BeyondVC » Venture Capital

2021 Recap Sending ? and ? from the boldstart team at the end of a challenging 2021. With COVID raging at the beginning and end of the year, it is all the more amazing what our portfolio companie...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2022/01/boldstart-2021-recap-whats-%F0%9F%94%A5-in-enterprise-2022.html

2018 Recap Welcome to our annual boldstart recap and enterprise predictions letter. We had another solid year filled with learning, growth, laughter, and new projects and partners. Thanks to all ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2019/01/boldstart-2018-recap-and-whats-hot-in-enterprise-2019.html

We are thrilled to announce our investment in Snyk, which is a developer-first security solution that helps companies use open source code and stay secure. We couldn’t be more excited to be lea...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2018/03/snyk-from-first-check-to-leader-in-dev-friendly-open-source-security.html

2017 Recap 2017 was another year of growing, learning, investing and partnering with amazing founders. Once again, we are grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many amazing founders, a...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2018/01/boldstart-in-2017-enterprise-tech-in-2018.html

Just getting back from a few days at RSA. We kicked it off Sunday night with a boldstart founders and execs dinner where we talked about what’s next in cybersecurity with some of our portfolio ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2017/02/climate_for_security_startups.html

2016 was a banner year for boldstart, and we could not have achieved any of this without the amazing support of our boldstart family and the founders who have given us the opportunity to invest i...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2016/12/boldstart-in-2016-enterprise-tech-in-2017.html

  This is a story about starting an enterprise seed fund called Boldstart in 2010 and our journey in enterprise since 1996. Despite our firm being a little over 6 years old, our individual stori...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2016/11/journey-oversubscribed-enterprise.html

A wise VC once told me when dinner is served, you eat. When it comes to fundraising, I’ve learned that if someone is trying to invest now, you should strike while the iron is hot. Given that th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2016/01/series-rounds-enterprise.html

When Willie Sutton, the prolific bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks, he answered, “because that’s where the money is.” When asked by investors in early 2010, why we were starting a...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2015/03/take-enterprise-tech.html

As we look into 2014, we thought it was important to reflect on our activities in 2013 and refocus and refine our thinking and messaging as a firm. We are thematic in our approach and primarily k...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2014/02/boldstart-ventures-2014-ethos.html

Lately questions about Intellectual Property or IP have been cropping up left and right.  Eliot Durbin (my partner at BOLDstart Ventures) and I had a long discussion this morning in preparation ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2012/05/startups-and-intellectual-property-ip.html

I know I may be dating myself here, but over the past few weeks I couldn’t help but think about the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High and one of the standout characters, Jeff Spicoli.  When a...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2012/01/what-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-jeff-spicoli.html

“No Man’s Land” is traditionally known as the area between two trenches.  This is a reference to World War I and the vicious trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat that characterized that...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/09/startups-getting-caught-in-no-mans-land.html

OK, I may be biased having been an early stage VC based out of New York since 1996, but I must say that the vibe, energy, and people at the Techstars NYC Demo Day event yesterday was simply aweso...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/04/the-new-york-startup-market-rocks-and-is-real.html

Every 3 months I dig through my “passed company” folder to look at what investment opportunities we passed on and why.  Inevitably, there are a few companies that are near-misses, but we end...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/04/reflecting-on-passed-investments.html

I had a tough call with an entrepreneur this morning.  His company raised a fair amount of seed financing but did not hit the milestones it needed to in order to raise a real round of venture ca...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/02/know-when-to-hold-em-know-when-to-fold-em.html

As a VC who invests in seed and first rounds, I love revenue just as much as the next guy.  However, the focus on revenue should play second fiddle to a user/customer first experience.  Over th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2011/01/put-your-users-first.html

I remember when we hired a new CEO for one of our portfolio companies and my tip to him was to overcommunicate.  We had a few large VCs on the board and a number of high-profile angels that coul...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/10/standard-investor-update-for-startups.html

As I have stressed over the years, it is imperative for board members and their management teams to have open dialogue.  If you are a CEO, I encourage you to share more rather than less informat...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2010/04/4-types-of-ceo-behavior-when-dealing-with-boards.html

Congratulations to Michael Robertson and team at Gizmo5 for all of their hard work and perseverance!  There is not a lot I can tell you about the future plans for Google Voice, but I do believe ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/11/google-acquires-portfolio-company-gizmo5.html

I have made many posts in the past about focus and doing more with less, and as I continued on this path it reminded me of Occam's Razor, the idea that the simplest explanation to any problem is ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/06/occams-razor-and-venture.html

No matter how many times I told my friend that he needed to get a deck together for a potential capital raise and model out some thoughts on market sizing and financials, I ran into resistance. ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/04/cover-the-basics-before-you-raise-capital.html

A friend of mine is putting together his first deck for potential investors.  In typical startup fashion, they launched a product, got a number of users, and then iterated several times to impro...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2009/01/positioning-and-pitch-decks-for-startups.html

The alarm bells are ringing in Silicon Valley and start-up land today with Sequoia Capital and Ron Conway telling companies to prepare for the economic meltdown and to raise cash by cutting their...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/10/be-prudent-but.html

The economy is clearly slowing down and the IPO market is nonexistent.  As I have always said, this is the time to hunker down and tweak your business to get your model right.  If you are inter...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/08/ma-it-aint-ov.html

The Jordan Edmiston Group recently asked me and a few other VCs a few pointed questions about the future for circulation in their July Client Briefing.  As an aside, I worked with JEGI two years...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/07/what-do-i-see-i.html

What I like to tell portfolio companies is that on average it will take 6 months to raise capital with some cycles being shorter and some being longer. Given that, it is imperative for a company ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/05/raising-capital.html

I just got the 451 Group’s summary on the top M&A bankers for 2007.  As with 2006, Goldman Sachs was #1 on the list.  Take a look: Top five overall advisers, 2007                  �...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/02/top-tech-ma-adv.html

Congratulations to Bill, Scott and team on our new $27mm round of funding led by Meritech and including Sun Microsystems and SAP Ventures.  You guys have been pushing the envelope since I have k...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2008/01/greenplum-close.html

It seems that everyday there is a new annoucement of a tiny startup being bought by a large company.  Two days ago it was Jaiku being bought by Google and this morning CBS announced that it is b...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/should-i-flip-o.html

I am sure you remember the ebay-Skype deal where ebay coughed up $2.6b upfront for Skype and offered an earnout of up to another $1.7b for hitting performance numbers.  Besides the value of the ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/10/on-performance.html

I am not here to pile on the Amp’d Mobile situation, but I find it is always important to learn as much as you can from your mistakes and from other people’s mistakes.  Rafat Ali has a great...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/07/learning-lesson.html

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today about how the resurgence of tech IPOs have really come from "less glamorous, business-focused companies selling such products as telecommu...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/07/are-all-of-the.html

We all know the story – it is incredibly cheaper to start a web-based business versus 5 years ago with the rise of open source software and commodity servers.  However, while getting started w...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/06/dont_forget_to_.html

The day after Microsoft’s TellMe aquisition, I was at Microsoft’s eighth annual VC Summit.  Unfortunately, I missed Steve Ballmer’s opening discussion, which in my opinion, is always one o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2007/03/microsoft_vc_su.html

I had an interesting call this morning with an entrepreneur who had been up until the wee hours of the morning reviewing legal documents for a big strategic partnership.   He apologized about h...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/12/the_similaritie.html

I recently had the opportunity to do a podcast with Heather Green of BusinessWeek and Blogspotting.  If you have a desire to hear about some of the areas I find interesting and to learn about pi...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/podcast_with_he.html

Nisan Gabbay of Sierra Ventures recently contacted me with respect to his new blog, Startup Review.  According to Nisan: Startup Review will be a blog that profiles successful Internet start-ups...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/09/add_startup_rev.html

Have we been through this discussion before?  Remember the eWeek article from last year titled "Is .Net failing to draw VC loyalty?" and the corresponding discussion in the blogosphere, includin...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/05/sap_enters_plat.html

I had the opportunity to attend my third Microsoft VC Summit in California on Thursday.  It was a great opportunity for VCs to network with Microsoft’s top executives.  This year’s focus wa...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/05/microsoft_vc_su-2.html

Here is a link to an article on VCs and VOIP (via Andy Abramson of VOIPWatch).  There are some VCs who think it it too crowded and others (like myself) who still see opportunities.  However, th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/04/vcs_and_voip.html

I just got back from a week in Israel having spent some time in Jerusalem for an Answers board meeting and then making my way to the Ohalo Resort on the Sea of Galilee for Kinnernet 2006.  Kinne...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/04/kinnernet_2006.html

There is an article in the Wall Street Journal (sorry-requires subscription) today on pre-emptive financings or financings that happen when a company is not actually looking for capital.  It is ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/03/preemptive_fina.html

Trust me, I love having well capitalized companies.  However, having too much money can be a curse, not a blessing.  More often than not, I see management lose financial discipline and avoid ma...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/03/money_does_not_.html

Dawntreader Ventures has just led a $6mm round of financing in Sipphone, its first outside round of capital.  We look forward to working with Michael Robertson and Jason Droege to fuel continued...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2006/02/why_we_invested.html

I had a meeting last week where an entrepreneur insisted on showing me a demo first.  He was scrambling around asking for wireless keys and looking for ethernet jacks, while I sat there and trie...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/11/tips_for_the_fi.html

A number of our portfolio companies have been fielding calls from strategic buyers expressing an interest in acquisition.  This is great news since many of the better acquisitions come when com...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/fishing_expedit.html

I was in California 3 weeks ago when Jeff Nolan told me he was leaving SAP Ventures and moving to a new group within SAP desgined to "Kill Oracle."  We talked about all of the great innovation h...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/vc_blogs.html

I had an enjoyable lunch with Jeff Jarvis today catching up on a number of things and brainstorming about value in the next generation web.  During the conversation I vented a little frustration...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/10/web_20_bubble.html

Well, there is clearly lots of money sloshing around in alternative assets like hedge funds, private equity, and venture capital.  That being said, I still believe there are plenty of great inve...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/09/venture_capital.html

Robert Scoble has asked the VCs to respond to an eWeek article titled Is .Net Failing to Draw Venture Capital Loyalty?.  There is not much for me to add to this article as we all know that the o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/07/net_and_vc_loya.html

I am not sure how many entrepreneurs understand the structure of venture capital funds but the bottom line is that while VCs manage funds, we ultimately report to our investors or Limited Partner...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/06/lp_conference.html

There is a supply and demand equation for every startup’s product or service.  In early stage companies, I sometimes see too much from the supply side and not enough from the demand part of th...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/06/supply_and_dema.html

I was speaking with a friend yesterday who recently signed a term sheet to raise a Series B round.  While he did not hit it out of the park with the valuation, it was a nice step-up none-the-les...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/05/fundraising_is_.html

I recently caught up with my friend Derek Sulger, founder of Linktone (Nasdaq: LTON) and current founder and CFO of Smartpay, a Paypal-like play in China (I really like what Derek is doing with t...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/04/venture_capital-2.html

After having returned from vacation last week, I had the chance to reflect on the current venture and investing market.  Yes, one of the big challenges is that there is still way too much money ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/04/go_early_go_lat.html

It is clear that we are moving towards a consolidation phase in the technology sector.  M&A activity has been heating up over the last 18 months as strategic acquirers are looking to bulk up and...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/03/when_competitor-2.html

On Thursday, I had the opportunity today to speak on a panel at the SAEC Global Venture Congress.  Other panelists included the moderator, Scott Maxwell from Insight Venture Partners, Bob Gold o...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2005/01/enterprise_smb_.html

During the boom, many VCs funded companies and created great exits within 12-24 months of funding.  Before that time, the standard rule of thumb was that it took about 5-6 years for a company to...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/12/it_takes_time_t.html

I was speaking with a friend of mine today who mentioned that his term sheet for his Series A round fell through. Things looked great for the last 6 weeks and then the deal process went into a st...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/10/strike_while_th.html

I had the opportunity to spend a few hours today at an Intel Capital event for their portfolio companies and VC friends. While a great way to network with fellow investors and meet new companies,...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/opportunties_fo.html

Jeff Nolan has a comprehensive post on choosing your VC. I totally agree with Jeff’s view that not only should entrepreneurs do their diligence when choosing a VC to invest in their company, bu...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/thoughts_on_pic.html

Board meetings can be a gigantic waste of time if not run appropriately. On the flipside, they can be a valuable source of input and guidance for a management team in the pursuit of maximizing sh...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/09/running_an_effi.html

Recently, a number of people asked me why I blog as a VC. Isn’t privacy a good thing for VCs? Don’t you want to keep the good ideas to yourself? For the past couple of years, I had my own per...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/why_i_blog_as_a.html

I try to limit the number of conferences that I attend every year to a handful. Besides Esther Dyson’s PC Forum, there are few others that I like to attend regularly. However, I have to say tha...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/demo_reflection.html

Many of you have heard the analogy that the VC due diligence process is like dating and getting the investment is akin to being married. For all of you in relationships, you also understand that ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/02/vcs_dont_like_s.html

Fred Wilson has some good commentary on an earlier post. We seem to agree that at the end of the day if you build a real business with sustainable cash flow, the exit will take care of itself. I ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2004/01/companies_are_b.html

Besides taking a brief time out to celebrate the Expertcity deal, I have spent a fair amount of time interviewing VP candidates for one of my portfolio companies. As with any smart executive who ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/besides_taking_.html

Congratulations to Expertcity and Andreas, John, and Klaus. It has been great to work with you from a board level over the last 4 1/2 years. When the transaction closes, I look forward to writing...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/congratulations-2.html

Om Malik (ex-senior writer for Red Herring) has been writing about the commoditization of hardware. In a recent article in Business 2.0 titled “The Rise of the Instant Company,” Om talks abou...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/12/om_malik_exseni.html

Yesterday I participated on a panel at the Mid Atlantic Venture Conference on the current venture capital market and how to raise capital. While this was a plain-vanilla panel about venture inves...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/yesterday_i_par.html

Congratulations to netForensics! We are excited to have Nomura as a new investor and look forward to them helping us with our international expansion. For those of you who are interested in secur...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/congratulations-3.html

I had the opportunity to speak on a panel today at the Corporate Venture Capital Summit. There was an interesting crew of speakers representing corporate-related venture activities for companies ...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/11/i_had_the_oppor.html

Yes, this is old news and much anticipated. Just one word of caution for us venture capitalists and entrepreneurs-let’s not equate this to a return to the mid-to-late 90s IPO boom. According to...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/yes_this_is_old.html

I recently spoke with Richard Adams, founder of Referral Networks, which was later sold to Peopleclick. He has started a new venture, RipDigital, which does the dirty work of converting CD collec...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/i_recently_spok.html

I had breakfast with a friend the other day, and he was in the process of a bankruptcy filing for his startup. We started talking about why his wireless company had failed and one of the main rea...

https://www.beyondvc.com/2003/10/i_had_breakfast.html