recently rated:

Rated by 33

2.9 3.3 3.4 3.4 3.2

3.3

Opus Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

top rated funds:

Rated by 12

4.2 5.0 4.4 4.2 4.6

4.5

Rincon Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Barbara, CA, US West

Rated by 20

4.8 4.8 4.5 3.4 4.3

4.4

Foundry Group

Certified

$$$$$ Boulder, US Central

Rated by 19

4.4 4.3 4.1 3.7 4.5

4.2

New Atlantic Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Reston, US East

Rated by 10

4.8 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.0

4.1

Silverton Partners

 

$$$$$ Austin, US West

Rated by 30

3.5 4.2 4.1 4.0 4.1

4.0

Leapfrog Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 37

3.5 4.0 4.3 4.1 3.9

3.9

True Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 29

4.0 4.2 4.1 2.9 4.2

3.9

406 Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 59

3.8 3.9 3.8 3.4 3.9

3.8

First Round Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 11

3.9 4.2 3.2 3.6 4.0

3.8

Mangrove Capital Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Luxembourg, Europe

Rated by 42

3.8 4.1 3.4 3.7 4.1

3.8

RRE Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 19

3.5 3.4 3.9 3.6 4.1

3.7

DFJ Mercury

Certified

$$$$$ Houston, US Central

Rated by 102

4.7 3.7 3.7 3.0 3.5

3.7

Sequoia Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 30

3.9 3.7 3.7 3.3 4.0

3.7

Altos Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

3.6 3.7 3.6 3.8 3.4

3.6

Flywheel Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Fe, US West

Rated by 25

3.7 3.5 3.8 3.7 3.5

3.6

FLOODGATE

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 16

3.6 3.5 3.8 3.5 3.5

3.6

August Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 10

4.0 3.8 3.9 2.8 3.7

3.6

Updata Partners

 

$$$$$ Red Bank, US East

Rated by 60

3.7 3.6 3.4 3.4 3.9

3.6

Trinity Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 10

3.5 3.8 3.7 3.4 3.8

3.6

IDG Ventures SF

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 20

3.5 3.6 3.5 3.2 3.4

3.5

Wellington Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Munich, Europe

Rated by 12

3.2 3.6 3.4 3.0 4.2

3.5

DN Capital

 

$$$$$ London, Europe

Rated by 16

3.9 3.7 3.2 2.9 3.5

3.5

GRP Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Los Angeles, US West

Rated by 18

3.2 3.5 3.3 3.1 3.8

3.4

Blumberg Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 19

3.8 3.1 3.4 3.2 3.3

3.4

Draper Richards

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 48

3.8 3.5 3.1 3.4 3.2

3.4

Menlo Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.3 3.3 3.2 3.6 3.7

3.4

Clearstone Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Monica, US West

Rated by 16

3.9 3.7 2.9 2.9 3.6

3.4

Versant Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 13

3.0 3.8 3.5 3.2 3.4

3.4

Fidelity Growth Partners Europe

Certified

$$$$$ London, Europe

Rated by 17

3.5 3.4 3.4 3.5 3.2

3.4

Scale Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Foster City, US West

Rated by 39

3.4 3.4 2.9 3.4 3.5

3.3

Polaris Venture Partners

 

$$$$$ Waltham, US East

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One time I went to a 'fast pitch' speed dating event between investors and entrepreneurs. We were given one minute to tell investors what we did and how we were going to make money. As I waited my turn, I noticed that entrepreneur after entrepreneur would get up and completely failed at communicating exactly that. So much of what they said made ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. Why? I'm not a tech geek, but I do know a bit about business. Well, why is this important? Because most investors, while they may be tech savvy, are also business oriented and for the most part, NOT TECH GEEKS.

Another problem with the entrepreneurs - they were also mostly POOR speakers, often looking down at their shoes. Well, NOBODY LIKES SHOE GAZERS. Public speaking is essential at being able to get your message across! If you want someone to invest in your product, you must be CONFIDENT. Standing there nervously stammering what you are trying to do, well, that is not going to inspire anyone to invest in YOU. Even if you think you have the most compelling product/service in the universe. If you come across as a social mis-fit, ugh. Do your pitch first before a mock audience if you must or get coaching. This is really important.

And also, DON'T GO FAST!! If you have so much information, don't run at the mouth. I noticed again, that because they were limited to a minute, they tried to speak AS FAST AS THEY COULD. When you do that, you end up with an audience who could NOT follow a word you said and again, completely MISSED your message.

When I got up to speak. I kept it short, to the point, I spoke TO the audience AND I spoke SLOWLY and CLEARLY with NO GEEK TALK. When I finished, unlike the other entrepreneurs, I was flooded with cards from investors.

So my advice. Keep your pitch short and simple (KISS) Leave them wanting more because if they want to talk to you, you'll have stuff to tell them.

I know this sounds really obvious, but judging from the amount of entrepreneurs who got up (there were close to 100) they all, for the most part, did all of the above. Except me!!

Not really anything negative or positive to say about these guys.

I met with John Balen from Canaan six months ago to introduce our company. Co-founders and I had a great initial meeting with him and got pretty valuable insight from that conversation. We were too early--we knew it, he did too. They passed, but were eager to see us again.

Founder Insight is a weekly newsletter that provides global insights from the people building great startups. Each week we’ll send you an exclusive training video from inside the Founder Institute, as well as other helpful resources from startup communities around the globe. Click here to subscribe

Video of the Week

’How to Raise the Right Money for Your #Startup HR’ by @m_evans - In this talk from the Founder Institute in Chicago, Mike Evans, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of GrubHub, shares his learned expertise in how to approach and engage with investors as well as how to view the benefits that come with every deal.

Great Discussions on TheFunded:

Early Adopters / Beta Sites

Health Grants

Recommended Resources:

If You Build It, Will They Come?
[Peter Thiel]

The Venture Capital Model is Broken and this Damning Report Explains Why
[GeekWire]

Upcoming Events:

Gamification Summit
Date/Location:June 19-21, 2012: San Francisco, CA
Description: Gamification is radically changing the way companies do business, driving unprecedented engagement with customers, employees and stakeholders. Find out how your organization and marketing strategy will be transformed through the power of engaging design, and leverage these powerful new techniques to exceed your goals and beat the competition. GSummit is the only event that brings together leading thinkers in the gamification, loyalty and behavioral engineering space. Over three days, you’ll experience hands-on workshops, share best (and worst) practices, see new products & ideas, disseminate data, inspire each other and network to create a more fun & engaging world. Insight readers get a $200 discount.

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Anyone have eny experience with this group? Not a fan of pay to pitch myself, but have been recommended to this group a couple of times.

I pitched this VC last year and found them less than informed about our industry (television advertising) and our business (mCommerce). I don't remember who we pitched to, but he made a a lot of naive comments like "do people really want to buy something they see on TV?" and "I don't think mobile commerce is likely to catch on." I think most ad agencies would dissolve in a fit of giggles by these questions. Unfortunately, at the time I was not so amused. Our company is a technology-driven television ad agency that makes mCommerce companion apps for TV shows.

Founder Insight is a weekly newsletter that provides global insights from the people building great startups. Each week we’ll send you an exclusive training video from inside the Founder Institute, as well as other helpful resources from startup communities around the globe. Click here to subscribe

Video of the Week

’#Startup HR’ by @jimfranklin - Last week in Silicon Valley we hosted the 2011 Startup Mentor Awards, to celebrate the Founder Institute mentors who go above and beyond to help our companies succeed. The Highest Overall Rating Award went to Jim Franklin - CEO of SendGrid, and Co-Director of the Denver Founder Institute. To honor Jim's award, we've included a video and slidedeck from one of his Denver mentor sessions on Startup HR.

Great Discussions on TheFunded:

Non-Equity Funding with Bad Credit

The Reputation Impact of Failing

Recommended Resources:

The Scarcest Resource at Startups is Management Bandwidth
[Both Sides of the Table]

A VC Explains How to Build a Killer Value Proposition
[Michael Skok via VentureBeat]

Upcoming Events:

Gamification Summit
Date/Location:June 19-21, 2012: San Francisco, CA
Description: Gamification is radically changing the way companies do business, driving unprecedented engagement with customers, employees and stakeholders. Find out how your organization and marketing strategy will be transformed through the power of engaging design, and leverage these powerful new techniques to exceed your goals and beat the competition. GSummit is the only event that brings together leading thinkers in the gamification, loyalty and behavioral engineering space. Over three days, you’ll experience hands-on workshops, share best (and worst) practices, see new products & ideas, disseminate data, inspire each other and network to create a more fun & engaging world. Insight readers get a $200 discount.

To receive this every Wednesday as an email, click here to subscribe

Rincon is a class act all the way. We've been in talks with them for a while now, and whether they invest or not, these guys have our respect for life. They're some of the smartest, most honest, and genuinely nice people in the industry. Don't bother approaching them unless you've really got your act together, as they're quite thorough and selective about who they invest in. But if you've got a good product and a strong team, you won't find better investment partners.

Founder Insight is a weekly newsletter that provides global insights from the people building great startups. Each week we’ll send you an exclusive training video from inside the Founder Institute, as well as other helpful resources from startup communities around the globe. Click here to subscribe

Video of the Week

'FI Graduate Itembase Wins the 10th Founder Showcase' - The 10th Founder Showcase featured a great lineup of eight promising startups, however it was Itembase that took home the Grand Prize. A Graduate of the Berlin Founder Institute, Itembase is a personal inventory service that helps consumers track, manage, and sell the products they own.

Great Discussions on TheFunded:

Non-Equity Funding with Bad Credit

Fraud and Crowdfunding

Recommended Resources:

The Power of AngelList Revealed in it’s New Look [TechCrunch]

Vesting is a Hack [Dan Shapiro]

Upcoming Events:

Gamification Summit
Date/Location:June 19-21, 2012: San Francisco, CA
Description: Gamification is radically changing the way companies do business, driving unprecedented engagement with customers, employees and stakeholders. Find out how your organization and marketing strategy will be transformed through the power of engaging design, and leverage these powerful new techniques to exceed your goals and beat the competition. GSummit is the only event that brings together leading thinkers in the gamification, loyalty and behavioral engineering space. Over three days, you’ll experience hands-on workshops, share best (and worst) practices, see new products & ideas, disseminate data, inspire each other and network to create a more fun & engaging world.

To receive this every Wednesday as an email, click here to subscribe

Great firm with solid, smart partners and a laser focus on their space. Did not end up working with them but I'd pitch them in the future.

They are a risk averse, saddle their portfolio fund.
They want:
you to have 1.5M revenue,
be bootstrapped,
have very low valuations,
for them to be the first and possibly no other investor in to your company,
have the board control to them,
and need only one round of funding company.
If you have these, why the heck would you need these losers! Looking at their track records as entrepreneurs, they all ended in failures. Anthony Lee looks like a fucking Mummy, and acts like one too.
One thing they may be good at is forcing a flip and sale. Based on what I saw, I doubt they have any portfolio company that wants to work them again.