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Browse: Home / Raising Venture Capital

Raising Venture Capital

What Would it Look Like if Elon Musk Pitched a VC Today?

What Would it Look Like if Elon Musk Pitched a VC Today?

By Mark Suster on May 30, 2013

This week I attended the All Things D Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes. It is always a stellar event. The good and great of the tech industry were there: Tim Cook, Sheryl Sandberg, Dick Costolo, Max Levchin, etc. But Elon Musk stole the show. I thought Michael Lazerow’s Tweet best captured the mood of the […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Elon Musk, Entrepreneurship, Kickstarter, Nikola Tesla, paypal, Raising Venture Capital, SpaceX, startups, Tech Market Analysis, vc funding, venture capital

How to Better Manage Relationships with Your VC

How to Better Manage Relationships with Your VC

By Mark Suster on April 15, 2013

Just back from 2 solid weeks on the road in Boston, New York & Philly. I spent countless hours with VC firms, startups & LPs (the people who invest in VC firms).  I find these trips invaluable both from a relationship-building perspective as well as stretching my mind about our industry. I ask questions, test […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, startups, vc funding, venture capital

How to Develop Your Fund Raising Strategy

How to Develop Your Fund Raising Strategy

By Mark Suster on January 16, 2012

Raising money is hard. And when you’re relatively new to the process it’s easy to be confused by the process. There is all sorts of advice on the Internet about how to raise capital. Of course much of it is conflicting. I’ve raised money as a “hot company” and I’ve raised capital when no one […]

Posted in General | Tagged Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice | 1 Response

On Bubbles … And Why We’ll Be Just Fine

On Bubbles … And Why We’ll Be Just Fine

By Mark Suster on June 22, 2011

I recently spoke at the Founder Showcase at the request of Adeo Ressi.  I asked what the audience most needed to hear. He said, “They need an unbiased view of the fund raising environment because there is too much misinformation and everything seems to be changing fast.” This was […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged bubble, Dot-com bubble, Entrepreneurship, Raising Venture Capital, startups, Tech Market Analysis, VC Industry

Angel / VC Funding in A Frothy Market

Angel / VC Funding in A Frothy Market

By Mark Suster on June 16, 2011

  I had the privilege of keynoting at the Founder Showcase tonight in San Francisco. Adeo asked me to speak about fund raising. I generally don’t like to speak about fund raising in a frothy market. If you’re bullish you seem like a Cramer-esque cheerleader and if you’re bearish you sound like a party pooper. But Adeo […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, VC Industry | 1 Response

Why Startups Should Raise Money at the Top End of Normal

Why Startups Should Raise Money at the Top End of Normal

By Mark Suster on June 5, 2011

  2 preamble issues having read the comments on TC today: 1: I know that the prices of startup companies is much great in Silicon Valley than in smaller towns / less tech focused areas in the US and the US prices higher than many foreign markets. I acknowledged this in the article. You can […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice

How Many Investors are Too Many?

How Many Investors are Too Many?

By Mark Suster on February 23, 2011

This post originally ran on TechCrunch. Lately I have seen a number of deals announced on TechCrunch in which 5 or more different VCs were participating in the deal. This always makes me chuckle because in my first company we had 5 investors in our first round and we picked up 5 more before we […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged investing, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, techcrunch, twitter, zynga

How You May be Signaling Price without Knowing It

How You May be Signaling Price without Knowing It

By Mark Suster on January 20, 2011

I was having a chat with an entrepreneur who I really like and who I try to mentor from time-to-time.  He has an interesting business and one that has a viable shot at being an innovative & profitable business. One problem.  He’s struggling to raise money.  This is extra frustrating in an era in which […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Raising Venture Capital

How to Handle a VC Presentation with No Deck

How to Handle a VC Presentation with No Deck

By Mark Suster on January 13, 2011

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting.  I wrote the summary notes in this blog post.  That notes […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice

Going to Raise VC? Here’s a Primer on Process, People, Deck

Going to Raise VC? Here’s a Primer on Process, People, Deck

By Mark Suster on January 11, 2011

If you want a very quick primer on all the stuff nobody ever tells you about raising venture capital check out this video where Mark Jeffrey & I break it down on This Week in VC.  A summary of what we discussed is below: Not 100% in order of the video, but close.  All of […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged ipo, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, startups, This Week in Venture Capital, vc funding

Why it’s Critical That you Reference Check Your VC

Why it’s Critical That you Reference Check Your VC

By Mark Suster on December 14, 2010

I was recently speaking with some founders about their fund raising process.  They had received a term sheet from a VC and were wondering whether to work with this firm.  I personally had three separate data points from entrepreneurs who took money from the firm that said “never again.”  I really try to stay out […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Eric Clapton, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, startups, steve jobs, vc funding, venture capital

How to Connect with High Volume People

How to Connect with High Volume People

By Mark Suster on November 16, 2010

I’m a high-volume person.  That doesn’t make me important.  It doesn’t mean I’m not accessible.  It means simply what I’m stating – high volume. What that means is that in a typical week I might see 10-15 new company pitches.  Sometimes more.  I speak at conferences where I might meet 75-100 people and have conversations. […]

Posted in Trends & Concepts | Tagged Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, twitter

The Four Main Things that Investors Look for in a Startup

The Four Main Things that Investors Look for in a Startup

By Mark Suster on October 6, 2010

I obviously don’t speak for all investors.  But in my experience as an entrepreneur and now spending my time amongst investors I can generalize that almost all VC investments in early stage technology & Internet investments come down to just four key factors.  And they’re easy to remember because they all begin with an M: […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged Entrepreneurship, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, startups, vc funding, venture capital

Revisiting Paul Graham’s “High Resolution” Financing

Revisiting Paul Graham’s “High Resolution” Financing

By Mark Suster on September 25, 2010

When I first read Paul Graham’s blog post on “High Resolution” Financing I read it as a treatise arguing that convertible notes are better than equity.  As I’m generally a believer in ‘pricing rounds’ I initially didn’t agree with the premise of the post. I just re-read it and on second reflection, I’m surprised just […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Featured Posts | Tagged Angel investor, Paul Graham, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, startups, Tech Market Analysis, Term Sheets, venture capital | 1 Response

Is Convertible Debt Preferable to Equity?

Is Convertible Debt Preferable to Equity?

By Mark Suster on August 30, 2010

Seth Levine of Foundry Group addresses this important topic this morning on his blog with a post, “Has Convertible Debt Won?”Seth was basing this on a Tweet by Paul Graham that said” “Convertible notes have won. Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a […]

Posted in Entrepreneurship | Tagged convertible debt, equity, Raising Venture Capital, Startup Advice, vc funding

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