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Get the inside scoop on what VCs are thinking and where they are investing today and tomorrow. Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig guide you through the opaque world of venture capital and reveal all the ways you can source capital for your company's growth. It all starts right here with Anne Kennedy and Gillian Muessig on VC Confidential.
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it’s January. Resolutions time. Get-organized time. Gillian and Anne talk about organizing the Fund Raising Process for raising capital. They’ve been at it for a while now at the Sybilla Masters Fund, and have learned a few lessons and a few tips to share with listeners, whether you are raising capital for a venture capital fund or raising capital for their startup. Listen to find out how to get started, how to keep track, and when and how to share your Deal Room.
Following the Janaury 3rd guilty verdict for Theranos Founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes in federal court, Gillian and Anne dive into the further responsibilities of investors and board directors to provide effective oversight of corporate executives, as well as due diligence before investing. This sensational case, which lost nearly $1 Billion of investors’ funds pinpointed the critical nature of governance by those so tasked – by law.
Gillian and Anne explore how venture capital funds form, market, and express their investment theses. Founders need to know which VC to pitch for capital, just as investors want to find funds that align with their principles and goals. A fund’s investment thesis lays out just how it will make money for its investors, their Limited Partners (LPs), by naming the focus of investments, geography, and startup stage. Doing so differentiates a venture fund from others, providing clear guidance to investors and entrepreneurs.
Gillian and Anne talk about Boards of Directors. They covered this topic at a high level in a 2020 episode here at VC Confidential, ‘Why Investors Need Strong Boards’. This time, they dig a bit deeper into the formation and management of boards and their effect on the success of companies. The difference between a functional board and a dysfunctional board can have as great an impact on a company as a functional vs dysfunctional family can have on a growing individual. Hear why Investors should be thinking about a given company’s board before they make their investment.
Gillian and Anne delve into warrants. Just one of the forms of venture debt, a warrant is such a useful investment instrument and so few people seem to understand what it does, how it’s used, who uses it, when, and why. Often called a classic feature of venture debt, warrants are a type of security that gives the holder the right to purchase company stock at a specified price within a specific period of time. Many VC investors, including the world’s best-known investors and accelerators use warrants rather than conventional venture capital. Hear why in this episode.
Gillian and Anne delve into what LPs should expect from investor updates, and how GPs and Managing Directors can prepare valuable LP updates for both written and video-conference communications with LPs. First-time venture capital fund investors want to know what to expect from their fund managers, just as investors and fund managers want to see regular, consistently informative updates from portfolio companies. Listen for tips on optimal content and format, as well as for living meetings, which are so beneficial to both investors and fund managers.
In their continuing crusade to rip the lid off the opaque corner of private fin ace known as venture capital, Gillian and Anne drill into more of the often confusing language and clauses found in capital investment documents, starting with ‘preferential rights’. Who gets them and why would anyone want them, as like many such legal monikers, they subtract as much as they add. Listen to hear what you need to know before you invest or take an investor on your capitalization table.
While large VC Funds seem like a lot of money to invest in entrprenuers, the expenses of running a fund over a 10-year life (on average) chip away at the sum persistently. Management fees, legal and accounting expenses, rent and staffing all add up before the fund pays any returns to investors. Gillian and Anne dig into these costs, with examples to show how fund managers run fund expenses. More important, fund managers sometimes elect to optimize their own fees to reduce their individual income tax liability via Management Profits Interest agreements, a practice that federal lawmakers are scrutinizing.
Gillian & Anne welcome Denis Dunlap to this episode to discuss how venture debt works, and how it differs from conventional VC equity deals. Venture debt is a an increasingly popular form of revenue-based funding that works well for companies focused on growing sales rather than seeking exits. Denise explains when taking on debt serves company growth better, and when it does not. She is co-founder and Managing Partner of Sage Growth Capital, based in Boise, Idaho, doing business in many states across US.
Amid a rising clamor to become angel or venture investors, even among people who do not meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s strict rules to qualify, new platforms and mobile apps have emerged to meet the demand. Enabled under the SEC’s Regulation Crowdfunding adopted in 2015 as a result of Title III of the JOBS act of 2012 sets limits on how much companies can raise and from how many investors. Gillian and Anne sort it all out and tell why democratizing access to investing matters.
Anne & Gillian welcome Diane Fraiman, Managing Director at Voyager Capital, founded in 1997. With more than $520 million under management, Voyager invests in B2B software, cloud, and big data applications, and has steered five successful exits in 13 investments, well above the industry average. Diane reveals how best to get a VC’s attention (Pro tip: cold call emails rarely work), and who drives decisions to invest, and, not least, what‘s in store for founders after they get funded.
Returns from conventional venture capital funds have lagged below those from public market investing consistently and stubbornly since 1997. That is more than two decades. In their continuing quest to find sustainable venture investment models that will benefit all parties, stakeholders, and communities, Gillian and Anne discuss whether an index fund, as commonly used in public markets, would be a workable solution. Hear how they talk it through and where they arrive at the best way forward for investors and entrepreneurs together.
Deservedly called the riskiest asset class, Venture Capital has underperformed public markets for decades, and since 1997 less cash has been returned to VC investors than they have invested, reports the Kauffman Foundation. The tiny group of top-performing funds who have returned at least twice the capital invested continues to capture outsize media and public attention. Gillian and Anne go deep into why the overall performance of VC is so poor, and their take on what to do about it.
Gillian and Anne explore how venture capital funds form, market, and express their investment theses. Founders need to know which VC to pitch for capital, just as investors want to find funds that align with their principles and goals. A fund’s investment thesis lays out just how it will make money for its investors, their Limited Partners (LP’s), by naming the focus of investments, geography, and startup stage. Doing so differentiates a venture fund from others, providing clear guidance to investors and entrepreneurs.
Term sheets are one of the critical pieces to success in venture investing. They come after due diligence and before investment documents. Gillian & Anne dig into what term sheets usually contain, and what’s important for funders and founders to include, exclude and understand, as well as how to negotiate them well for the benefit of all parties. Founders take note: a term sheet is close to the finish line, but there is still a lot of work to be done before you pop that champagne cork.
Gillian and Anne take a look at where venture capital investors will be looking in the coming months as the world eases out of lockdown and distancing. Digital infrastructure improvements and innovations to accommodate a long-term remote workforce will see a continuing surge, as will training that workforce by virtual and augmented reality. Beyond the obvious, contactless payments, 3D printing, chatbots, and robotics, born of necessity will all continue rapidly expanding adoption.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, Gillian and Anne talk about women funders today. Knowing the sad stats about female founders receiving a pittance of conventional venture funding, they get under the hood to see who will actually change the untenable imbalance of the flow of capital and power to women on this planet: Female Funders. Hear from the Financial Times and MIT Sloan on inequities in VC with respect to women, and what to do about it.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of the US Federal government in 1982 set minimum qualifications for people to make private investments, to “protect investors from themselves”, according to one writer. The rules qualified investors in terms of wealth alone, a questionable assumption that having wealth alone made for a smart investor. The SEC revisited the rules, and on December 20 of 2020 added a third set of qualifications based on experience, or ‘know-how’, among others. Gillian & Anne unpack what the updated rules say, and mean.
It’s back to basics with a review of investment vehicles commonly used in Venture Capital, starting the Convertible Notes and Safes (Simple Agreement for Future Equity). Functionally, convertible notes provide investors with interest returns on debt instruments, while SAFEs are warrants to purchase shares in the future at a set price. Gillian and Anne explain when to fund with either one, with details on upsides and down for each.
What does leading a deal mean? What does a Deal Lead do? Why is it important to have one? Why don’t entrepreneurs lead their own deals as capital raises get larger? Gillian and Anne break it down and lay some popular misconceptions, for example, that the lead investor puts in the most money. The Lead in a deal is the one who promotes, organizes, and drives the deal to a close. Hear all the details in this episode.
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