“If you look at the firms that were traditionally the early-stage ventures firms, the Series-A firms, and you look at their fund sizes and their firm sizes and compositions, it’s changed significantly in the last ten years. Your typical early stage venture fund was a $250M Series A fund. Now your typical early stage fund is anywhere from $500M to 1B.”
Why Listen?
In this episode, Ben and David dive into the evolution of Seed Funds and how early stage investing has changed in the last two decades both for investors and founders alike. Understanding the past changes in the ecosystem helps founders and investors establish themselves for the future. If you are an early-stage founder, this episode will contextualize the information you need to prepare your company for investment.
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Links from the Show:
Value of VC Investment (1995-2018)
US VC Investment Surpasses Dot-Com Era
Show Bookmarks:
[02:15] – Seed is the New Series-A; Series-A is the New Series-B
[08:00] – The Evolution of Seed Funding
[10:00] – The Evolution of VC Firm DNA
[15:30] – Money in Venture as an Asset Class
[16:50] – LP Capital: Where does the money come from?
[19:11] – Venture Capital History Revisited
[20:10] – The Bullish side of Technology Opportunity
[28:45] – The Bearish side of Technology Opportunity
[33:21] – What does this all mean for founders?
[36:00] – Judgment as a scarce resource
People Mentioned in this Episode:
Ron Conway
Benedict Evans
Bill Gurley
Howard Marks
Warren Buffet
John Zimmer
Scott Kupor
Companies Mentioned in this Episode:
Wing (Venture Capital Firm)
SV Angel (Institutional Seed Firm)
Floodgate (Institutional Seed Firm)
Baseline (Institutional Seed Firm)
Andreessen Horowitz
Berkshire Hathaway
Fidelity
Stripe
Glow
Quoteapro
Flexport
Convoy
Benchmark
Sequoia
Lyft
Lehman Brothers
TechCrunch
Episode Specific Terms:
Vision Fund
Valuation and Series A
Pre-Seed / Seed / Seed Extension Funding
Early Stage Venture Financing
Series-A (Post Product Market Fit)
Super Angels
Seed As An Asset Class of Funding
Full Services VC Firm
Price Sensitivity in Funding
Vision Fund
Seed Investing vs Growth Investing
High-Beta Bets
LP Capital vs Venture Capital
Layers of Platform Infrastructure
Four-Year Vest
Synthetic Reps
Ben and David’s Affiliations:
Wave Capital, @WaveCapitalVC
Pioneer Square Labs, @psl
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Suggestions and Feedback: acquiredfm@gmail.com
What is ACQ2: The Acquired Interviews?
ACQ2 is Ben and David's conversations with expert founders and investors. Acquired the stories of great companies — and ACQ2 dives deeper into the lessons we can learn from them, often with the protagonists themselves.