Why are more US VCs investing in international startups? Take a look at The Fortune Unicorn List: of the top 100 most valuable unicorns in 2016, 39 are currently based outside of the United States. While fundraising of US VCs has dropped slowly as a percentage of global limited partner allocations over the last decade,...
[Continue Reading]New techniques for identifying macro themes and trade ideas
I recently presented at the AI and Data Science in Trading conference on new methods to identify macro trends (especially technology macro trends), and more narrowly trade ideas for public market investors. I’m drawing from my research on origination for private equity/VC funds; how large corporates can identify the most relevant disruptive companies; and elicitation....
[Continue Reading]How to pitch an entrepreneur and persuade her to take your cash
With the rise of a trillion-dollar crowdfunding market, angel investors bundling their investment offerings, and family offices doing more direct investments, venture capitalists are no longer the only available source for entrepreneurs seeking funding. Now that anyone can benefit from the global growth of entrepreneurial activity, venture capitalists need to show their true added value...
[Continue Reading]Why are venture capitalists (76% white men) ignoring the future?
Why do so many venture capitalists ignore the single best predictor of the future: demographics? Paul Graham, cofounder of Y Combinator, observes, “Many suspect that venture capital firms are biased against female founders. This would be easy to detect: among their portfolio companies, do startups with female founders outperform those without? A couple months ago,...
[Continue Reading]Where are the deals? How VCs source winning companies
You’ve probably read dozens of articles about how to raise capital from venture capitalists. However, as a VC, we have the opposite problem: how do we originate companies in which to invest? It might appear that origination is becoming much easier because of new tools like AngelList and the SEC moving toward adoption of rules that will...
[Continue Reading]How to Judge an Investment Proposal (especially at Pitch Contests)
I periodically serve as a judge at pitch events for companies raising funding. In every case, I’m assessing each company against our standard criteria for investing. For some of the new employees at our firm, I put together a guide on how to serve as a judge at investment pitch events, evaluate investment ideas, and...
[Continue Reading]