Friday! Hallelujah. We’re not sure how much more of this week we could take. We want to say a huge thank you to investor, advisor, and friend Semil Shah, who, in Connie’s absence this week, has run a series of rare interviews with limited partners, meaning the people who write the checks to venture firms and typically […]
Fundraising
SurveyMonkey CEO Zander Lurie: IPO, Yes; 2017, Not Likely
On Thursday night, at a StrictlyVC event at SurveyMonkey in Palo Alto, this editor sat down with CEO Zander Lurie to learn more about the direction of the 17-year-old company, known for the roughly 90 million surveys that the outfit and its customers create for their various constituents each month (and whose average order volume is $300, says Lurie). I was particularly interested in Lurie, […]
True Ventures Just Led a $12 Million Investment in Still-Stealth Brava
If you’re curious to learn about the latest investment out of San Francisco-based True Ventures, you’ll have to be patient. Though the firm is disclosing that it has led a whopping $12 million Series A round in new startup Brava, details about the startup are scarce. What we do know: Brava is a new IoT company that […]
Guild Education Lands $8.5 Million in Series A Funding Led by Redpoint
According to a 2014 report from Complete College America, a nonprofit group based in Indianapolis, just 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years at public universities. The stats are even worse at community colleges, where five percent of full-time students earn an associate degree within two years, and just 15.9 […]
Luma Tacks on $7 Million from Andreessen Horowitz and GV
Luma, an Atlanta-based company that makes a sleek router with a wide variety of bells and whistles, has tacked on $7 million in funding to its coffers from Andreessen Horowitz and GV. The funding comes fast on the heels of a $12.5 million Series A round that was co-led in April by Accel Partners and Amazon […]
NFX Guild Just Introduced 13 Buzzy Young Startups to Investors
The young Bay Area accelerator NFX Guild hosted its third “demo day” yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, and the attendees were a veritable who’s who of venture and angel investing. It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that roughly 200 top investors were sitting elbow to elbow to see the presenting companies. NFX […]
At Rothenberg Ventures, the Rise and Fall of a Virtual Gatsby
Rothenberg Ventures, the four-year-old, San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm, may be on the brink of implosion, say several sources close to the firm. We reported yesterday that several high-level employees had parted ways with Rothenberg, including its director of finance and the head of its SF office, who happen to be father and son (Tom and Tommy […]
Pejman Mar Raises $75 Million for Second Fund, Rebrands as Pear
Likability, intuition, and a strong work ethic is a potent combination in any business, and many in Silicon Valley think seed-stage investors Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson have all three in spades. They “complement each other,” says investor Alfred Lin of Sequoia Capital, who invested in the Series A round of DoorDash, the restaurant delivery company, after they seeded it. Indeed, the […]
Exits and Commitments
By Semil Shah Today wraps up the third summer I’ve had the luxury (and wielded the power!) of being a guest curator for StrictlyVC while Connie takes some well-deserved R&R on the beach with her family. This year, along with the standard Q&A’s with fellow investors, I’ve been reflecting on my few years as a […]
A “Should I Raise a Fund” FAQ
By Semil Shah Without fail, at least once a week, someone pings me or asks for an intro to learn about how I set up my fund Haystack. I think many people want to start a smaller seed-stage fund, which is cool. I’m happy to share whatever I can with others. But I am also no […]