Fred Wilson Quotes

Generally, you want to raise capital either when you have to or when it's really easy. If the company desperately needs money, and they can't figure out any other way, then they need to raise money. Or if someone's offering you easy money on good terms, you should take it because you can use it for good things.

Raise as little as you can to get you to something that you can show - plus maybe a quarter or two so you have a little bit of cushion - and then raise some more money. Raise as little - not as much - as you can because that's the most expensive equity you're going to sell.

We are seeing a lot of cases where the startups are writing the term sheet, dictating the terms, selling common stock instead of preferred stock, where they don't give the investor veto rights or board seat or privileges, and they are really asking the investor -- why should I take your money when there is other money available.

You go public because you want access to capital in the form of debt and equity.

Beware angel investors: they can be disruptive.

If you want to invest in early-stage technologies, putting a timeframe on it does behold you to Silicon Valley economics. You've got a certain time period where you have to make the money. And you have to invest that money whether you find good companies or not.

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.

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

We invite American companies looking to raise capital to list on the Bahrain Stock Exchange. The region has a liquidity oversupply approximating $1 trillion and this pool of capital can be tapped into by creative American companies. The next Facebook may very well get funded on the BSE.

In order to access private capital, you have to provide competitive return on investment. In order to give competitive returns to investors, you've got to operate on a profitable basis and be thinking of yourself as a business.

Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.

With tech startups, it's all loose-goosie. You raise money as you go, often from friends, family and investors.

Startups are constantly raising money, sometimes before they have even hired a lawyer.

I would say raising capital is one of the weakest things for most entrepreneurs.

When you're fundraising for a venture fund, you're supposed to not talk.

Venture capital is debt. People don't understand that.

As a CEO, I had significant exposure to private equity, enough that I had in no way bought into the media's caricature: rapacious privateers who destroy companies.

I wish I had invested in the series A of Snapchat and Uber.

The question for Dropbox is whether, when they run out of private sources for funding, they will be able to maintain that valuation when they go to public sources for funding and their valuation is set on the public markets.

In my experience, there are only two valid reasons to take a company public: access to growth capital and investor fatigue.

I've had two IPOs: with Etsy in 2015 and Cloudera in 2016. There have also been a ton of trade sales in my portfolio.

When I'm raising money, this fundraising, I'm thinking about the next fundraising. I'm thinking how I'm set up for it.

You have to raise $100 million, probably, to be serious.

If you go to a venture firm, what you're doing is you're buying money from them in exchange for equity. They have a commodity that they're selling and they have to differentiate themselves.

You, as an entrepreneur, must make sure the postmoney valuation is a number you can obtain. You don't want too high of a valuation.