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2.4 Lightspeed Venture Partners
Fund: Lightspeed Venture Partners
Posted by Bob Cell on 2007-10-09
Background: I worked with Peter Nieh of Lightspeed Venture Partners to create MyBuys from the assets of another portfolio company in a very productive and creative manner in 2006.
Deal structure: Peter and his partners were very receptive to the idea of creating a new company with a new capital structure that would be attractive to management. In order for the new capital structure to come together, Lightspeed recapitalized their previous investment entirely and invested in our new venture with a new mindset (a difficult thing for many VCs to do as they often get caught in the emotion of the old deal's issues), new preferences, and a belief in the new team.
Future round assistance: Peter was very supportive in preparing me for our B round funding process. He helped tailor the message of the investor presentation to be well tuned for the VC audiences. He also assisted with many introductions to other VCs as well as providing strong support when discussing our team and prospects.
Funding result: We were able to receive many term sheets that were all significantly above our last round post-money. Lightspeed invested in the B round requiring only one presentation to update the partners on our progress since the previous round (in addition to Peter's reporting on us behind the scenes) and Lightspeed has also reserved for future rounds.
Board Member: As a board member, Peter lets me operate the company - and I appreciate that. He cares about aligning goals, the market, and customer traction. He also cares about the quality and the recruitment of the management team and will actively engage in recruiting team members, if asked. If I were an investor, these would be the things that I would also care about also.
Other Lightspeed assistance:
I have received multiple sales leads (Jeremy Liew's internet background and connections have been very helpful), several high quality employee candidates, and participated in several Lightspeed events as part of their ability to proactively assist their portfolio companies.
Overall: Lightspeed is a very professional and smart group of partners and I would highly recommend them to other CEOs. Please feel free to contact me direclty at rcell@mybuys.com with any questions.
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