There is something so funny and also so appropriate about all this talk about Unicorn companies. I’m not the first person to say that the proliferation of $1B+ valued startups is a signal of an overheated late stage market. Yet, […]

When entrepreneurs think about approaching VC’s to cultivate a relationship for a round, they often try to match their company with what the VC has funded in the past.  It’s pretty rational.  That investor should both know more about the […]

About a year ago, Nancy and I were spending some time with Hardi Meybaum and his family.  Hardi is the founder of our portfolio company GrabCAD which was acquired recently by Stratsys.  It had taken us a long time to schedule this […]

Over a year ago, I wrote a post describing what I was seeing happening in the early stage financing market, especially as it pertained to what I call “genesis rounds“.  Today, genesis rounds or “pre-seeds” are fairly common nomenclature, and […]

Today it was officially announced that Microsoft has acquired our portfolio company Sunrise. It’s a fantastic outcome for everyone involved and I know that Pierre, Jeremy, and the team are going to have a huge impact within MSFT. As someone […]

On Tuesday, we put out two different sample pitch decks that we think can guide entrepreneurs as they try to communicate the information behind their companies. Although pitch decks are well-trodden territory online, we tried to introduce decks that were […]

I had lunch with Brett Martin this week, an entrepreneur I’ve gotten to know a bit over the years. We were talking about a decision that I’m thinking through. I was kind of waffling. He asked a really good question. […]

There were a number of interesting articles published over the last week in response to Mattermark and CB Insight’s data around early stage financing activity. In particular, a number of people commented on what looks like a dramatic rise and […]

As an early stage investor, should you pay up for team or traction? I posed this question on Twitter in Dec and got a bunch of different opinions.  It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.  Prices in the […]

I did a fair bit of speaking at Universities in the last few months of 2013. In Nov and Dec, I think I gave guest lectures or spoken at events at HBS, MIT, BC, Harvard College and attended a capstone […]