This panel includes a lively discussion on the changing face of venture capital. The panelists include Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, Tim Connors of PivotNorth Capital, and Pete Sonsini of NEA. The panel is moderated by Sally Kay of Cooley LLP.
Category: Funding & Finances (Page 7 of 15)
In 2012 venture investment appears to have softened considerably and may be in a state of transition with the funding environment less robust. The VC industry is undergoing profound changes and seed/angel funds have become more active than ever before. A panel of expert angel and venture capital investors take a look at early stage investing during the past year and what the future investment environment holds.
Speakers
Welcome: Andre Marquis, Executive Director- Lester Center for Entrepreneurship
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.
Brad currently serves on the board of directors of BigDoor, Cheezburger, Fitbit, Gnip, MakerBot, MobileDay, Oblong, Orbotix, SEOMoz, Standing Cloud, and Yesware for Foundry Group. Previously, Brad was an executive at AmeriData Technologies after it acquired Feld Technologies, a firm he founded in 1987 that specialized in custom software applications.
Want to know more about Michael Moritz? Google him! Without his early investment, Google might not be the household name it is today.
Moritz is a Silicon Valley venture Capitalist with Sequoia Capital. He’s a guru of selecting internet and technology companies in which to invest. Some of his early insightful investments were Google, Yahoo, and PayPal. He currently sits on the boards of 24/7 Customer, Earth Networks, Gamefly, Green Dot, Klarna, Kayak.com, LinkedIn, Sugar Inc and The Melt.
Everyone is talking about raising money on Kickstarter, and why not? Who wants VC money, where you have to give up equity and often control of your company?
But it’s not as easy as it looks to raise money on Kickstarter. There are certain types of projects that raise far more than others.
Here’s my analysis of what makes a good Kickstarter campaign:
Overview of Internal Revenue Code Section 409A
Section 409A regulates the treatment of nonqualified deferred compensation (NQDC) paid by a “service recipient” to a “service provider” for federal income tax purposes. Sec. 409A has a measurable impact on the way NQDC plans are designed and operated. Failure to adhere to Sec. 409A could result in immediate taxation, a 20% penalty and potential interest payments to the employee. The context in which most commonly encounter Sec. 409A regulations is related to the issuance of employee stock options and other equity instruments.
When issuing stock options, companies must be aware of the following requirements of 409A:
How do you get venture capitalists, angel investors and other busy key people to answer your emails?
- Keep it Short
- Start with Them
- Use the Right Words
- Decide on Your Main Feature
- Create a Prototype
- Test with 100 – 500 Customers
- Build a Functional Prototype
- Get Traction with 10,000 People
- Try Monetizing
- Develop
- Create a Pitch
- Find Investors
- Pitch
- Increase Your Chances
- Never Give Up
The fish in the Startup Sea include:
- Angel Investors = The Dolphins
- Venture Capitalists = The Sharks
- Developers = The Octopuses
- Founders = The Marlin
HatchMe is a startup incubator with a focus on incubating university entrepreneurs’ ideas and school projects to build the next big thing to improve the world.
Their main initiative is to discover talented entrepreneurs from all colleges and universities who by themselves don’t have the time, resources or connections to bring their ideas to life. HatchMe partners with influencers, educators and financiers in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to transform ideas to startups to success.
From what we can tell, this incubator is pretty new. They don’t have a lot up on their website yet, but you can check it out at http://hatchme.com/
