The In Vitro fund?
Hi there,
Lots of really good writing out there these days. Here is some I've liked.
Bill Gurley writes that most companies raising large rounds today are not ready for an IPO in this solid essay. Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital writes about the people who took a chance on him (thanks to our early believers). Got opinions on Apple and the auto industry? Maybe read this post by Horace Dediu of Asymco first. Mike Evans, CEO of Grubhub, does an awesome review of what it's like to IPO.
Introducing the pre-seed
A few weeks ago, I saw VCs talking on Twitter about how the classifications between funding rounds was meaningless. And today, we've added a new classification.
Mission accomplished.
It's called Pre-Seed.
I was going to make an absolutely hilarious joke about a new embryo stage fund but then saw this tweet by Hunter Walk which did the job. Damn you Hunter.
Sub-Prime Unicorn
Bryce Roberts of OATV has launched something called Indie.vc which offers an alternative to the venture model to fund tech companies. It's still being figured out, but nevertheless, it's great to see some innovation in how tech companies get funded (pre-seed doesn't count as innovation btw). Bryce has a great post full of straight talk about what's wrong with the current startup investing climate. Here's my favorite part:
It's worth remembering that companies like ShutterStock and GoPro were bootstrapped for a while before taking funding. If something like Bryce/OATV's fund existed back then, I wonder if these companies would have taken advantage of it?
Best,
Anand
@asanwal
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3D Robotics' new $50M Series C is the largest-ever drone round to take place. See where the deal figures into drone VC funding.
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The Blurb
A curated mix of articles on tech, media, what's next and recent news.
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