skim.
Answer me honestly. When’s the last time you bothered to read beyond the first line of a Terms and Conditions agreement or take the time to...
Common? Preferred? Founder? Making Sense Of Startup Shares
1) Preferred vs Common
Historically there have been two types of stock: preferred and common. Preferred is for investors, common for everyone else including founders. When a company has an exit, preferred gets paid...
Fundraising is badly misunderstood
If there is one thing that most startups misunderstand entirely, that’s probably fundraising. Thus, they create their own mental image of what needs to be done to raise money successfully. After interacting with more...
So Your VC Wants To Invest More? 5 Practical Tips For Entrepreneurs
If your VC wants to invest more in you then you have a good problem in your hands. Here are five practical ways to think about it.
1) Prorata (and Super Prorata)
A prorata is the...
Be a Better Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs always look for the right recipe to increase the odds of success.
Steve Blank was probably one of the “recipe” pioneers as he started the lean startup movement. Before the lean movement, I would...
Perfecting Your Pitch Deck? 10 Practices For Entrepreneurs
Pitch decks are a topic of permanent debate, no matter how much has been written about them. As such, this article will focus on 10 guidelines we advocate for entrepreneurs. Hopefully they can be...
Uncapped Note? No Discount? Making Sense For Entrepreneurs
What is the right cap and discount for your convertible? Should you even have them at all? The latter used to be a very rare situation, now it is a commonly asked question. This...
What is Up With These Mega Rounds? Making Sense Of The Startup Market
$530M round: Snyk snags another $530M as valuation rises to $8.5B
$400M round: Cityblock Health raises another mega-round of funding, tipping its valuation over $5 billion
$130M round: TrueLayer raises mega-round as open banking heats up
These...
Is There A Bubble? And 3 Practical Tips For Entrepreneur For 2022
If you are asking the question then you probably already believe in the answer.
Pitchbook is a company focused on analysis and research in VC, PE and M&A and per their data till the end...
Pre-emptive round? 4 Ways To Decide How Startups Should Approach It
Someone wants to give you money before you start fundraising? When you still have cash in the bank? And you are getting a great valuation? Hurray!
But while it’s almost always a good thing, there...
Fundraising Intermediaries? Why Entrepreneurs Don’t Do It, And Where It Still Makes Sense
When it comes to startup fundraising, using intermediaries is looked disfavorably in many if not most ecosystems. Three key reasons for this trend -- more investors around, technology has made coordination and communication increasingly...
Under The Hood: How VC Funds Operate (And How That Is Changing)
This is an article meant primarily for entrepreneurs and LPs (limited partners i.e., those investing in a VC fund), albeit we think it’s useful for VCs too. Managing Partners are typically the ones managing...
Signaling Risk? How Early Startups Can Work Best With Big Funds
Signaling risk typically happens when a large fund comes into an early round, creating an expectation in the market that they will lead the next round. For instance, if a $1B firm puts in...