Business & Finance | Business & Finance

How to fundraise a Series A | TechCrunch

The key when raising is to understand what VCs are looking for in a founder and a business at each stage, and then you can make the call on the best way to pitch them in a way that feels right to you.

Business & Finance | Business

5 Things You Should Never Say During a Venture Capital Pitch, According to 2 VCs

A pair of investors talk about their pitch pet peeves so other founders can avoid common fundraising mistakes.

Business & Finance | Business

I'm a VC whose investments have made my firm almost $1 billion. Here's what I look for when evaluating a startup.

Ben Narasin, the founder of Tenacity Venture Capital, breaks down his best deals and shares his top red flags when investing.

Business & Finance | Business

11 Words and Phrases to Take Out of Your VC Pitch Deck

With only a short amount of time to impress investors, you better make it count by using the right words.

Business & Finance | Business

3 reasons why almost every VC investor passed on Zoom

When Zoom was raising a Series A round back in 2012, dozens of institutional VC firms passed on it. What can entrepreneurs learn from these reasons?

Business & Finance | Business

Eight Key Strategies To Get Investors Interested In Your Business

The more business results you have, the easier it is to be persuasive.

Business & Finance | Business

US seed-stage investing flourished during pandemic | TechCrunch

If you didn’t think much about seed in 2020, you’re not alone. Late, huge rounds consumed most of the media’s oxygen, leaving smaller startups to compete for scraps of attention.

Business & Finance | Business

Why some VCs prefer to work with first-time founders – TechCrunch

Repeat founders who have a proven track record, good references, and in the best cases, an exit to point to will have an easy time making inroads with venture capitalists. Earlier this week, for example, the former founders of Udemy and altMBA raised more

Business & Finance | Business & Finance

What I wish I’d known about venture capital when I was a founder | TechCrunch

If you only start learning about VCs when you’re already down the fundraising path, you’ll already be too late. 

Business & Finance | Business

How One Startup Went From Almost Shutting Down to Raising More Than $1 Million

RAMP DEFI CEO Lawrence Lim reveals how his company kept themselves afloat.

Business & Finance | Business

How to pick the right Series A investors – TechCrunch

Early-stage startup founders who are embarking on a Series A fundraising round should consider this: their relationship with the members of their board might last longer than the average American marriage. In other words, who invests in a startup matters

Business & Finance | Business

We asked over 150 VCs if they are doing remote deals. Here’s what they said. | VentureBeat

40% of firms confirmed they have already done a fully remote deal as a result of restrictions put in place due to COVID-19.

Business & Finance | Business

Venture Capital Is Not The Funding Reality Of Most Startups—Here’s What Is

In reality, less than 1% of startups get investment capital. Don't worry, you have many other funding options.

Business & Finance | Business & Finance

The Top 10 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make In Their First (Virtual) VC Pitch Meeting

A pitch meeting with a VC is a huge opportunity. It is the first step on your journey to secure funding for your company and build your dream. To give yourself the best opportunity of securing a second meeting, it is essential that you dedicate time thoro

Business & Finance | Business

Pandemic forces fundraising founders to accept ‘discounts across the board’ | TechCrunch

Startup founders who are fundraising in this climate should expect venture investors to take a huge chunk out of their valuation expectations. “What we’re seeing across the board is discounts,” says Mike Janke, co-founder of early-stage cybersecurity inve

Business & Finance | Startups

The Rise of Alternative Venture Capital

A new age of startup investing has arisen amid the demands of entrepreneurs, and it is altering the traditional venture capital model as we know it.

Business & Finance | Business

Is Venture Capital Worth the Risk?  | The New Yorker

Nathan Heller on how the industry shaped the past decade and could destroy the next one.

Business & Finance | Business

How To Prepare Your Early-Stage Company For A Capital Raise

Your company is your baby, but its birth is just the beginning. Growing a company takes years, and having the right partners is crucial.

Business & Finance | Women Entrepreneurs

Female entrepreneurs are turning away from venture capital — Quartz

In the UK, only 1% of venture capital goes to women. Some founders aren't letting that stop them.

Business & Finance | Business

Decide which type of investor to target for raising capital | TechCrunch

Venture capital is just one of many options to finance your business, typically the most expensive. The broader question is: what type of capital should you raise, and from whom?  

Business & Finance | Business

Why San Francisco is still the gold mine for tech startups – TechCrunch

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where each week we discuss other people’s copious dollars and lacking sense. This week was special! Kate and Alex at Disrupt where they recorded live in front of an audien

Business & Finance | FINANCE & INVESTMENTS

Precursor Ventures just raised a second fund to zero in on pre-seed-stage startups | TechCrunch

Precursor Ventures, a 3.5-year-old, seed-stage investment firm in San Francisco, just closed its second fund with $31 million in capital commitments, roughly double what it raised for its debut effort in 2017. Somewhat amazingly, it has 75 portfolio compa

Business & Finance | Business

How Funding Rounds Work For Startups

The promise of big, easy and fast money to build business ideas has inspired countless entrepreneurs to throw their hats in the ring to try and get their share, and make their visions a reality. For some the game of raising capital to build businesses and

Business & Finance | Business

This is how much VCs are paid

Venture capital is known for being an opaque industry, so it's no surprise most of us have no idea what the average VC earns in a year.

Science & Technology | Social Media

Pinterest Is a Unicorn. It Just Doesn’t Act Like One. - The New York Times

The company rejects Silicon Valley’s aggressive, hype-driven way of doing business. But its slow and steady approach has frustrated some investors and employees.

Investors: this can be Moptu. Our vision is conceptually different than Pinterest's, but our approach to the market has been very similar. We absolutely believe in quality growth. Parroting the Silicon Valley model never made sense to us either, and now that seems to be a wise approach. Pinterest is aspirrationally focused and we are informationally focused - so our target market isn'tidentical: Pinterest can't become us, and we have no desire to try to be a new Pinterest. We need investors to fulfill our ultimate vision for Moptu. If you are interested in hearing more, please get in touch: joshn@moptu.com.

Business & Finance | BUSINESS

Four Ways To Fund Your Startup Without Venture Capital

As a startup, the initial runway, where founders strive to prove viability and gain traction, is where most entrepreneurs run out of money, motivation and, ultimately, fail. There are several ways around it.

Business & Finance | Startups

2 Venture Capitalists Reveal Their Brilliant Advice for Raising Startup Capital

Two venture capitalists offer founders great advice: if you want to raise capital for your startup,  have empathy for capital providers and change your capital strategy at each growth stage.

Business & Finance | Startups

This Young Founder Built a Multimillion Dollar Business by Rejecting the Silicon Valley Ethos and Being True to Herself

Laura Behrens Wu came to the U.S. as an outsider, and admits she's still trying to find her way.

This is inspiring. We're going through a similar thing with Moptu. Right now, 100% of social media users who want to read articles, have to do so while also dealing with memes, selfies, status updates and all of the other social noise that interferes with the efficacy of sharing content. We solve that problem. We haven't met with 125 investors or had 115 rejections, but we've had enough that it gets very discouraging sometimes. If you're an investor and interested in hearing more about our vision for Moptu, get in touch! joshn@moptu.com

Business & Finance | Startup News

30 Under 30 Venture Capital 2018: Meet The Young Investors Finding The Next Great Tech Companies

These young investors of the 30 Under 30 Venture Capital are helping to disrupt tech industry stereotypes, one savvy deal at a time.

Business & Finance | Startups

A Guide To Understanding VCs

My goal is to provide early-stage entrepreneurs with accessible & “no bullshit” insights to understand what VCs do, how they think, what they want...

I am the co-founder of Moptu. This guide made me, and our other founder, very happy. Our deck reflects the excellent advice here. Hopefully we're on the right track. I you are a VC PLEASE contact me and take a look (joshn@moptu.com)! We are a much more efficient way of sharing articles and the ONLY social network designed specifically to do that!

Entrepreneurs: I hope this helps you too!

Business & Finance | Business

Roomi raises $11 million to find you a roommate | TechCrunch

Looking for a roommate on Craigslist can be cumbersome. And it can be difficult to determine what the person will be like in real life. A startup called..

This is a great idea and I wish it existed when I was forced to find roommates. Moptwo is ALSO a great idea (I am an early adopter and enthusiastic advocate). It is the only social media site designed to share articles ONLY and I love it. I have watched the two guys who run it innovate, improve and sustain this site. If you're an investor and you're interested in what I believe is absolutely going yo be an amazing investment, get in touch with one of the founders! I know that they are looking for venture capital and are looking for FAR less than what Roomi just got. Social media for articles? It seems like an obvious idea. Now. And no - I am not getting compensated in any way for this. I just love social media and this is a great site for people who want to rad/share/organize articles without all of the distractions of less focused sites. It's not perfect yet, but given that the site was deigned, programmed, and run by two people - I can imagine what it would be like if they had real resources. These guys are good.

Science & Technology | Social Media

Pin This: Pinterest just scored $150 million in funding

The company is valued at $12.3 billion.

Moptwo is looking for investors. If you are a VC, or have a connection to a VC, PLEASE contact me at joshn@moptwo.com. I am Moptwo's co-founder. If Pinterest is worth $12.3 BILLION - investing the relatively modest amount we are asking for in our first round of funding should be a an extremely easy decision. Not because we are another version of Pinterest, but because we are doing something unique that no other social media site has done, or is doing.

We are also in the midst of a major re-brand, vastly improved UX/UI updates, and the formulation of a new marketing strategy. We would be happy to talk to you about our numbers (which are impressive given our current marketing budget of: exactly NO dollars).

Science & Technology | Social Media

A social media network just for scientific researchers has raised $52 million

ResearchGate features the scientific work of over 12 million researchers.

Business & Finance | Business

A top VC firm just put together a striking presentation on what it was like for startups in 2016

First Round surveyed 700 startup founders to find out what it's like to run a startup in 2016.

We're certainly optimistic about Moptwo and will be rolling out HUGE design/branding/marketing changes next summer. So, for any investors who see this: we are the ONLY social platform designed specifically to share/organize links to information. The potential is enormous, we have a stellar team, and all of our IP is proprietary. Contact me (joshn@moptwo.com) if you want to know more. We have an exceptional deck that lays out our plans in detail!

From the article:

"Now that it's approaching the end of 2016, startups aren't quite as concerned as they used to be — and 9 out of 10 founders think the time is better than ever to a start a new company."

Business & Finance | Business

Venture capital investments rebound for tech startups

company Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and messaging app Snapchat boosted the quarter, raising a combined total of $4.8 billion, or nearly a third of total investments.

This is definitely great news! Hopefully Moptwo will benefit from the upswing in venture capital! If you're a VC and want to see our deck, please contact me: joshn@moptwo.com.

Business & Finance | Business

No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted - NYTimes.com

The business world is filled with starry-eyed entrepreneurs who hope that the blessings of angel investors and venture capitalists will transform their start-up dreams into companies with billion-dollar valuations.

We don't want to buck the trend! If you are a VC/Angel Moptwo has an excellent exec summary that I would be MORE than happy to send your way! Contact me: joshn@moptwo.com. We have a compelling case for the inherent value for Moptwo's future.

Business & Finance | Business & Finance

VP of Scale Venture Partners: Key to Startup Success - Fortune

Susan Liu, vice president of Scale Venture Partners, explains.

Science & Technology | Israeli Innovation

The Most Active Venture Capital Firms Investing In Israeli Startups

Behind every successful startup, there's usually a wealthy VC. Who's pouring cash onto budding Israeli startups to ensure their livelihood?

Business & Finance | FINANCE & INVESTMENTS

Don’t Mortgage Your Startup

The last 5-10 years have been an extraordinary time for early stage tech founders to raise money. But easy access to capital has ingrained some bad habits..

Business & Finance | Business

There's a new VC firm that only wants to fund billion-dollar 'unicorn' startups

Unicorn Capital Partners is a Chinese venture capital firm that's dedicated to finding and funding

Science & Technology | Technology

Snapchat reportedly raising more funding at valuation of up to $19 billion

Snapchat is looking to raise as much as $500 million in a new funding round at a valuation of up to $19 billion, according to a Bloomberg report.

$19 Billion! $19 BILLION!