Many of the most storied brands in venture capital made their name by being the investor of record in a specific company’s “Series A” round — largely thought of as the round after friends, after family, and more recently, after seed, where the new investor... Read More
Too many investors subscribe to the Patek Phillipe school of investing “you don’t own the companies’ problems, you merely hold onto them [until you] can get the company to the next round of investors.” — Micah Rosenbloom of Founder Collective, April 2018 If you’ve followed... Read More
I’ve written here quite often — perhaps too much — about what early-stage founders need to think about when graduating from seed stage to institutional Series A stage. I won’t go into that here, but another aspect of this journey has been highlighted in my... Read More
Over the past few weeks, I’ve caught up with and hung out with some of the larger investors on Sand Hill and beyond. At the same time, I am helping lots of seeded companies begin to think about and/or prepare for their Series A. As... Read More
I try to help anyone coming through the network gear up for financings. Lately, the famous “gap” between seed and larger VCs for Series A has been exposed again. This “gap” has been written about ad nauseam, so I won’t do that here. Instead, let’s... Read More
Earlier this year, I started tweeting and writing more about seed startups getting on a path to Series A funding. That topic kind of took a life of its own, even considering options for companies when the Series A doesn’t arrive. A few of us... Read More
With the explosion of seed investors and seed financings, it’s been fascinating to see the psychology form around “Getting To The Series A.” It’s as if it is a huge marker everyone wants to achieve, and it makes sense. Yet, I’ve found I keep having... Read More
Thinking of running a two-day open office hours in SF called “So, you want to raise an A?” to dismantle & rebuild expectations. — Semil (@semil) June 24, 2015 This summer, like the ones before it, I try to work with early-stage teams who are... Read More
Last weekend, I wrote a post about the journey of getting to Series A, and I was surprised by how widely it was shared. It’s a testament to how hard Series A rounds are relative to the number of seeded companies out there. But, many... Read More
As a very early and active pre-seed, angel, seed, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it investor, I view my main job is to select companies and founding teams that will eventually go on to raise a proper and priced Series A round from a credible firm, with a partner... Read More
Back in April, I drove over to Oakland for Bambi Francisco’s Vator Splash to sit down with good friends Renee DiResta and Jonathon Triest about the current state of angel rounds and “pre-seed” funding in and around the Valley today. I knew this would be... Read More
Because of a range of factors focusing consumer attention on mobile-to-offline models, I was curious how some of the companies we recognize were funded according to their footprint at the time. Luckily, I happen to know a bunch of them personally, so I emailed them... Read More
If you’re a startup junkie and dog lover, you may like my column this week which looks at lessons from three pet-related startups that were able to secure Series A financing. The folks from Swifto in NYC also informed me I forgot about them, so... Read More
My column yesterday on TechCrunch featured an interesting story about a company I’ve been involved with for a long time, a company that took five (5) years from birth date to Series A — lots of lessons here for venture-backed founders. —– Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is... Read More
The company “Path” announced it raised a Series A investment today of $8.5M for what some believe puts the company at a value of between $20-30M. Many folks seem to be baffled how a company with relatively so little traction could raise so much money.... Read More
Back when Haystack just started out, we were fortunate to make a small investment in a friend, Larry. We documented that here years ago. Well, a lot has happened since then. Larry and the team at Envoy have experienced growth, survived through Covid, where their... Read More
** UPDATE ** I’ve added links to each specific interview posted on StrictlyVC with each of the LPs: -Sarah Anderson @ Cintrifuse – click here -Susan Chen @ UTIMCO – click here -Atul Rustgi @ Accolade – click here -Amit Tiwari @ INVESCO – click... Read More
Earlier this month, Connie Loizos of StrictlyVC and TechCrunch gave me the opportunity to sit down with Brad Feld from Foundry Group at her latest “Insider Series” event. I love these events because everyone attending is genuinely interested in investing in startups and everyone has... Read More
@Semil Fireside Chat w/ @Chamath StrictlyVC Insider Series September 16, 2015 AutoDesk Gallery SF (This is the transcript from last night’s chat at Connie’s StrictlyVC Insider Series with Chamath from Social+Capital. I wasn’t on Twitter today but checked in the afternoon and saw that tons... Read More
Last week, StrictlyVC with it’s chief exec Connie Loizos held it’s second “Insider Series” event on May 13 @ Galvanize in San Francisco. It was packed. Connie’s audience is growing and growing, and it’s been a blast to see people anticipate the events and reconnect with... Read More