recently rated:

Rated by 40

3.8 3.4 3.0 3.4 3.1

3.3

Menlo Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

top rated funds:

Rated by 39

3.9 4.0 3.9 3.7 4.2

3.9

First Round Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 29

3.9 4.2 3.4 3.8 4.3

3.9

RRE Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 20

3.3 4.2 3.9 4.1 3.9

3.9

Leapfrog Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 16

3.8 4.1 3.8 3.3 4.0

3.8

Wellington Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Munich, Europe

Rated by 87

4.7 3.8 3.7 3.2 3.5

3.8

Sequoia Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

3.4 3.4 4.0 3.5 4.1

3.7

DFJ Mercury

Certified

$$$$$ Houston, US Central

Rated by 26

3.4 3.5 3.3 3.9 4.1

3.6

Clearstone Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Monica, US West

Rated by 45

3.8 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.9

3.6

Trinity Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 22

3.7 3.5 3.8 3.2 3.8

3.6

Altos Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 19

3.2 3.8 4.0 3.7 3.4

3.6

True Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 13

3.8 3.5 3.3 3.6 3.8

3.6

Scale Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Foster City, US West

Rated by 19

3.2 3.5 3.4 3.7 3.7

3.5

Opus Capital

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 20

3.5 3.6 3.6 3.1 3.5

3.5

Union Square Ventures

 

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 15

3.9 3.5 3.6 3.2 3.3

3.5

Morgenthaler Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 13

4.0 3.1 3.1 3.9 3.1

3.4

The Founders Fund

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 39

3.6 3.6 3.1 3.2 3.4

3.4

Mayfield Fund

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 33

3.4 3.5 2.9 3.5 3.5

3.4

Polaris Venture Partners, L.P.

 

$$$$$ Waltham, US East

Rated by 20

3.8 3.5 3.1 3.5 3.2

3.4

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures

 

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 11

3.9 3.7 2.8 2.7 3.6

3.4

Versant Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 38

3.5 3.2 3.3 3.1 3.9

3.4

Bessemer Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Larchmont, US East

Rated by 43

3.8 3.3 3.0 3.6 3.4

3.4

New Enterprise Associates

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.4 3.2 3.0 3.2 3.8

3.3

Spark Capital

 

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 38

3.7 2.9 3.2 3.4 3.2

3.3

Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 40

3.8 3.4 3.0 3.4 3.1

3.3

Menlo Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 13

4.1 3.5 2.9 3.2 2.9

3.3

Norwest Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 21

3.0 3.1 3.6 3.4 3.4

3.3

Levensohn Venture Partners, LLC

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 16

3.3 3.2 2.9 3.5 3.6

3.3

Sigma Partners

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 33

4.1 3.3 2.9 3.0 3.3

3.3

Greylock Partners

Certified

$$$$$ San Mateo, US West

Rated by 26

3.4 3.5 3.0 3.0 3.5

3.3

InterWest Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

3.8 3.1 3.5 2.7 3.1

3.2

Insight Venture Partners

 

$$$$$ New York, US East

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It's an easy trap to fall into. You've labored on your powerpoint presentation, you got nice graphics into it, you followed Guy's advice http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/t..., you practiced your pitch, and now you're ready to rock and roll.

You're a little nervous but feeling good. You go in and start your presentation, and you're on slide two, and the VC asks "What's the business model here?"
No problem, you're ready for him. "I'll get to it on slide 7, let's go through the product first."

Stop! I know it' s hard to change the flow, but expect to do it. Go ahead and jump to slide 7 and give him 10 seconds to read the slide and then explain the model. 10 seconds should be enough since you don't have that much text on a slide, or you shouldn't and even if you did, it wouldn't matter since most VCs have ADD and won't take more than 10 seconds to read anything. The one exception is anything related to finance. But to get back to my main point (VCs are not the only ones with ADD), focus on what the other side is interested in and answer the questions in the order that they are presented.
Usually, one question will lead to the next and you'll find that you're referring to the presentation as support material rather than guiding the discussion.
So why do you need the powerpoint deck? As I just mentioned, it's support material, but it also helps you make sure you've covered everything. When things slow down in the conversation or when your time is almost up, go back through the presentation, and double check that you haven't missed any critical information.
As part of the conversation you'll hear some criticism or doubt about your product, your direction or something else in the presentation. Your gut reaction is to argue, mine is. They're not getting it. Stop yourself. Instead ask question to help you clarify why their thinking is different than yours. There are several reasons to do this.
1. They don't know your company and probably the space it's in nearly as well as you do. On the other hand, they've been exposed to a lot more companies than you have. You're getting free advice. Listen to it and try to absorb. I've talked to three VCs in the last 4 weeks, and two of them gave me good insight which helps me fine tune my model.
2. If they have this objection other VCs might have it too. Listen, learnd and maybe next time you do a pitch you'll be better prepared to answer this issue, or tackle it in your presentation.
3. Arguing has the potential of making you look defensive and uncooperative. Will they really want to invest in someone with these traits.

Having said that, if they challenge one of the basic assumptions of your plan and you've considered and rejected their arguments, it's perfectly OK to present this. "Yes, we've heard from other people that they thought that the markets can't be any bigger than 250,00 users, but actually a Gartner report in Feb of 2008 shows that there are at least 5,000,000. The reason the market is understimated is that most of these people are in Asia and the web analytics don't count them."
Here you scored a point. You thought of the problem researched it, and can provide supporting data.

In summary, try to reach a good balance of give and take. Talk about your product, show that you're excited about it, but listen. I certainly try to.

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I can't comment on the US partners. They only have the one partner in Europe, Antti (I'm not sure who suggested 'they have to check with Finland' - the team is largely US based). For a pitch, he is very bright, talks quickly, and is very focused on quickly getting the points answered that he had questions on. Generally impressed.

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Our deal with them broke down because we had a horrible experience just pre-closing for which we wont blame Sequoia completely (could have also been market-driven), but with these guys dont just believe signed termsheets, make sure you get money in the bank.

Polaris funded a previous company and Dave Barret sat on our board. He provided great help when needed and didn't get in the way when help wasn't needed. To me, that's an ideal board member.

They came in on our quick painless B round.

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I've worked with Josh and Rob. Both are great guys. While Rob offers solid advice, Josh is the most amazing VC with whom I've ever worked. In one meeting I got writers cramp in about 10 minutes and the wisdom kept flowing for another 50 minutes. One piece of advice easily trippled our downloads in the first week after launch with no additional spending.

TheFunded.com is excited to announce the initial launch of tags to help categorize all Advice and Discussion posts. The goal is to organize the collective wisdom of nearly 10,000 CEOs on starting, growing, and financing a high-technology business. Users can browse all available tags here, and then click on specific tags like Lawyers, Terms, or Valuation to get all of the related posts and Member Feedback related to that subject matter. TheFunded.com will continue to enhance the tags over time, eventually building a comprehensive guide to entrepreneurship. Please add any ideas for tags in the Feedback to this post.

TheFunded.com is also excited to announce that anyone can now post a public Open Letter to the VC community here, whether you are a Member or not. Posts can be submitted anonymously, allowing established individuals in the funding community to share their honest views without concern of their identity being revealed. All of the Member Feedback written on the new public Open Letters will be available for everyone to read. The goal is to start a meaningful conversation about the future of venture capital and private equity investments where anyone can participate.

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The honeymoon after closing our deal in April 08 is over and we have made it through 3 successful BOD meetings already. I am happy to report that everything we had believed we'd be gaining in terms of global beverage smarts, big picture thinking on how to best market and position our brand for a future exit as well as connecting us with large retail and distribution opportunities have all proven to be right on track with early bets we made on our new equity partners.

Erich Sieber was our main point of contact throughout the initial process of vetting the deal, due diligence and negotiations of our agreement and I have to say it was a much smoother and friendlier processs than I had anticipated with an investment group half way around the world from us. We were able to close the deal, start to finish, in just under 4 months. That was the time frame we needed them to commit to get the deal done and Erich kept his side on track the entire time to meet our need of closing prior to beverage season. Due in part to how well we worked together during these months, and the fact that Erich comes with a ton of relevant experience working in the global beverage sector, I was very happy to find he'd ultimately be on our BOD. For myself and my team "chemistry" is everything with anyone we choose to work closely with.

Gunnar and Wolfgang took an active interest in our brand from day one too and both have lent valuable input at the BOD level as well as whenever our senior management team needs to reach out and gain their perspective on some of the bigger decisions we are challenged with. Gunnar is particularly insightful on the strategy and marketing side of our business and Wolfgang has some of the best financial experience under his belt we have ever come across in the business world. As a mid size beverage brand focused mainly on marketing and distribution for 5 years, our "finance department" was one area we needed to get better structure around immediatelly!

Our goal with going the VC/PE route for this round of funding was truly steeped in finding the right type of strategic partners that would add ultimate "value" to our business, not just money. Between the 3 teamates we gained at Inventages, combined with my existing BOD and senior management, we feel we have just the right team now to help us build the next great global beverage brand.

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