The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect; however, very few of them are actually obvious when you make them.
Finance is critical. If sufficient investment is made in infrastructure and venture capital is made available, there will be a big improvement in the situation.
I delivered lectures, and I was also a consultant for international companies in finance, both private equity and big venture capital funds.
Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.
As a lot of the venture capital world seems to be shifting away from consumer, we want to make sure that consumer entrepreneurs know there's still money available.
I believe Twitter, right now, is just finishing the venture capital phase, getting into a maturity level.
A good portfolio manager knows which companies to keep and which ones to let go. Many a GP has struggled with portfolio companies that cannot meet their value-creation milestones, or raise additional follow-on rounds of capital, or generate target re...
There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States.
I try getting in front of as many opportunities as possible, but in the late '90s, I had no idea that I'd end up being CFO of a technology company. I'd no idea what venture capital was.
If your business had no risk, you could go get a bank loan and call it a day. VCs like risks - without them, venture capital wouldn't exist. But they need to be risks that VCs are good at assessing and managing.
Prior to SunRun, I was headed toward a career in venture capital and then realized I wanted to apply my knowledge of finance more directly to helping change the world.
Accounting rules give financial institutions flexibility about when they choose to recognize venture capital profits.
Solyndra's failure isn't a reason for the government to give up on alternative energy, any more than the failure of Pets.com during the Internet bubble means that venture capital should steer clear of tech projects.
All markets have boom and bust cycles, and I think venture capital market has even more exaggerated boom and bust cycles.
I'll say this: I can't think of one instance in my 20 years in venture capital in which I have wanted to sell a company before the entrepreneur.
Venture capital today is clustered in just a few locations - Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, and D.C. It's far from efficiently distributed and accessible.
When you - when you - and this is still going on today - are making your money by pushing paper around, when you should be making your money by investing venture capital in various job-creating things, that makes it much harder to recover.
I've probably done more venture capital deals and expansion financings than I have done private equity deals. But both are the same. Private equity companies have also built jobs.
Whatever the potential pitfalls, banks are increasingly enthusiastic about venture capital, particularly in new companies with strong prospects in fields like health care and technology.
There are lots of ways to make money in venture capital, and there are even more ways to be mediocre. The industry has too much money and too many smart people chasing too few great entrepreneurs.
Unfortunately, 'climate' has become a dirty word - obviously in politics, but even to some degree in my world, in venture capital. People hesitate if they see something that's purported to be green. That's not a reason to invest for many people.
