Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round Capital, more seed or A round than angel), Scot Sangster (with OrganicStartup and [...] ...Tags: This is part of my ongoing series Pitching a VC. Last Tags: Pitching VCs Start-up Advic

Last night I attended a DealMaker Media (whom I love because they always host such great discussions) panel on raising angel money moderated by Dan Gould and with panelists Rob Hayes (First Round Capital, more seed or A round than angel), Scot Sangster (with OrganicStartup and the best spokesperson for Tech Coast Angels that I have met to date), Tom McInerney (TGM) and Jarl Mohn (who invests on his own “account” and whose track record is truly humbling). recently wrote a post on angel financing covering the topic of convertible notes but I realized

few years ago it became fashionable for large VC’s to do seed funding.  8221;  And I think this line of thinking has started to become conventional wisdom as outlined in Chris Dixon’s excellent blog post saying that you need to be careful raising seed money from a large VC fund . But I’m no longer an entrepreneur – I’m a VC at a $200 million fund called GRP Ventures , the largest active fund in Southern California.  This is part of my ongoing series about Raising Venture Capital . This posting was inspired by an email from Rajat Suri

Last week's angel investment report by the Angel Capital Association reported that investments by angel investors dropped nine percent in 2008, with a hefty percentage of angel investors--40 percent--expecting this year will be a down year. However, a quick check of local, Southern California angel investors finds that although angel investment is down, investors are still investing--albeit much more selectively. "Capital Capital efficient companies offering very competitive terms are still getting funded," says Al Schneider of the Tech Coast Angels , although it appears the group is much more sensitive about how it is investing in deals.

Bob is a Director and long-time member of the Pasadena Angels, has been investing in early stage companies for 5 years, and has been held numerous “C” level positions at private and publicly traded companies. As someone looking for funding, lay out your case as to why your company will be bought for $5m in 5 years (in the above example).  If the company is going to need Following on the heals of last week’s post from Andrea Belz, we have another guest blogger, Bob Aholt. Bob also teaches graduate level finance courses at Antioch University.   By Bob Aholt

Last week, I was on a panel with other investors discussing the “do’s� and “don’ts� of angel and venture capital investing some one from the audience fired a series of intriguing compounded questions � why are the VC’s so illusive?, This difference of view causes so many deals to stall and never get funded. They are, however, why don’t they have all their information available? Why don’t they disclose how they come up with their valuations?

Entrepreneurs spend a lot of time researching their market and customers.  But, when it comes to raising money, they tend to approach anyone with a heartbeat!   The problem with this approach is that a large majority of the investors you pitch are simply not appropriate for what you are doing or where you are as a company.  So, any time you spend on them is wasted. 

So why is Funding Season over for the rest of the year?  I’m betting these processes started much earlier and his firm was just finalizing what had been previously agreed during Funding Season.  One carve out to the “Funding Season” rule – if you’re raising money from angels or small VCs (2-3 partners) maybe you can get something done as you don’t have the same scheduling conflicts. This is part of my series on Raising Venture Capital . I’m sure I’ll spark the ire of some VC’s for saying so, but there is certainly

Sid Mohasseb, one of the Tech Coast Angels, just emailed out about a new “entrepreneur happy hour” the group is running in Orange County, which got me thinking about how entrepreneurs should (or shouldn’t) approach angel and venture investors. I’m sure there are many opinions out there, but based on my time working with angels and investors, here’s some of my random advice for would-be entrepreneurs going to the event (or similar ones): 1. Don’t start your conversation telling them the terms of your fundraising effort.

One of the lines in the article pretty much sums up one of the hardest things for Angel investors to do and something that happens on a regular basis: “I have had to release guys I loved, and keep players I didn’t necessarily care for.” In the world of startup investing, Angels invariably come across a lot of great entrepreneurs that they get to know on a personal level and think the world of. A few years ago, Joe Torre (when still managing the Yankees) wrote an article for Business Week ( Joe Torre on Winning ) that’s well worth reading. Unfortunately they sometimes have