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 […]
Semil Shah
StrictlyVC: November 24, 2014
Good Monday morning, everyone, and happy almost Thanksgiving! (Web visitors, this version of today’s email is a little easier to read than what you see below.) —– Top News in the A.M. Over the weekend, computer security researchers at Symantec announced that they’ve discovered a piece of malware circulating the world that appears to be used […]
Semil Shah: A Part-Time VC No Longer
About a year ago, I sat down with Semil Shah, a plugged-in networker who, back then, was working nearly full time at a podcasting company called Swell and spending his spare time participating in some of the hottest seed-stage financings in Silicon Valley. Today, Shah is no longer at Swell, which was acquired by Apple […]
What I’ve Learned in My First 18 Months of Investing
I’ve been investing for a year and a half, and I’ve learned more than I would’ve imagined by just jumping into the game. Now, I’m playing with very small amounts of capital, and whatever lessons I’ve gathered for myself aren’t necessarily “right” and aren’t generally applicable to everyone. With that disclaimer, I wanted to briefly […]
StrictlyVC: August 8, 2014
Happy Friday, everyone. So, my first week filling in for Connie (if that’s actually possible!) is coming to an end. Three interviews spread across four days, now in the books. Today, and then again on Friday next week, I’ll write the column here for the newsletter. If you’d like to chat about it or anything […]
Four Ways for Founders (and Anyone Else) to Break Into Investing
By Semil Shah Last night, I asked the crowd on Twitter what they’d like to hear about in today’s column. Entrepreneur John Petersen wrote back asking questions about what it’s like to get into early-stage investing, as more people want to get into the game on some level (and I believe they will, particularly if there are […]
StrictlyVC: December 11, 2013
Good morning! —– Top News in the A.M. That new Palantir Technologies round, the one valuing it at $9 billion, has shot past $107 million, according to an SEC filing. TechCrunch has more here. —– The Part-Time VC Semil Shah has a full-time job, spending most of each week doing mobile product marketing for a company called Swell in Palo Alto. […]
The Part-Time VC
Semil Shah has a full-time job, spending most of each week doing mobile product marketing for a company called Swell in Palo Alto. The rest of the time, Shah is either writing a weekly column for TechCrunch; working as an informal (but paid) mobile technology consultant to several Sand Hill Road firms; or trying to participate in […]
VCs Start Thinking More Creatively About AngelList
This week, three-year-old Kima Ventures, a Paris-based seed fund that backs one to two startups a week, made headlines for a new way that it plans to use AngelList, the popular platform for startups and investors. As Kima’s cofounder Jeremie Berrebi told me, the firm will invest $150,000 a shot in up to 50 startups in exchange […]