What's the biggest impace to seed- to early-stage investing these days?
That was the driving question for this panel of early-stage investors, including Renata Quintini, partner at Felicis Ventures, Dave McClure, partner at 500 Startups, Paul Lee, partner at Lightbank and Cindy Padnos, partner at Illuminate Ventures. Alastair Goldfisher, Editor of Thomson Reuter's Venture Capital Journal was the moderator.
The panelists spoke at The Ritz in Half Moon Bay, at Amplify, an event focused on empowering females to take more leadership roles in the high-tech startup and venture ecosystem. Amplify is produced by Vator, Girls in Tech, and was hosted by Thomson Reuters.
Here's some highlights (answers are consolidated and slightly edited):
What's the biggest impace to early-stage investing?
Seed companies are raising larger rounds compared to a year or two ago and the number of seed-stage companies has increased. More people are starting their own funds, creating a structural shift in how companies get funded. More consumer Internet investors are starting to look at enterprise investments. There's too much money in Silicon Valley, though there seems to be a scarcity of capital around the world and possibly across the country. Seed-stage investing is still a local phenomenon.
How important is it for the VC firm to help their portfolio companies raise a Series A?
McClure: 500 Startups is active in Brazil, Southeast Asia, Mexico and China. The firm has to be cognizant of "downstream" capital for their companies because follow-on capital is not often easy to come by. For instance, there are only two active firms in Mexico, and 500 Startups is invested in one of them. This is a strategy to help its downstream partners, and ultimately its own portfolio. At times, 500 Startups will provide $250k to $500k in a bridge loan to a Series A. That's not the case in the US.
Watch the video to learn more about what the investors think about funding platforms, as well as how they see the entire venture landscape changing and what technologies they're interested in investing in.
Read more at http://vator.tv/news/2013-12-13-changes-at-the-seed-to-early-stages-of-venture-capital#36gR8LfSq65yb1bu.99
No comments:
Post a Comment