Blog

Perspectives on entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital from K9 Ventures.

Tag Archives: venture capital

State of Venture in Fall 2023

Things feel s-l-o-w in the venture ecosystem. Some craziness around AI, but everything else is “Zootopia DMV slow slow.”

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The First Close Podcast w/Manu Kumar

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What is the biggest enemy of a startup?

In 1998–1999, when I was running my first company, one of my investors, the late Don Jones, came by to visit us at the office. Don was totally a people person and just an all around great person to talk to. In fact, I can hear the intonation of his voice in my head as […]

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Investors should pay their own legal expenses

Legal by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images There, I said it; right there in the title of the blog post. And I’ll repeat it again: Investors should pay their own legal expenses. I’ve never understood why the norm for someone putting money into a company comes with the company bearing the cost of the legal […]

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The Pre-Seed FAQ

One of the people I respect the most in the VC/PE media ecosystem is Dan Primack. I’ve been an avid reader of Dan’s Term Sheet while he was at Fortune, and now Pro Rata at Axios. His writings and knowledge of the inner workings of the VC/PE ecosystem is impressive, and I have learned a […]

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Announcing K9 Ventures III, L.P. – A $42M technology-focused Pre-Seed fund

  42: The Answer to the ultimate fund size? Those of you who have read or watched the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are aware of the pop culture meme around the number 42. Yes, 42: The answer to life, the Universe, and everything. For anyone who hasn’t seen the movie, here’s a clip courtesy […]

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It’s Not Easy applied to Venture Capital

Note: If you’re a founder, stop reading this post now. Your job is to build your company and listening to VCs pontificate about their industry doesn’t do you any good. If you build a good company, investors will hunt you down. If you don’t, no amount of reading this stuff will help you get funded. […]

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#PeakVC

  Earlier today I tweeted: Calling #PeakVC. Right here, right now. Done. — Manu Kumar (@ManuKumar) October 13, 2015 But I realized shortly after tweeting this that there is so much nuance packed into that one term #PeakVC that it requires a lot more than 140 characters. So here are some of the things I […]

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The Seeds Have Changed: An Epilogue

  Note: This is a long post and it’s based on reflecting on a couple of years of observations in the venture industry. It’s a work-in-progress and I expect to update (last update 10 June) and refine the content, especially in the next week as I prepare for a talk I’m giving at the PreMoney […]

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The New Venture Landscape

In May 2011, I wrote the post: Investor Nomenclature and the Venture Spiral. That post got a lot of attention because back then all the buzz was about “Super Angels.” The venture landscape was evolving and had reached a point where Super Angels were an important part of the ecosystem. Well, now in 2014, almost 3 […]

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Announcing K9 Ventures II – A $40M technology-focused micro-VC fund

I am pleased to announce the formation of K9 Ventures II, L.P. – A $40M technology-focused micro-VC fund. This new $40M fund is backed by several high quality institutional limited partners including university endowments, foundations, family offices and fund of funds and key individuals.

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The Curse of Over-Capitalization

For VCs money is a commodity. VCs also operate in a limited time window. Now, combine those two motivations that venture investors have: 1) ownership, 2) quick growth, and what do you get? You get a situation whether investors are incentivized to put in more money into a company, not only to buy more equity, but also to fund the quick growth. In fact, it becomes a vicious circle. First, a company may get encouraged to raise more money that it really needs, just so that the venture fund can get to it’s desired level of ownership. Then the same company gets encouraged to spend that money to accelerate and to grow quickly, which in turn means it runs out of that money more quickly, and then needs to raise even more money.

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‘Capital Efficiency’ doesn’t exist

“There is no such thing as a capital efficient company (at least in Silicon Valley). There are only two types of companies — those that attract capital, and those than don’t. And you obviously want to be the former.”

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Investor Nomenclature and the Venture Spiral

In the venture industry, the only way for a venture fund to grow, is to move upstream and start managing a bigger pot of money. It is the natural evolution of the venture business and funds. This is what has happened with a lot of the institutional funds over the past decade. This gradual upstream movement in the venture industry, is what I refer to as the Venture Spiral.

The angels of today, will become the super angels of tomorrow. The super angels of today will be the uVCs of tomorrow, and the uVCs of today, will become the early stage venture capitalists. The institutional venture funds will morph into what we used to call growth funds.

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