Early stage technology investing is an art, not a science. It is difficult to list explicit criteria, metrics and threshold, but here are a few insights:
- Religious adherence to the “Three Asses Rule”
- Invest in 60 to 70 seed stage startups per fund
- Average initial investment of $400K, ranging from $250K to $750K, with selective follow-on reserves
- Initial ownership target of 5% (10% if we lead)
- Ability to lead, co-lead or follow other firms or angel syndicates
- Consumer Internet focus with a great flexibility to opportunistically enter new sectors
- Geographic focus in Silicon Valley, New York and Boulder – but open to outside opportunities if we have a strong relationship with a local lead
- Investments characterize by capital efficiency, great teams, differentiated ideas and flexibility on “how big it can become”
- Partner with the best micro-vc and traditional firms in Silicon Valley and the East Coast, and a large network of high quality, supportive individual investors
- A degree of user validation and testing via an advanced prototype or an alpha version; we rarely invest at concept stage, unless we have worked with the team in the past