No place at the table without this one table
An introduction to cap tables “Our potential investors asked as to present the cap table. What is he/she looking for?” I’ve been asked this question occasionally in sessions with startups looking for funding. A cap table...
Is Life Science industry healthy?
"Shoemaker’s son always goes barefoot" Anyone reading the news about Life Science companies would believe that everything is OK for them, with billions of dollars in revenue and cash on hand. The reality is that industry...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Age of The Millennial Investor: How The World of Investment is Set to...
Covid-19 has carried with it a wide range of disruptive influences across countless industries. While there was an initial significant adverse impact on the investment landscape, it appears that the pandemic has accelerated a...
Should I Raise More? 5 Principles For Entrepreneurs
Many things about startups are about power laws -- fundraising included. The best companies do attract disproportionate attention and the entrepreneurs are faced with the choice, if not pressure, of raising more. Below are...
Hedge Fund Investor Relations: 2021 Global Trends
The coronavirus pandemic has seriously affected the economies of many countries. People faced several shocks: general uncertainty and volatility of markets, closure of borders, an unclear forecast of the end of the coronavirus pandemic,...
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...
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...
Why We Invested In HeyRenee - Personal Health Assistant
Excited to announce our investment alongside Quiet Capital, Mucker Capital, Fika Ventures, Global Founders Capital, SaaS Ventures and Founders First in the $3.8M seed round of HeyRenee — your personal care concierge. HeyRenee is a first-ever...
Initial Public Offerings, Are They Worthy Of Your Money?
IPOs Coming Up, How Should You Think About Them? The stock market is doing well, hitting all-time highs. A number of companies want to make the most of this by launching their Initial Public Offerings....
Hiring For Your Startup? 5 Best Practices
Hiring effectively is both a science and an art. This article will cover five practical principles to make the life of a startup CEO easier. 1) The Hiring Landscape In emerging ecosystems oftentimes there is a...
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...
A Failing Startup? 5 Best Practices
We often talk about what to do for your startup to succeed. But what to do when you have to call it a day? This post is focused on 5 best practices for winding...
Fintech After GameStop: How Will the Robinhood Trading Debacle Affect Regulation?
Financial Health Network’s Jennifer Tescher and securities litigator Carl Volz discuss the GameStop short squeeze and the implication for fintech regulation. The now-infamous GameStop trading frenzy of January 2021 is (mostly) behind us, and...
How Not to be Dumb Money, 3.0
Gamestop Meme War Marshmallow Experiment Update When fear is overpriced, sell some. Gamestop dropped 29% today to $143 and I’m smiling at its put options’ inverted volatility smile. GME’s out of the money (OTM) puts cratered...
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...
Early-stage is not about speed
I’ve long been wanting to write about speed. I am developing my 4th startup in solo mode, and I cannot go fast :-). Is it an issue? A common perception is that speed is what...