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Ask The VC

Ask The VC

GREAT New Blog – IP Law for StartupsFebruary 2

Today, I learned that former classmate of mine at the University of Michigan has started a blog for startups dealing with intellectual property issues.

Jill Bowman is a great person and her blog is not only informative, but is also written in her voice, not legalese.  (Her husband says it’s too “girly” but I totally disagree). 

Jill promises to dish on IP “train wrecks” (her words) that she’s seen over the past decade and hopefully her wisdom can save some folks future headaches.

She also promises to talk about costs savings in IP controversies and expose how some big firms are ripping off their clients. 

Her first post is Ten Smart Reasons to Learn About IP Law.  Jill, welcome to the blogosphere.  We are happy to have you. 

Is An Inside Round Good or Bad?December 30 2009

Bijan Sabet has today’s Great VC Post titled The Inside Round.  In it, he talks about the pros and cons of an inside round which he defines as:

“There are times where a follow on financing does not include a new VC firm. The new round is financed by the current investors. This is known as an “inside round”.”

He also summarizes the historical conventional wisdom:

“It used to be the case that an inside round often meant something was wrong. It meant the company was unable to raise money with a new outside lead investor due poor operating performance, team, market, whatever.

And sometimes that is a correct read on the situation.

But I believe that is no longer universally true.”

I strongly agree with Bijan.  At Foundry Group, we are very comfortable with doing inside rounds and describe ourselves as being syndication agnostic.  It’s definitely worth wandering over to Bijan’s blog and reading more on this thoughts about The Inside Round.

Looking for Angel Investors for a High Tech Venture?December 22 2009

Venture Hacks has a great list of high quality angel and seed investors.  I was recently added to the angel list (there goes the neighborhood) and join an active crew of angel and seed stage VC investors that currently includes Rob Go, Ariel Poler, Aaron Patzer, Jason Calacanis, Ho Nam, Georges Harik, Rob Lord, Andy Weissman, Bryce Roberts, Matt Mullenweg, Satish Dharmaraj, Brian Norgard, Mike Hirshland, Roger Ehrenberg, Peter Chane, Josh Felser, Mark Suster,

A VC on Pitching VC’sDecember 14 2009

Today’s great blog post – titled A VC’s Advice On How To Pitch VCs - is from Raj Kapoor at Mayfield Fund and is guest posted on TechCrunch.

Things To Consider About Who You Should Take VC Money FromDecember 5 2009

Roger Ehrenberg has today’s best VC post titled Thoughts on Taking Venture Money.  It is a long one, but worth reading slowly as an add-on to Chris Dixon’s post Does a VC’s brand matter?