Eric Feng, now a VC at Kleiner Perkins, but previously a CTO of Flipboard, founder of Erley and founding CTO of Hulu knows what venture capital looks like from both the founder’s and investor’s sides of the table.
His article A stats-based look behind the venture capital curtain on Medium has an analysis of trends in VC funds in the US over the past 15 years that is highly recommended reading for any founder seeking capital.
From 2003 to 2011, an average of 157 new funds were raised each year. But from 2012 onward, that average rose to 223, or an impressive 42% increase. More funds equals more active investors working at those funds.’
Another insight from Mr. Feng is that all the recent growth in the number of funds raised has been from seed funds, not venture or growth funds.
There has been an even bigger increase in the number of seed investors active in this country because of the disproportionate growth in the number of seed funds raised each year. So if it feels like there are thousands of new investors in the industry, particularly seed investors, that’s because there are.
“A lot of capital does disrupt venture capital, which is the problem we’ve had as an industry.”
— Sarah Tavel, Benchmark
Founders heed well: So even with the sharp influx of seed funds, the vast majority of the dollars are still invested by traditional venture and growth funds. Since 2011 the average number of seed deals per years (4,300) is not about equal to then number of non seed deals *(4,500).
But as veteran VC Bill Gurley says: “Venture capital is not even a home-run business. It’s a grand-slam business.” Virtually every founder I have met with over the past couple of years just assumes they will raise venture capital. However,
As investor Marc Andreessen has said, “returns are a power-law distribution” with the majority of returns concentrated in a small percentage of companies. That’s true now more than ever, and one of the great promises of the venture capital industry that motivates and drives investors.
So while this article is written from the viewpoint of a venture capitalist, it is well worth studying for founders in search of capital. Basically if you can’t show a VC that you have the potential not to just hit a home run, which was good enough the previous decade, now you have to show that you have the potential to hit a grand slam. Otherwise you are unlikely to even get a meeting with a VC, let alone an investment. Yet at the same time there are significantly more investors today than 15 years ago. The size, growth rate, and dynamics of your target market are the gatekeeper metrics for a venture capitalist today. In other words, disrupting a very large market is table stakes. If you are going after anything smaller you need to either bootstrap (be self-funded) or find an angel that falls in love with your startup,
Getting a VC investment has now become much like getting an acceptance to an elite college or university. The strategy is the same, send out a lot of applications and pull every string you can find in your web of contacts to get warm introductions. The only exception to this rule is Demo Day, where you get to present to a mass of investors, alongside your fellow founders. Demo Days are highly efficient for both founders and investors as both sides can cut through the introductory dance to get directly to a presentation or demo of the venture’s product. In higher education the table is tilted in favorite of athletes and legacies – children of alumni. How does a founder tilt the table in the VC game? By being a serial founder! It’s a chicken and egg problem, if you can’t raise money because you never have raised money what can you do? For one thing, find a partner who is a serial entrepreneur. Beyond that close advisors, like your former professors, with deep startup experience can help you distinguish your startup from all the competition. But keep in mind where you truly need to distinguish yourself is in the minds of customers. If you can do that the money may well beat a path to your door.
Mentorphile 