Category Archives: Venture 101
Tech Crunch gives Bullpen some credit for predicting series A crunch…
It’s nice to get credit for spotting a trend before it happens. That said, this was not really a tough one to predict. With the massive growth of the super angel (seed) funds and flat lining of the series A funds, a crunch was inevitable. I can’t say that me or my co-founders knew WHEN […]
Venture 101: Use Restrictions in NDAs
I often see a willy-nilly attitude in lean ventures towards NDAs, especially when asking investors to sign. Venture firms usually decline to sign. Founders do not seem to understand the reluctance. This may because the founders are too conscious of the non-disclosure restriction, and not conscious enough of the non-use restrictions. The non-use restriction is the […]
Venture 101: Capped Convert Confusion
The venture industry got comfortable with valuation “rules of thumb” in the follow-on rounds using the typical model of Series A, Series B etc. Bullpen plays in the “rational B” follow-on round , and we see both priced seed rounds coming to us as well as unpriced convertible notes. We have been on both sides […]
Venture 101: Participating Preferred
Our bullpen of advisors continued with their Venture School lesson, asking about what we are seeing in valuations: are they rising? Is it a bubble? etc. Sure, we have seen some froth, but mostly coming out of the untamed world of uncapped converts and unchained angels. Most of the deals being referred to us by […]
Venture 101: Uncapped Converts
We have our bullpen at Bullpen – an outstanding group of advisors from companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google who have permission from their companies to come join our meetings every few weeks. We ask one of our companies to come in and present, facing a gauntlet of astute questions from people in the trenches […]
