The Kauffman Foundation is a non-profit institution devoted to education in entrepreneurship. In 2012, the foundation published a white paper “We Have Met the Enemy...and He is Us”. Upon analyzing two decades of investment performance across 96 VC funds, the…
It’s ironic: for an industry that regularly invests in the bleeding edge of modern technology, venture capital firms find themselves lacking the tools necessary to analyze their own portfolios. Portfolio analytics—the accurate collection and streamlined interpretation of metrics at the…
Thinking big is easy. Preparing for “big”? Not so much. The best VCs are always planning for the future, considering every angle. So how do good VCs manage to weigh every option and prepare for any eventuality? It’s simple: scenario…
Every new venture starts with a dream. If you are a budding entrepreneur whose dream it is to start an innovative company, the road to making that dream a reality is loaded with twists and turns. Like signposts on a…
Nothing jeopardizes the stability of your growing company like having the IRS down your throat. But if your company doesn’t comply with Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code, that's exactly where they'll be. The IRS doesn't mess around when…
A capitalization table (“cap table” for short) is a precise record of who owns a piece of a corporation and how big each piece is. In other words, it discloses the total market value of a company and how its…
You’ve just recruited the first executive for your startup: a hotshot CIO. Naturally, you couldn’t offer her a big salary, but she’ll be the first recruit to receive company stock options. You had been thinking about using stock options and…
In our new series, Research Recap, we’re giving you the need-to-knows from the mountain of dense scholarly articles and industry research surrounding venture capital. The kind of stuff no one wants to read, even if they have the time. Today,…
Finding the right cap table software is a big deal for a startup company. Switching to the right software is a big deal in established private companies. Cap tables get complex, fast. Moving complex data around is a major pain.…
If you’re already familiar with IRC 409A, you probably know that safe harbor 409A valuations are important. But do you know how important they are? Let’s find out. We’ll dive into the details of what a safe harbor 409A valuation…
