asanwal

Great point. We have this data and will update with that plot. Thx for the comment.

To clarify, Fred's post has no data - just a statement of an inverse correlation between funding and success.

Sorry, but I don't understand this comment. If exit size is not one of the primary metrics VCs look at and how they define success, I'm at a loss for what would be.

More specifically, how do you think USV and Fred define success? Fred says that financial returns (hence exits) are important on his own btw [1]

[1] http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/how-we-measure-success.html

Thanks for the comment.

1) We include asset sales/talent acquisitions but yes, private company data is imperfect. That said, we have the best in the biz (highly biased)

2) Runway in months and millions is semantics. If you have more millions in the bank, you have a longer runway in months almost by definition. IRR of exit - not sure I follow how that is better (and more importantly, an impossible metric to get at scale for private companies)

3) Agree :)

I think you need to look at this from Fred Wilson's perspective as a VC. Exit is the only the measure of success. It is how he and every VC is ultimately incentivized by their LPs. The more exits and the larger those exits, the more money the VC makes and the more likely they'll have LPs invest in their next fund.

Of course, one can argue that startups should be not be in it for the exit, but when you take VC money, that is what you are signing up for.

Fred talks about he defines success here - http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/how-we-measure-success.html

"We are financial investors and we do want to see our portfolio companies become valuable."

He is a VC, and a good one, so success = exit valuation by definition. This is implicit when a VC is talking about success.

Fred talks about he defines success here - http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/how-we-measure-success.html

"We are financial investors and we do want to see our portfolio companies become valuable."

The analysis is only looking at whether there's a strong negative correlation between initial funding and startup success, using exit valuation as a measure, as this was Fred Wilson's assertion.

Of course, this is not meant to be predictive but rather meant to dispel the notion that a strong negative correlation exists between these two variables.

Very true as this research suggests. "The Next Silicon Valley is Probably Silicon Valley"

http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/silicon-valley-financi...

Interestingly, NY is the one market taking some share from SV but the gap remains massive.

Yes - we track all types of private company financing and exit data - energy, life sciences, tech, etc. Sector, stage and geo-agnostic.

Email in profile so feel free to reach out if I can be helpful.

Nothing quite that juicy unfortunately (disclosure: I'm a co-founder of CB Insights). But it does provide rankings of VCs and angels in NY based on their investment activity. And some breakdowns by industry areas of focus. Also, has a ton of trend and financing data and investment syndicate analysis as well.

If you're a startup evaluating NY or already in NY and going to be fundraising, we hope and think it'll be a really great resource to help you determine who some of the key players are.

Great points all around.

I do agree that for larger company/enterprise type deals, the current iDoneThis pricing may not work and IMO, that's a large opportunity.

Dear iDoneThis team - do NOT lower your prices [1].

As a fellow subscription revenue biz, we've found that lower priced plans invite customers whose support requirements are much greater. And you won't make it up in volume.

Real businesses that value their time will spent $50/month for a service that saves them time without thinking twice. Your early traction proves this out.

The graphic you had in your post about developer thinking makes me think you guys already know this, but I see the lower price advice a lot on HN, and almost always, I think it is the wrong advice.

[1] - This is obviously 100% opinion, and you know your business 1000x better than I do. BTW, our product's subscription price point is significantly higher $12k per annum at the low end, and we just moved this up from $7500 earlier this year. BEST DECISION WE EVER MADE.

We're one of few early-stage startups we know of that sponsor H1B's at all so we're quite unique in this regard. We have 3 out of our team of 12. But we have to focus on recruiting team-members that have the highest probability of getting an H1 visa ultimately and having a US Masters degree in a STEM discipline greatly increases these chances. This is a conversation for a different thread but wanted to clarify as your assumption was mistaken.

We have found the h1 process is easier in these cases.

New York, NY - CB Insights

Full-time, H1 ok with US masters degree

National Science Foundation-backed firm that helps investors and Fortune 500 companies sense emerging trends and companies early using predictive analytics.

We are profitable and non-VC backed.

Looking for - full stack developers - tech industry analyst - machine learning engineers

More details here - www.cbinsights.com/jobs

Data featured in 200+ press articles this year - www.cbinsights.com/press

NY has a few things going for it most notably it is seen by many as a "capital of the world".

- People want to live here. Not everyone of course, but if you're young, like a diversity of entertainment options and people, good food, culture, etc (yes - there are downsides). Very few people in the world say "I'd love to live in Boston, Seattle, Portland, etc for a bit to see what it's like". NY has that effect on people.

- Major companies and industries which are being disrupted or enhanced by technology are HQ'd there. Advertising, financial services to name two. If you roll in CT and NJ, you have insurance, pharma, etc.

- Lots of people so if you're doing something on the consumer side, many guinea pigs.

- Lots of money and influential folks here. The whole 1% thing.

- More and more VCs are setting up shop here as well. I think they see a good ecosystem here, and I think many of them don't mind having an excuse to visit NY for business.

We looked at this as well. Here's a research brief appropriately titled "Chicago is not going to be the next Silicon Valley". If you like graphs and data, the brief illustrates why -- http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/chicago-venture-capita...

Ha. Very true. Although, if you look out over the medium-term, NY is making a good case for being a challenger. Massachusetts has really seemingly squandered the advantages it has.

The post on A16Z can be characterized as "talking one's own book" [1]

While convenient to cherry-pick MSFT as an example, there was also countless wealth lost in the dot com explosion (Webvan, eToys, Pets.com, etc)

Yes going public today is harder and that means companies generally have to have a better answer to "how will you make money (profitably)" than they once did. And that is probably a good thing.

It's also surprising that venture capitalists who have on the whole been unable to beat the S&P500 think that the layperson investing in tech companies would fare so well.

[1] http://invest.yourdictionary.com/talking-one-s-book

I'm the founder of a firm that has had investors reach out from time-to-time and some do ask "Are you trying to build a big business or a lifestyle business?" In this context, "lifestyle biz" is absolutely a pejorative term.

The implications/sub-text of that question is:

1. If you don't plan to take money, you're probably not thinking big, are not ambitious, etc

2. You'll need capital and expertise (probably ours) to build a big business

What I've found is that the better investors tend to ask a different question "At what point, if any, would you think of raising capital?" This question gives the investor the same info without the insulting sub-text.

Related notes: - Most tech M&A exits are less than <$100M. If you're playing the odds, a "lifestyle" business may be the way to go. http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/acquisitions/tech-mergers-acq...

- Building a real business (revenue > costs) and growing it gives you more leverage with investors down the road should you want to go down that path. That's our plan. http://www.cbinsights.com/team-blog/investors/

"The problem comes when a 500MM fund makes a 100k investment."

Interestingly, after crunching the data, this is not true.

In reality, companies who receive money from a larger, multi-stage fund actually raise follow-on financing at a higher rate than those that raise only from dedicated Seed VC firms who presumably care more as they're more invested (or that's what they'd like you to believe :)

While Chris Dixon (prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz) and others have championed the idea that large funds don't care and are just investing in seed rounds as a call option for future rounds, the data just doesn't support this contention.

We were as surprised as everyone else when we found this.

Full research brief we published on this here - http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/seed-venture-capital-f...

Disclosure: I'm co-founder of the firm, CB Insights, that put this research together. We sell data to VCs, LPs, etc.

New York, NY - Full-Time, H1B (for US school grads)

CB Insights is tracking the health of private companies using public data. We are backed by the Nat'l Science Foundation and profitable with major customers.

We're looking for: - Full stack developer - Machine learning engineer - Tech industry analyst - Data journalist

More here on these positions - http://www.cbinsights.com/jobs

Relevant links: The Business Social Graph - http://www.cbinsights.com/business-social-network Mosaic Score - http://www.cbinsights.com/mosaic Customer Love - http://www.cbinsights.com/customer-love

When Viddy raised money, it was when folks were jumping on the who will be the "Instagram of video" bandwagon.

Socialcam and Viddy appeared to be the front-runners for that, but then certain things got in the way

- FB cracked down on both for being aggressive with people's feeds. This killed growth.

- SocialCam got acquired for $60M by Autodesk which as a comparable transaction wasn't very favorable for Viddy (on a price/user valuation multiple basis since there was little to no revenue)

- Investors had control of the board and likely decided based on the above and other factors (such as company founders departing) that this was throwing good money after bad and so decided to take their money back

New York, NY - CB Insights (Full-time, H1B)

CB Insights is working on assessing the health of private companies using public data. We are National Science Foundation-backed but are otherwise proud to be bootstrapped, growing quickly and profitable.

We're hiring the following positions:

- Full stack developer - Tech industry analyst - Data journalist - Machine learning engineer - Inside sales analyst - Market research professionals

Details on the company and these jobs are here - http://www.cbinsights.com/jobs/

These VCs clearly invest in entrepreneurs who are trying to change the world.

We started a company called ChubbyBrain (CB is our tribute to that). 0% of our data is from crunch.

In terms of where it comes from: 80% of our data comes via software we've built to parse news, SEC, investor, corporate websites (we crawl about 12k of them daily).

About 20% of our data comes directly from investors. The biggest contingent is angel data which we get via a partnership we have with Silicon Valley Bank and the Angel Capital Association.

Yes -- there are many Zombie VCs. And glad to see Danielle doing this stuff but you have to be careful in drawing these conclusions.

First, many funds don't do Series A's. That is their strategy. At the top of the spreadsheet are several funds that are mid, later, growth and private-equity stage firms (IVP, Warburg). Them not doing Series As has less to do with their Zombie status then them adhering to their strategy.

While there are other issues with the data as highlighted below, this issue of fund strategy is a critical one so wanted to highlight.

Also, picking short timeframes of 3 months or 1 month isn't a great test as funds have 7-10 year lifetimes. A couple of months doesn't make for a trend.

Again, we think there is value in highlighting this data as there tends to only be good news reported but just would caution against errant conclusions.

Notes: I'm one of the co-founders of CB Insights and our firm tracks this data. We actually help LPs (the investors in VC funds) identify VCs doing poorly or who appear to be the walking dead. But it's messy as hell.

More on that here for folks interested - http://www.cbinsights.com/team-blog/investor-analytics-zombi... (warning: part informational and promotional)

We're waiting for Stripe to integrate Bitcoin and then we will. Until then, we are happy to take the more old-school American dollar :)

Hi - Anand from CB Insights here.

Couple of clarifications/answers based on comments below:

1. We look at cash-on-hand along with scores from a technology we've built called Mosaic which looks for signals of strength or stress at private companies (a bit more on Mosaic here - http://www.cbinsights.com/mosaic/). So while cash remaining is an important input, we look at other measures (industry health, investor quality, HR activity, etc) to ultimately create the list.

2. Startups are not the intended customer for the list. However, corporate M&A teams, corporate HR teams/recruiters/VCs looking to recruit talent and IP buyers are the customers. The list is a shortcut for their efforts.

3. We're seeing a lot of the above folks buy the report which is a function of (a) it's not easy to find info as we've got the most seed data out there and (b) it is cheaper than alternatives, i.e. recruiters, consultants, trying to do in-house

4. 0% of the data is from Crunchbase. We started a company initially called ChubbyBrain and the CB in our name is a tribute to our humble roots.

If any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out or ask in the comments. Happy to help.

edit: Dec 2012 was the worst month for VC investment since August 2012

page 10 of this report -- https://www.cbinsights.com/reports/Q4%202012%20Venture%20Cap...

Picking any month or quarter as suggestive of a trend is generally not going to work. Funding #s get skewed wildly by mega-deals (throw in one big clean tech or Groupon type of financing and things look great and if they're missing, not so good). As of late, mega deals to clean tech have been non-existent which has been a drag on numbers overall.

The Q4 2012 #s did show a decline vs the earlier quarters of 2012. The data is here - http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/trends/venture-capital-2012-r...

Re: exits -- again a single quarter doesn't make for a trend.

If we see sluggish investment and funding levels for many quarters, then there may be reason for "concern" although it is probably a healthy purging of the system in our view.

Note: Our company, CB Insights, tracks VC investment flows and exits. We compete against Thomson (the provider of the NVCA data).