recently rated:

Rated by 41

2.5 2.6 2.6 2.8 2.4

2.6

General Catalyst

 

$$$$$ Cambridge, US East

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 22

4.8 4.7 4.6 3.5 4.4

4.4

Foundry Group

Certified

$$$$$ Boulder, US Central

Rated by 11

4.8 3.5 4.1 4.3 4.1

4.2

Silverton Partners

 

$$$$$ Austin, US West

Rated by 19

4.3 4.2 4.1 3.6 4.4

4.1

New Atlantic Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Reston, US East

Rated by 39

3.5 4.0 4.4 4.1 3.9

4.0

True Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 10

4.3 4.3 4.0 4.0 3.0

3.9

Andreessen Horowitz

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 30

3.3 4.1 4.1 3.9 4.0

3.9

Leapfrog Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 30

4.0 4.2 4.1 2.9 4.2

3.9

406 Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 63

3.9 3.9 3.8 3.5 4.0

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 43

3.8 4.1 3.4 3.6 4.1

3.8

RRE Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 27

3.8 3.6 3.8 3.8 3.6

3.7

FLOODGATE

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 105

4.7 3.7 3.7 3.0 3.5

3.7

Sequoia Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.9 3.8 3.7 3.4 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 20

3.5 3.3 3.8 3.6 3.9

3.6

DFJ Mercury

Certified

$$$$$ Houston, US Central

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 62

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 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 14

2.8 3.5 3.7 3.2 3.7

3.4

Merus

 

$$$$$ US West

Rated by 48

3.7 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 11

2.9 3.6 3.7 3.3 3.6

3.4

OpenView Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 10

3.6 3.4 3.9 2.7 3.3

3.4

DFJ Esprit

Certified

$$$$$ London, Europe

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MightyMeeting, a cross platform presentation company, won top pitch at the Founder Showcase in Silicon Valley last night by open ballot. Dmitri Tcherevik, CEO of Mighty Meeting, brought the 200 person audience to surprise applause in the middle of the three minute pitch. Dmitri showed the ability of MightMeeting to quickly upload, share and control both a projected and online presentation with a few gestures from an iPhone. See below:

MightyMeeting is a cloud-based service that can be used to manage a private library of presentations in multiple formats. This library can be accessed from a range of mobile devices, such as the iPhone, iPod Touch or Android phones. The presentations are shared through email, blogs, Twitter or Facebook. Users can start, join or control web conferences directly from their own mobile device. The solution is optimized to work over 3G wireless networks and does not require Flash in the browser.

As the Founding Member of TheFunded, I have been using and showing the Mighty Meeting software all day. It converts graphically rich PowerPoint presentations perfectly, which is my gripe with other services. There's no uploading required either, just email presentations to your own address at the domain. It's surprisingly good, and I strongly recommend that you try it. Here's another favorable review from TechCrunch:

MightyMeeting Lets You Conduct PowerPoint Presentations From Your Smartphone

The Founder Showcase is a quarterly event that helps to democratize access to Silicon Valley for seed stage companies. Thank you to everyone who attended the event and to the sponsors who helped support the evening: Sun Startup Essentials and Cooley Godward Kronish.

At our 7th Founder Showcase on Wednesday in San Francisco, Mark Suster, Partner of GRP Partners and Writer of Both Sides of the Table, gave a great Keynote Speech titled "Getting Funded in a Frothy Market."

In the talk he goes on record saying that, "Duh, we're in a bubble," and that entrepreneurs need to get funding now so they can survive the cycle. In normal funding cycles, it can take 3-5 months to raise capital - but in this cycle "it seems like that's the number of days it takes." And, "When the hor dourve tray is passed, take two, and put a third in your pocket... You don't know when it will be back around." He goes on to describe the best methods to raise capital in this "frothy" market, because, "When the party ends, everybody goes home. But that's the most awarding time to be an entrepreneur - provided that you have money."

Some other notable quotes;
- "Nobody at the party likes the sober guy telling everybody how stupid they're being... I don't want to tell you that the party is going to end, but it is."
- "We're in a bubble, and you can quote me on that."
- "The best thing that's happened in our industry is the emergence of micro-VC's, or seed-stage funds. This the best source for most early stage companies."
- "There is no such thing as a "Super Angel." That is marketing BS. You're an angel is if you're investing your own money. You're a VC if you're investing other people's money. VC's have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize value for their investors. As an angel you have a right to have passion projects."
- "It is a myth that you are going to raise $500k and build a billion dollar company. I'm not saying it can't happen, but you can also win the lottery."
- "In the era of social networks, if you can't figure out how to get access to a VC, hang up your cleats now. You don't pass the IQ test."
- "VC's want the 4 Ms: Management, Market, Money (we want to own enough of your company to make a difference), and Momentum."
- "The decreasing number of VC's is a ticking time bomb... or a better analogy: a brick wall."
- "Go get yourself funded... In the last 3 cycles the companies that didn't raise money were not the ones still around to tell the story."

You can watch the full video at the links below:

http://t.co/6bjQVOi on the Founder Institute
http://tcrn.ch/jgLEXc on TechCrunch

The Founder Showcase is hosted by the Founder Institute, which is accepting applications to the Silicon Valley program until next Wednesday, June 22nd. Click here to apply.

TheFunded has produced founder-friendly versions of every legal document necessary to launch a new startup. These documents were carefully written from scratch to keep founders in control of the companies that they create.

-- Bylaws
-- Certificate of Incorporation
-- Initial Stockholder Consent
-- Invention Assignment Agreement
-- Restricted Stock Purchase Agreement
-- Indemnification Agreement
-- Initial Board Consent
-- Action by Incorporator
-- Plain Preferred Term Sheet

Please help by sharing these documents with anyone that you know who is launching a startup, and borrow some of the founder protections for your own company from the Certificate of Incorporation.

Enjoy!

In response to overwhelming Member demand, TheFunded.com has introduced a list of banned investors and added functionality for Members to ban funds. Any banned investor will have their organization and team members removed from all leaderboards on TheFunded.com, though information on the investor will still be available by search with a warning message posted to any readers. Offending investors have already been deleted from this week's top rated VC list.

Investors are added to this 'blacklist' for one of three reasons (1) suspicious review activity, (2) not making new investments, or (3) threatening Members or TheFunded.com with litigation. Funds with suspicious reviews, normally resulting from CEOs being pressured to write positive remarks, will be automatically cleared from the blacklist after 90 to 120 days. Funds marked as not making new investments can be cleared from the list by sending proof of a completed investment in a new portfolio company within the last four weeks. Lastly, any fund threatening legal action will be cleared from the list within 90 to 120 days of the last threat or the lawsuit being dropped.

In these difficult economic times, the stakes are higher for everyone. It is critical to have accurate information available to all parties, from limited partners to entrepreneurs. TheFunded.com asks all 10,786 Members to eliminate investors that do not warrant a place on the leaderboards. Share the information that you have today, and let us really know who is good, who has money, and who has the right intentions. Enjoy!

Members, read the Private section for some simple banning instructions.

A few people have contacted TheFunded.com about a new site, TheUnFunded.com. TheFunded.com has no affiliation with the property nor any knowledge of its operations. TheFunded.com does not condone any tool that makes it harder for qualified entrepreneurs to raise growth capital. Venture capitalists rate entrepreneurs each and every day in pitch meetings around the world, and, through this process, the majority of entrepreneurs still find it difficult or impossible to secure necessary growth capital. A number of well-known venture capitalists have proposed the idea of rating entrepreneurs, and they have clearly taken the initiative into their own hands while infringing on TheFunded.com branding and trademarks. This post will be updated as we learn more about the site origin...

Update at 5:00 PM PST: A VC just wrote in to us that his fund was able to apply, get approved, and make a post on TheUnFunded. Supposedly, the system works differently in that a moderator must approve each post before it goes live. VentureBeat is reporting that TheUnFunded is a joke, but it would then be an expensive joke to have a fully functioning ASP back-end (our system is written in Ruby on Rails, BTW). More to come...

Update on April 7: It turns out that TheUnFunded.com is an elaborate April Fool's joke. See the link below:

http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/04/...

The good news is that the VC behind the humor of TheUnFunded.com, Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, has nicely agreed to give the domain name and the technology to TheFunded.com. Ideas are welcome for what to do with the domain. It might make sense, for example, to launch a beginner's guide to getting funding at the domain...

A number of Members and media organizations have written in about a recent mass mailing by Dow Jones:

TITLE: "Join the funded to see what's really going into term sheets right now"

BODY: "For just $295, you can ensure you end every round of venture financing with the best (and safest) term sheet possible with the new fifth edition of the Venture Capital Deal Terms Report from Dow Jones."

To be clear, this is not a product affiliated with TheFunded.com. It appears to be a marketing initiative by Dow Jones to capitalize on media attention that the new Terms section has received. TheFunded.com does not charge qualified CEOs or Founders any money to join the site. A summary of terms is available for free to all Members, and Members can view detailed term sheets for free if you post terms that you have received since 2006. Apologies if there was any confusion, and enjoy!

TheFunded.com has culled through the numerical data to produce a quick leaderboard for the upcoming Superstars of Venture Capital selection on November 15th. This does not include analysis of written feedback. Drumroll, please:

-- Score: 29 - Fred Wilson - Union Square Ventures, Partner
-- Score: 24 - Michael Kim - Rustic Canyon Ventures, Partner
-- Score: 20 - Jim Armstrong - Clearstone Venture Partners, Managing Director
-- Score: 15 - Jed Katz - Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, Managing Director
-- Score: 15 - Mike Brown - Foundation Capital, Principal
-- Score: 15 - David Aronoff - IDG Ventures Boston, General Partner
-- Score: 15 - Mark S. Menell - Rustic Canyon Ventures, Partner
-- Score: 14 - Rob Theis - DCM-Doll Capital Management, General Partner
-- Score: 14 - Peter Bell - Highland Capital Partners, Venture Partner
-- Score: 14 - Jonathan A. Flint - Polaris Venture Partners, L.P., Managing General Partner
-- Score: 14 - Nate Redmond - Rustic Canyon Ventures - Partner
-- Score: 13 - Peter Flint - Polaris Venture Partners, L.P., General Partner
-- Score: 10 - Kevin Lalande - Austin Ventures - Principal
-- Score: 10 - Tracy S. Warren - Battelle Ventures, L.P., General Partner
-- Score: 10 - George Zachary - Charles River Ventures, Partner
-- Score: 10 - Brook H. Byers - Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Partner
-- Score: 10 - Gordie Nye - Prism Venture Partners, General Partner
-- Score: 10 - William D. Porteous - RRE Ventures, General Partner
-- Score: 10 - David Carlick - VantagePoint Venture Partners, Managing Director
-- Score: 9 - Ajay Agarwal - Bain Capital Ventures, Managing Director
-- Score: 9 - Benjamin Nye - Bain Capital Ventures, Managing Director
-- Score: 9 - Bill Tai - Charles River Ventures, Partner
-- Score: 9 - Bill Elkus - Clearstone Venture Partners, Founder and Managing Director
-- Score: 9 - Howard Hartenbaum - Draper Richards, LP, Geneal Partner
-- Score: 9 - Alain Hanover - Navigator Technology Ventures, LLC, CEO/Managing Director
-- Score: 9 - Todd Dagres - Spark Capital, General Partner
-- Score: 9 - Enrique Godreau III - Voyager Capital, Managing Director

Members, read on...

Last month, leading up to our Founder Showcase event, I sent out some of my thoughts on the funding landscape to TheFunded.com's mailing list. I received a lot of great feedback, which I incorporated into the editorial below that was published on Women 2.0 last Friday. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Since 2008, I believe there has been more innovation in the field of funding entrepreneurs than in any other short period in history. Recently, I have been asked by many entrepreneurs, investors, and journalists to provide my thoughts on the last five years, and on where we are headed in the future. Here’s my opinion.

In 2008, as we watched banks fail and governments hand billions to organizations that ultimately stole value, I believe thousands of people around the world came to the same realization: bankers and politicians had led the world into a dark place, while the passionate entrepreneurs who were building value struggled in the shadows. The time had come to focus and support those that build value.

As a result of this thinking, we have seen a massive amount of innovation.

In the five years since the “Great Recession,” the broad field of funding entrepreneurs has changed more than in any other point in human history. There are literally hundreds of changes worthy of discussion, but lets discuss what I believe are the five most important.

Increased Viability of Bootstrapping
Everything a tech entrepreneur needs to build an amazing product or service is now nearly free, eliminating cost as a key barrier to entry for innovation. The free part was born out of the crisis of 2008, when most service providers and technology companies were struggling to stay in business. Everyone from lawyers to hosting companies said to entrepreneurs, “you can sign up and use my service now for free, as long as you agree to pay me later, when you can.” Vendors realized that this was not only good for business, but it was also the right thing to do to help fix the economy.

Now, anyone with a dream that is willing to work hard can build a world-class company at a reasonable cost. And, market forces will continue to reduce the costs, both tangible and intangible, that stand in the way.

Shifting Business of Venture Capital
The venture capital market as we once knew it is dead. The vast majority of the people, the language, and even some of the deal terms, are gone. The amount of money and the volume of deals has declined, opening opportunities for new players to enter the market. The venture capitalists who did survive probably don’t even recognize themselves in the mirror anymore.

With increased competition, the venture capital industry is becoming increasingly founder-friendly as well. Now, the newest partners being hired into firms typically have recent entrepreneurial experience, and we are seeing increasingly favorable deal terms. New firms are being launched that look at differentiating through analytical investment, like Right Side Capital Management, or through services, like Andreessen Horowitz. Many firms are even starting to look like full-fledged consultancies.

Angels to the Rescue
Angel investing has become significantly easier on both sides of the fence, with standardized terms like convertible equity, and tools like AngelList or Gust. For the first time in the last 20 years, the amount of angel investment dollars has surpassed venture capital. And it’s not just a little larger – it’s TWICE as large, and maybe more.

I actually believe angels are pouring over $75 billion per year into startups. I also believe angels are funding the “gap” of the “Series-A crunch”, significantly reducing the impact that I, and many others, predicted. There are hundreds of promising companies being created now that will only ever raise money from angels, which ultimately means lower fundraising and management overhead, and more incentivized team members. This is undeniably a good thing.

Emergence of Crowdfunding
Governments around the world are loosening rules that govern the funding of private companies, supporting a boom for inexperienced investors to finance companies with small amounts of money. Startups will soon be able to advertise that they are seeking an investment and raise money from anyone.

Obviously crowdfunding still faces a ton of challenges, such as preventing the cheaters, the thieves, and the charlatans from stealing the show. However, I believe those that cite the current shortcomings of the JOBS Act (of which there are many) are being shortsighted. It will be a very, VERY, bumpy road, but the potential for change is absolutely massive.

Rebirth of Incubators and Accelerators
In most developed cities around the world, incubators, accelerators, and other programs are being launched to help founders beat the odds. They come in all shapes and sizes, from office rentals to early-stage investors, offering a mix of training, mentorship, investment and services.

The promise of a return is uncertain, not all of these initiatives are created equal, and many will crash and burn – even by the end of this year. But, I think most people who criticize these programs are overlooking a simple, underlying fact: their motive is to help.

You can certainly argue that there are too many incubators (there are), and you can scrutinize the management, philosophy, and financial sustainability of most programs as well. However, of the hundreds, if not thousands, of incubator and accelerator programs that I’ve seen, I can probably count on one hand the number of “bad apple” programs that genuinely try to take advantage of entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, these organizations want to help, and I believe it is the right thing for the ecosystem to support any program that wants to help entrepreneurs succeed. Everything else will work itself out naturally.

So Where Do We Go From Here?
The promise for a bright future is now great, but the reality is still harsh. In particular, the lack of sizable liquidity events or exits is very concerning.

To see greatness emerge from all the innovation we have seen these last few years, there needs to be three big changes to our current situation, in my opinion.

First, the terms of acqui-hire deals need to be standardized, and dozens of these deals need to be completed each month, turning bold founders into millionaires.

Second, large companies sitting on billions in cash need to start buying good companies for tens of millions of dollars, and stop trying to copy the innovation spawned by these fledgling startups.

Lastly, there needs to emerge a thriving secondary market for the strongest startups, allowing founders and employees to take money off the table without going public.

The good news is that I know plenty of great, amazingly talented people working on all of these initiatives, so I am confident that the future is bright for funding entrepreneurship.

P.S. To celebrate the launch of the San Francisco Founder Institute (which I am leading), I will be hosting a number of free events in San Francisco to help aspiring founders improve their ideas, perfect their pitch, and find co-founders. The full event schedule is here - I hope to see you there!

The Founder Showcase, now in it's 13th edition, is TheFunded.com's pitch and networking event for early-stage startups and investors. To kick off 2013, the first Showcase of the new year will be an exclusive, investor-focused event centered around the theme: “The Future of Funding".

After announcing our first Keynote Speaker last week (Chris Dixon, Investing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz), I am excited today to announce our second Keynote Speaker: Keith Rabois, Investor at Khosla Ventures.

Keith Rabois joined Khosla Ventures in March 2013. He served as the Chief Operating Officer at Square from August 2010 until January 2013 where he lead the company’s business operations including marketing, communications, business development, distribution, human resources and risk management. Keith specializes in transforming early-stage startups into successful businesses and has deep expertise in the financial services industry and government affairs.

An accomplished executive, entrepreneur and angel investor, Keith has held leadership roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and began his career practicing law at Sullivan & Cromwell. Keith was an early investor in several high-profile Internet companies including YouTube and currently serves on the board of directors of Yelp (NYSE: YELP) and Xoom (NASDAQ: XOOM). He also holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree in political science from Stanford University. You can follow Keith on Twitter @rabois, or learn more about him at http://krabois.com.

I look forward to hearing Keith's thoughts about the "Future of Funding" at the event, and I hope you will join us.

As a reader of TheFunded, you get an additional 20% off here.

The Founder Showcase, now in it's 13th edition, is TheFunded.com's pitch and networking event for early-stage startups and investors. To kick off 2013, the first Showcase of the new year will be an exclusive, investor-focused event centered around the theme: “The Future of Funding".

What are the most radical trends we are seeing in angel investment and venture capital? Was the dreaded "Series-A Crunch" overblown, or just getting started? How will crowdfunding mature in 2013 and beyond? On March 27th, we will gather top investors to discuss these issues, and provide their thoughts on what to expect for tomorrow.

And, we have just confirmed our first keynote speaker: Chris Dixon, Investing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Before recently moving to the Bay Area to become their newest Partner, Chris was a leader of the burgeoning New York City startup scene, where he co-founded, and was the former CEO of two startups; SiteAdvisor (acquired by McAfee in 2006), and Hunch (acquired by eBay in 2011). As an investor, Chris also co-founded Founder Collective, a seed venture fund, where he made early stage investments in GroupMe, Buzzfeed, Betaworks, and MakerBot. He also recently won a Crunchie for "2012 Angel of the Year" to recognize his stellar track record as an angel investor, with a personal portfolio that includes Foursquare, Kickstarter, Stripe, Warby Parker, Pinterest, OMGPOP, Behance, Stack Overflow, and more.

Reduced price tickets for the event end tomorrow, March 8th, and as a reader of TheFunded, you get an additional 20% off here. That's barely $100 a ticket for Founders & CEOs.

I hope to see you there.

Are you a seed-stage startup looking for funding or exposure? Then apply to the Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, where previous presenters have raised over $70 million without ever being required to pay a dime. Any company less than two years old with less than $250,000 USD in funding is eligible, but time is running out.

To apply for your chance to present on-stage, click here. The Application Deadline is this Sunday, February 17th. 

The Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com, is Silicon Valley's Leading Seed-Stage Pitch Event. The 13th Founder Showcase event is now scheduled for Wednesday, March 27th in Mountain View. We are expecting over 350 founders, investors, and press in attendance.

Don't miss this opportunity to apply to this 100%, free pitch competition.

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

The 12th Founder Showcase is taking place tomorrow, Wednesday November 7th, in San Francisco. This is TheFunded.com's startup pitch and networking event, where we help early-stage entrepreneurs get exposure to Silicon Valley.

We are expecting over 600 global startup founders, investors, and press in attendance, so get your tickets today before they sell out at http://foundershowcase.com/tickets. Use the code 'friends_of_thefunded' to get a 20% discount.

At the event we plan to cover some important trends in entrepreneurship and venture capital. Speakers at the event include;

1. David Sacks, Founder & CEO of Yammer, which recently sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion
   
2. Justin Moore, Founder & CEO of Axcient, which recently was named Silicon Valley's 7th Fastest Growing Company by Inc Magazine
   
3. An Investor Panel featuring David Hornik (August Capital), Katherine Barr (Mohr Davidow Ventures), Noah Doyle (Javelin Venture Partners), James Cham (Trinity Ventures), and Jon Soberg (Blumberg Capital)
   

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

We are very excited to announce the second Keynote Speaker for the 12th Founder Showcase: Justin Moore, Founder and CEO of Axcient. Axcient is a cloud platform that eliminates downtime and data loss and ensures data application uptime for businesses. Justin will be joining David Sacks (Founder and CEO of Yammer) on stage for what promises to be a great event.

Under Justin's leadership, Axcient has been growing at a three-year rate of 2,462% - no you did not read that wrong - enough to earn the company Inc Magazine's recognition as Silicon Valley’s #7 fastest-growing company. The company currently protects nearly 3 billion files and applications, and provides instant access to the information and systems that keep a business up-and-running. In addition to his work at Axcient, Justin is also a Venture Partner at Thomvest Ventures, where he focuses on enterprise and SaaS investments.

 The Founder Showcase is TheFunded.com's pitch and networking event, gathering over 600 startup founders and investors in San Francisco to launch a promising new company to greatness. The 12th Founder Showcase scheduled for Wednesday, November 7th:  Get your tickets today. Reduced tickets end this Sunday, and TheFunded readers can take an additional 20% off using the code 'friends_of_thefunded.'

We have also added a new feature to our Demo Table Competition. Now, in addition to pitching onstage in front of the crowd, the winner of the Demo Table Competition will also win lunch with the Emcee of the Founder Showcase, Adeo Ressi. There are still a few tables left at http://foundershowcase.com/tables, so get yours today before they sell out. Or, if you'd like to try your luck at winning a free Demo Table, we will be giving four away to people who help us spread the word.Click here for more details.

Hope to see you at the event!

Are you a seed-stage startup looking for funding or exposure? Then apply to the Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, where previous presenters have raised over $45 million without ever being required to pay a dime. Any company less than two years old with less than $250,000 USD in funding is eligible, but time is running out.

To apply for your chance to present on-stage, click here. The Application Deadline is this Sunday, October 7th. 

The Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com, is Silicon Valley's Leading Seed-Stage Pitch Event. The 12th Founder Showcase event is now scheduled for Wednesday, November 7th in San Francisco. We are expecting over 600 founders, investors, and press in attendance. Confirmed as our first of two Keynote Speakers is David Sacks, Co-Founder & CEO of Yammer, which recently sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion.

Don't miss this opportunity to apply to this 100%, free pitch competition.

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

This guest post was written by Nilay Patel, Co-Founder & CEO of Selligy, who won the Grand Prize at the 11th Founder Showcase. Selligy is a mobile service for salespeople. Learn more at selligy.com.

The secret to winning the Founder Showcase is this: focus on your product. At Selligy, we’re focused on building a great product for salespeople. To win, we spent a year researching our user and building a product that solves their problems. That gave us the two things that were the heart of our pitch: great user stories, and a great demo. 

So the good news is, winning didn’t involve some hypnotic presentation trick. The bad news is, well, it took a year!

But enough on the big picture - how did we boil down a year of passion into just a 180 second on-stage pitch?

1. Establish credibility.
You are going to spend 3 minutes on stage painting a vision for a future that does not yet exist. Why should the audience take you seriously? What makes you an expert in your subject matter? Do this fast and efficiently.

2. Make an eye-popping demo.
Nothing better demonstrates what you’ve accomplished than a live demo. The demo has to be a great story about your user, NOT about you, the product, or the design. Don’t waste time describing your design decisions, or touting a list of secondary features. Don’t describe how the product works - instead describe how it makes the user feel.

Also, take the time to build a self-contained and bullet-proof demo mode. We showed our real product, but a version that doesn’t rely on a network connection and resets the demo data each time it starts. We built this for demo competitions, but I’m amazed at the number of times it remains handy - to show a potential partner, user, or VC. Unlike the real product, this demo always works, whether on a plane or 30 minutes after an inevitable gremlin broke the latest build.

Optics also matter. Our demo was given with my real iPhone. Even though receiving a phone call or text message could have been fatal. We didn’t use an iPod Touch or switch on airplane mode. The audience would immediately notice you were giving a staged demo and discount everything you say. The first question from a VC would be, “Was that staged? How does your real product work?” We took the time to disable all notifications and forward phone calls - all to keep the AT&T logo on the top left corner of the status bar.

3. Answer questions confidently and authentically.  
Since you know your space, you know your user, and you know why your problem is important to solve – you have nothing to fear! I got asked a couple questions I didn’t have answers to and just said, “I don’t know. I think this is how we’ll find out.” Don’t try to BS your way out of questions. It probably won’t work, and if you do know your stuff, you don’t need to! 

4. Hook ‘em with the essentials, but leave ‘em wanting more.
You only have three minutes, so you can’t get to everything. If you get them interested, they’ll ask for the rest later. We focused on establishing (1) our credibility, (2) the user problem, and (3) the huge market this user problem presents, and then dove into the demo to show how we would delight the user.  We did steps 1, 2, and 3 in fewer than 8 sentences. So, to put it mildly, we barely touched the ‘go-to-market’ and other topics. But, since we hooked the audience, they actually asked about the rest during Q&A, or at our demo table. 
Bonus Tip: By purposefully omitting key facts, you can correctly predict the questions you will get on stage - and prepare some really great answers.

5. Listen to Adeo. And don’t listen to Adeo. (Boom!)
He has seen some of the best pitches ever – and, more importantly, he has seen presenters crash and burn. When he said our pitch had an issue, we stopped and fixed it. Full stop. 
But, we did something different than our competitors – we focused on all demo, and didn’t use slides. You need to stand out in a series of pitches, and this stood out. From the start, Adeo cautioned strongly against doing live demos, for many good technical reasons. We listened to the reasons, created a resilient demo to mitigate against the technical risks, and forged ahead. I believe this approach really set us apart. 

We’re a company founded by salespeople, building a great product for salespeople. So, maybe refining a pitch comes naturally to us. But ultimately, like any great sales pitch, it started with a year of gathering great user stories and building our product that got us to the top of the heap. That’s key to building a great company too, not just a great pitch.

Thanks for the great advice Nilay! You can see a video of Selligy's winning pitch (as well as all previous competition-winning pitches) here. 

If you would like to participate in the 12th Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, applications are due this Sunday, October 7th. Previous presenters have raised over $45 million in funding, and all companies less than 2 years old with less than $250,000 in funding are eligible to apply. Click here to apply now. 

This post was written by Adeo Ressi - Founder of the Founder Institute and TheFunded.com. Special thanks to TechCrunch for releasing the news.

Over the past few years, Founders and investors alike have flocked to convertible debt, loaning billions of dollars per year to insolvent startups. The great irony is that nobody expects this debt to be repaid, and the debt comes with a lot of unwanted consequences.

Does ballooning debts, unsophisticated lenders and no ability to repay sound familiar? How did this happen and what are we going to do about it?

Let's start with some history. After the dotcom crash in 2000, hundreds of venture- funded companies took "bridge loans" to raise capital from existing investors while they fought unfavorable market conditions to raise a new round. These convertible debt bridge loans became fairly common in venture capital. I personally did at least four during this period. Investors, Founders and lawyers became comfortable with loans.

By the middle of 2010, the bridge loan had made a jump from successful venture-funded companies to the most promising new startups, and, by the beginning of 2011, most new startup fundings were being done as loans or convertible debt. The loans caught on because they were fast and cheap, and startups could borrow as much money as they could get investors to commit. Seasoned angel investors started to push back, in some cases demanding equity versus debt, but the inertia kept the debt coming and coming and coming nonetheless.

Now entering Q4 of 2012, there is tens of billions of dollars of debt held by tens of thousand of startups, and many of the debt deals are starting to hit their maturity dates, when the money needs to be repaid. Of course, the startups have no intention of repaying the debt, so most of the notes will be extended. The larger question is: why are we issuing debt in the first place? Frankly, it's marketplace stupidity.

So, I started working on this problem about nine months ago with Yokum Taku of WSGR. We batted around a few ideas about changing debt terms when I saw some deals being done with the involvement of Sequoia Capital called "capital contribution" rounds. These deals are equity investments in the present with the valuation set at a future round, much like convertible debt. That was my "ah ha" moment - Why don't we just take the "debt" out of convertible debt? And so was born "Convertible Equity".

Convertible Equity has all of the benefits of convertible debt. It's fast. It's cheap. It's flexible on the amount raised. Convertible Equity can have a discount, a price cap, forced conversion events and all of the other popular terms of convertible debt. It actually has less terms, since you don't have to think about repayment or an artificial interest rate mandated by the IRS.

Investors in Convertible Equity will likely get a lower capital gains rate by having their investments treated as "qualified small business stock." And, investors don't worry about chasing down insolvent companies to repay their debts by "repossessing the furniture". Instead, they can shoot for the big ideas where more favorable capital gains tax rates really matter.

Companies that take Convertible Equity will not be burdened with debt on their books that they have to renegotiate every 12 to 18 months. They don't have to worry about a lone disgruntled or struggling investor calling in a note and bankrupting the business. They can get a line of credit for equipment, or share their balance sheet with big partners without appearing insolvent.

It's ridiculous that the primary way to "invest" in startups is to straddle them with debt through short-term loans. We are bankrupting the future out of the gate, and it's time that we change this.

Here are free Convertible Equity documents to use in your next angel round.

Download the Term Sheet Template

Download the Security Template

Download the Purchase Agreement Template

We are happy to announce that Kevin Rose, Venture Partner at Google Ventures, will join as a Keynote Speaker for the 11th Founder Showcase event on Wednesday, July 25th in Mountain View, CA. Kevin will join Aaron Levie (Co-Founder & CEO of Box) and Hiten Shah (CEO of KISSmetrics) onstage for what may very well be our most impressive lineup of speakers ever. Get your tickets today.

The Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com, is Silicon Valley's Leading Seed-Stage Pitch Event. The 11th Founder Showcase event is now scheduled for Wednesday, July 25th at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, CA. We are expecting over 300 founders, investors, and press in attendance.

Are you a seed-stage startup looking for funding or exposure? Then apply to the Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, where previous presenters have raised over $40 million without ever being required to pay a dime. Any company less than two years old with less than $250,000 USD in funding is eligible, but time is running out.

To apply for your chance to present on-stage, click here. The Application Deadline is next Friday, June 29th, but the sooner you apply, the longer you have to collect votes. 

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

Are you a seed-stage startup looking for funding or exposure? Then apply to the Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, where previous presenters have raised over $40 million without ever being required to pay a dime. Any company less than two years old with less than $250,000 USD in funding is eligible, but time is running out.

To apply for your chance to present on-stage, click here. The Application Deadline is next Friday, June 29th, but the sooner you apply, the longer you have to collect votes. 

The Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com, is Silicon Valley's Leading Seed-Stage Pitch Event. The 11th Founder Showcase event is now scheduled for Wednesday, July 25th at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, CA. We are expecting over 300 founders, investors, and press in attendance. Confirmed as our first two Keynote Speakers are Aaron Levie (Co-Founder & CEO of Box), and Hiten Shah (CEO of KISSmetrics).

Don't miss this opportunity to apply to this 100%, free pitch competition.

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

The Founder Showcase is TheFunded.com's quarterly startup pitch and networking event, which gathers over 300 investors, founders, and seed-stage companies in Silicon Valley to hear talks from leading CEOs, and help launch a promising startup to greatness.

The 11th Founder Showcase event is now scheduled for Wednesday, July 25th at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus in Mountain View, CA. Reduced-Price tickets are available until Friday, June 15th: Purchase your tickets today.

Confirmed as our first Keynote Speaker is Aaron Levie, Co-Founder & CEO of Box. Aaron is one of today's most impressive young entrepreneurs, having spoken at other events such as Web 2.0, SXSW, and more. Aaron originally created Box as a college business project from his dorm room in 2005, and since then has raised nearly $160 million in venture capital, and has secured more than 8 million customers using its secure cloud content management and collaboration tools. We look forward to hearing his story on stage at the event.

Are you a startup looking for exposure? Then enter the free Pitch Competition for your chance to present on stage. Any company less than 2 years old with less than $250,000 in funding can apply to pitch here. Get your applications in now - previous presenters have received over $40 million in investment, but applications are due on June 29th, 2012. 

Want to win a free Demo Table?  Help us spread the word by tweeting a message with the hashtag #FounderShowcase and the URL http://bit.ly/9OlVo8, or RSVPing for the event on Facebook, LinkedIn or Plancast. On Friday, July 20th, we will randomly select one winner, announcing the person on our @founding account.

We hope you'll join us.

Our friends at San Francisco-based FounderLY specialize in deep-diving the stories behind company founders, and last week they did just that in a series of video interviews with TheFunded.com's Founder, Adeo Ressi.

In the video below, Adeo describes the beginnings of TheFunded.com. In particular, he says that, after the dot bomb of the late nineties, "investors had lost so much money that they rebounded to an extreme where they squeezed entrepreneurs and mistreated them to a large degree." After being treated poorly by his investors, Adeo realized there were systemic issues underlying entrepreneurship that made it impossible to successfully build companies as a profession. So, "TheFunded was designed to clean up something that had become abusive and set it straight."

Watch the full 15 minute video below;

Adeo will be leading the upcoming Silicon Valley Founder Institute program. The Application Deadline is this Sunday, June 3rd. If you or somebody you know could use expert training and feedback to launch a technology company, then click here to apply today.

Special thanks to our friends at FounderLY for the interview. Be sure to check out www.founderly.com to see video interviews with other top entrepreneurs, or follow them on Twitter at @founderly.

The 10th Founder Showcase is scheduled for Tuesday, April 24th in San Francisco. This is TheFunded.com's startup pitch and networking event, where we help early-stage entrepreneurs get exposure to Silicon Valley.

We are expecting over 500 startup founders, investors, and press in attendance, so get your tickets today before they sell out at http://foundershowcase.com/tickets. Use the code 'friends_of_thefunded' to get a 20% discount.

Guests will be treated to talks from leading startup CEOs and investors to discuss the current state of startups and venture capital. Our last event featured Mark Suster (GRP Partners), Mike Maples Jr. (FLOODGATE), and Dave McClure (500 Startups), interviewed by writers from The New York Times, All Things D, and TechCrunch. If you missed the event or didn't see the videos, check them out here.

As always, there is also an exciting Pitch Competition featuring 8 promising seed-stage companies. In fact, we're happy to report that over $35 million has now been raised by presenters in the history of this free competition.

We hope you'll join us for a great event.

For more information, visit http://foundershowcase.com.

This post was written by Adeo Ressi - Founder of the Founder Institute and TheFunded.com. Special thanks to TechCrunch for reposting the story.

At the close of 2011, there was a lot of uncertainty for startups. Stock market fluctuations, underwhelming talent acquisitions ("acqui-hires"), and structural investment problems threatened the prospects for startups.

But what a difference a few weeks can make. The passage of crowdfunding legislation in the US, coupled with the $1 BN acquisition offer of Instragram, signals the beginning of a full startup boom. In preparation for the good times, Venture Capitalists have started to raise new fund money at their pre-crash highs.

Two and a half years ago, Mint.com was acquired for $170 MM, and everyone thought that was an amazing deal following the great recession. Now, a fledgling company with a small team gets acquired for $1 billion.

My best guess is that it is about to get crazy. And, only fools sit on the sidelines.

Many strong and older entrepreneurs that I know are wealthy today because they made intelligent decisions during the dot com bubble of the late 90's. Success was not easy then, and it will not be easy now, either. But, the likelihood of a great outcome is much higher in a boom. 

There are a lot of newly minted entrepreneurs that pursue their dream company in a half-hearted way. You may tinker with your idea while toiling at a day job. You may refuse to put in the work required to recruit the best talent. You might be afraid of launching an imperfect product. Or, you may put a mediocre effort into fundraising.

However, if you want to take advantage of a boom cycle and reap the rewards, you need to slide all of your chips on to the table. You need to go all in. And, you need to play smart. Every move that you take and every bet that you make needs to have the best odds of success.

You can't enter the game too late, either. If what I predict happens, very soon you will start to read about more and more crazy deals. When "crazy" becomes the new normal, the opportunity will have already passed you by.

So, let me get really specific. As an entrepreneur, you have a decision to make. Ask yourself, "is this my boom?" If your answer is "yes," then you have a lot of work to do.

Look around you. If everyone that you deal with is not top-notch, from cofounders to vendors, fire them immediately and bring on the best. Now. Right now. Seriously. Now. To really win during a boom, you need to play at the top level, and the winners in every boom always have the best talent. Always.

Is it your time? Is this your boom?

--

Adeo also hosts the Founder Showcase, a startup pitch and networking event coming up on Tuesday, April 24th in San Francisco. This event will sell out, so get your tickets today. 

Are you a seed-stage startup looking for funding or exposure? Then apply to the Founder Showcase Pitch Competition, where previous presenters have raised over $35 million without ever being required to pay a dime. Any company less than two years old with less than $250,000 USD in funding is eligible, but time is running out.

To apply for your chance to present on-stage, click here. The Application Deadline has been extended until April 2nd, 2012, but the sooner you apply, the longer you have to collect votes. 

The Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com's Adeo Ressi, is Silicon Valley's Leading Seed-Stage Pitch Event. The 10th Founder Showcase is scheduled for Tuesday, April 24th at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, and will be attended by over 500 investors, founders, and press. Guests will be treated to talks from leading startup CEOs and investors (TBA), as well as an entertaining Pitch Competition featuring 8 promising seed-stage companies. Appetizers and drinks will also be served in a networking hall full of other hot startups demoing their wares in the Demo Table Competition. This event will sell out, so purchase your tickets today. Reduced-Price tickets are available until Sunday, April 8th!

Confirmed Judges for the event already include Noah J. Doyle (Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners), David J. Blumberg (Managing Partner of Blumberg Capital), Rob Coneybeer (Managing Director of Shasta Ventures), and Brian Ascher (Partner at Venrock). 

We are also giving away a free Demo Table to someone who helps spread the word. Help us spread the word by tweeting a message with the hashtag #FounderShowcase and the URL http://bit.ly/9OlVo8, and, on Friday, April 20th, we will randomly select one winner, announcing the person on our @founding account.

For more information, visit www.FounderShowcase.com.

The 9th Founder Showcase in January featured on-stage interviews with some of today's most respected startup investors and technology journalists; Evelyn Rusli of The New York Times interviewing Mark Suster of GRP Partners, Ina Fried of All Things Digital interviewing Mike Maples Jr. of FLOODGATE, and Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch interviewing Dave McClure of 500 Startups. Check out the videos below. 

The 10th Founder Showcase is scheduled for Tuesday, April 24th in San Francisco. Reduced-price tickets are available until this Sunday, March 4th - get your tickets now. 

Evelyn Rusli Interviews Mark Suster
In the video below, Mark talks about the funding boom, the Series A crunch, new investment trends, how Hollywood is ripe for disruption, and, most notably, his contrarian opinion on the carried interest tax issue. 

Ina Fried Interviews Mike Maples, Jr.
In the video below, Mike tells us the social networking wave has crested, his new investment strategy, and how the new "hypernet" is quickly emerging from the web, cellular, and WiFi.

Alexia Tsotsis Interviews Dave McClure
In the video below, Dave discusses the math behind 500 Startups' investment strategy, and his lack of concern over the "Series-A crunch."

A special thanks to All Things Digital and TechCrunch for posting these videos. 

At last week's 9th Founder Showcase, we celebrated the best investors of 2011 with TheFunded.com's Entrepreneur Investor Awards.

Anthony Ha of TechCrunch covered the awards here (including a video of the ceremony).

Here are the winners of the 2011 Awards;

---

Most Disruptive

Ben Horowitz, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

Top Rated in the Americas

George Zachary, General Partner, Charles River Ventures

Top Rated in Europe, Middle East and Africa

Philippe Herbert, Partner, Banexi Venture Partners

Top Rated in Asia

Yuri Milner, Founder and CEO of Mail.ru Group

Best New Fund Manager

Dave McClure, Founding Partner at 500 Startups

Other finalists included;

• Brad Feld (Managing Director at the Foundry Group)
  
• Bryan Schreier (Partner at Sequoia Capital)
  
• Chris Dixon (Founding Partner at the Founder Collective)
  
• David Skok (General Partner at Matrix Partners)
  
• David Sze (Partner at Greylock Partners)
  
• James D. Robinson IV (General Partner at RRE Ventures)
  
• Jeremy Liew (Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners)
  
• John Backus (Managing Partner at New Atlantic Ventures)
  
• John Doerr (Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
  
• Jon Callaghan (Founder and Managing Partner at True Ventures)
  
• Joshua Kopelman (Managing Partner at First Round Capital)
  
• Marc Andreessen (Co-Founder and General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz)
  
• Maria Cirino (Co-Founder and Managing Director at 406 Ventures)
  
• Mark Suster (General Partner at GRP Partners)
  
• Matthew McCall (Partner at DFJ Portage Ventures)
  
• Mike Maples Jr. (Managing Partner at FLOODGATE)
  
• Roelof Botha (Partner at Sequoia Capital)
  
• Ron Conway (General Partner at SV Angel)
  
• Shlomo Dovrat (General Partner at Carmel Ventures)
  
• Steven Arnold (Co-Founder and Venture Partner at Polaris Ventures)