The Importance of Staying Lean in the Early Days

With so much cash flowing during the last 24 months, Ed Sim says it was easy to hire too fast, but onboarding new folks, getting them up to speed on the codebase, and managing internal communications ...

The Benefits of Joining an Emerging VC Fund

Thinking about joining an emerging VC fund? Nicole DeTommaso of Harlem Capital helpfully breaks down the *why* in this great thread....

How and Why VCs Recycle Management Fees

Hustle Fund's Elizabeth Yin takes on how and why VCs recycle management fees in this super helpful Tweet thread....

On VC Scout Programs

The easiest way to work with and for VC funds is as a scout, getting paid for sourcing investments. But how do you do that? Here's how VCs structure scout programs: how much they pay, carry structure,...

6 Simple Principles To Embrace When Building A New Fund

While there’s no established playbook for building a new fund, there *are* some principles that hold value across the board. Miruna Girtu of Syndicate Room shares the principles to embrace while bui...

VC Exit Model

This VC exit model from Nicole DeTommaso is extremely helpful. It allows investors to see their exit potential at different check sizes. Give it a whirl!...

“Should I Start A Fund?”

Ready to go it alone as a venture investor? There is much to consider! Ryan Hoover walks through the distinct pros and cons of various fund structures in this very helpful Tweet thread....

Rolling Funds on AngelList Are The Best Way For Accredited Individual Investors to Start Investing in Venture Capital Funds

Rolling funds can be a great way to dip your toes into VC waters. And "the future of VC is being written by emerging managers and the innovations that enable small individual investors to invest in th...

How VC Firms Decide: Considerations On Decision-Making Structures

Who decides what deals get done? A VC firm's decision-making process is a critical component of it's overall governance. Here are some different models to consider, courtesy of Blue Future Partners....

What is the Best CRM and Marketing Tech Platform for a New Venture Capital Fund?

What's the best CRM and martech platform for a new VC fund? David Teten walks us through his thought process in selecting his preferred tool for fund communications....

How LP Protections Play Out in First-Time Funds’ LPAs

From bad leaver clauses to provisions on launching successor funds, protections are in place for investors backing first-time funds. Here's how LP protections are making their way into LPAs....

An Emerging Manager’s Not-So-Secret Superpower

A thoughtful choice of foundational software and services can enable first-time investors to invest and operate like the full VC team of yesteryear. More on "an emerging manager’s not-so-secret supe...

Why every first-time fund manager needs a fund administrator

Becoming an institutional VC means knowing when to selectively outsource complexity. Here's "why every first-time fund manager needs a fund administrator."...

Structural Problems Of Incentive Alignment In VC

Incentive alignment is *fundamental* to VC corporate governance, and also crucial for a firm's long-term success. Here's where misalignments can arise between GPs + LPs, and thoughts on how to best av...

Multi-Stage Portfolio Construction Tool

Monte Carlo simulations, power law curves, valuation step-ups, and more... This fantastic interactive modeling tool from Kauffman Fellows lets you test out various multi-stage VC portfolio constructio...

The 2021 VC Tech Stack

"What's the best tech stack for VCs?" It's a question that we all ask ourselves routinely. Here's some crowdsourced insight, courtesy of Miguel Pinho of Seedcamp....

Top 10 Learnings from an Emerging Manager Program

In this very popular Tweet thread, Paige Finn Doherty shares her key learnings from Sutton Capital's Emerging Manager program....

Avoiding Venture Capital Fund Administration Headaches

For venture investors, fund administration and reporting is no joke. Luckily, Elizabeth Kraus of Mergelane is willing to share "some of the easily avoidable administrative mistakes I’ve made over my...

Capital Gains Taxes May Be Coming, But Probably Not For Emerging Managers & LPs

There has been lots of chatter lately regarding the QSBS exemption in Biden's tax plan and what the downstream effects on early-stage investing might be. Here's the explainer you need to understand th...

Fund Recycling Moves the Needle for Both LPs and GPs. Here’s How.

For as powerful of a mechanism as fund recycling can be, we believe it is an under discussed strategy in venture investing. It can transform a good fund into a great fund, and a great fund into an ev...

Venture Fund Portfolio Construction Tool

This interactive tool from Kauffman Fellows explores venture portfolio construction and the various trade off implications a GP must consider. It enables you to construct your own portfolio to underst...

Building the “YC for Fund Managers” and Tips for Launching a Firm

As the Emerging Manager world continues to grow, so does the importance of providing these managers with key education, resources, and community. Enter Oper8r, founded by Welly Sculley and Winter ...

LPA Terms for Emerging Fund Managers

Raising a venture capital fund is one of the hardest jobs a VC can do. Just like running for public office or enlisting in special forces, it takes an unusual amount of hard work. But even hard work w...

A Framework for Venture Capital Fund Law

Venture capital fund law is a complex system of rules, regulations, and exemptions. But once you get the principles down, it’s not that difficult to understand the law....

Carta’s definitive guide to the LPA

So, you’ve decided to launch a new venture capital fund. You’ve got an investment strategy, a management team, advisers, deal flow, and some first close investors lined up who love your ...

Understanding Portfolio Construction

One thing that emerging managers are often tasked with is building a fund model. LPs often ask for a fund model because it forces a manager to think through portfolio construction including fund size,...

Discussing Portfolio Construction with LPs: The Surface, the Math, the Execution

Portfolio Construction is one of the most complex and underestimated aspects in Venture Capital. It is complex for three reasons:...

Liquidity Tools for Emerging VC Managers

We deconstruct the opportunities to provide liquidity to micro VCs and emerging managers. Our analysis explores two questions......

The VC Tech Stack: Tools for your investor soul

As everything these days seems to move online, it may be a good moment also for investors to sit back and re-evaluate the ways they run their businesses....

Choosing a Venture Capital Fund Administrator

With MergeLane’s new fund and the growth of our portfolio, we’re improving our fund administration processes and considering a few different solutions. Through this process, I’ve realized that I...

VC Funds 101: Understanding Venture Fund Structures, Team Compensation, Fund Metrics and Reporting

Managing a venture capital firm has many similarities to managing a startup. Just like startup founders, VC firms’ founders pitch investors and raise money continuously. Carry Pools are equivalent t...

Micro VC Allocation Models

We’re always curious to see how rounds come together when there is limited capacity for both new investors and existing investor pro-rata. For the most part, there is supposed to be one core investo...

Going from a proof of concept fund to an “institutional” venture fund

Over the past several years, we’ve spent considerable time studying and writing about the rapidly evolving emerging manager venture landscape. As illustrated by the chart below (data courtesy of ...