I recently waked into a pitch meeting for a social networking related business and was surprised by what I saw. I had interacted with the entrepreneur over email – taking a look at the initial business plan and setting up the meeting – but we hadn’t met in person before. In front of me were three guys in suits, each in their late 40′s or early 50′s, with an older Dell laptop and a paper print-out of some product ideas. And as I sat there listening to their pitch I couldn’t help but think about how differently I might have reacted if this team was in their 20′s or 30′s, dressed in full tech/nerd hipster outfits (or at least jeans and sneakers), and whether there is a negative age bias in venture capital. Here were three guys with 20-30 years of business experience, but I was having trouble getting past my expectation of what they were going to look and act like, versus what was in front of me.

An LP of ours once asked a question that dealt with a similar subject (ironically, although we were in our Boulder office and the LP in question was in jeans, my partners and I were all in sport coats, as we always are when presenting to our investors). I can’t remember exactly how he phrased it but it was something like: “When do you guys get to be too old to do this? To relate to the younger entrepreneurs who are starting companies in the investment areas in which you guys focus.” To be quite frank, this question had never actually occurred to me before. Likely because I still think of my self as young and hip (although I am neither). And because I figured that as long as we are passionate about what we’re doing, we’ll relate to entrepreneurs who have that similar passion (some variant of that is how we answered our investor at the time).

But actually it’s true. Certainly there is some amount of age bias in venture. Early stage tech is considered somewhat of a young person’s game. And while I’ve worked with many very experienced entrepreneurs who were and are fantastic, I wonder if the initial pangs of question I felt on entering a room with 3 middle aged guys in suits pitching me their business plan is something that is deeper than a momentary hesitation.

I’d love your thoughts on this.

While there’s been plenty of discussion and debate about whether we’re in some kind of valuation/venture bubble right now for early stage tech, there is one bubble that I’m pretty sure of. I’m seeing more great business ideas right now than I can remember seeing at any time in my 10 year venture career.

We typically see around 1,500 business plans a year at Foundry (we actually see more than that, but this is the approximate number that are relevant to our investment focus). On average we’ll take a meeting with somewhere around 10-15% of these and hear a bit more than what was in the introductory email or initial business plan. And we typically invest in 8 (our Foundry blog does a pretty good job of tracing our investment history and pace if you flip through our old posts). These numbers work for us and for our strategy and part of our operating philosopy is not to deviate significantly from our investment pace (depending on the mix of seed investments this number could go up or down in any given year but overall we’re comfortable at roughly the 6-10 new investments per year pace).

But something isn’t right with the early stage world right now. I’ve said a few times in the last 24 months what a great time it is to start a company and clearly more and more people are believing that because we’re seeing a significant uptick in the number of investment opportunities we see here at Foundry (I’m sure we’ll be well above 2,000 for the year). More importantly, we’re seeing many many really good, interesting ideas. I’m blown away by it. And it’s frustrating, because I can only spend time on so many things and we’re still only going to make 6-10 new investments in any given year. But never before have I had to say “no” to so many businesses that 1) I thought were super interesting; 2) were clearly going to get funded by someone; and 3) in another time/market I’d love to spend more time with.

To be clear, I don’t see anything to suggest that traditional venture math won’t continue to hold true (a good performing venture fund will still see about 1/3 of their investments fail, another 1/3 do only “ok” and 1/3 do better than that – with maybe 5-10% becoming real stars). And, of course, I recognize that part of our job on this side of the table (at least in venture funds with our investment strategy and not one of making 20 or 30 investments a year to spread around) is to make the hard choice of which of a number of great companies really has the chance to be outstanding.

But wow – is it a fun time to be in venture! And perhaps even more so, a fun time to be an entrepreneur…

You already know the about the state of the venture capital industry in 2009: venture investing down (32%), exits down (14%; slowest exit year for VC backed companies since 1995), fundraising down (56%), IPO’s almost non-existent (8 venture backed IPOs in 2009). It’s a bleak picture for the industry overall, even if there’s a group of us that continue to believe this is a great market in which to be investing (and it clearly is). These stats got me thinking about the future of the venture industry and I thought I’d offer up some thoughts on where we might be headed.

First, let me frame the conversation by stating that I agree with Fred Wilson’s assumption that somewhere around $15Bn is the right “steady state” investment pace for the venture industry as an asset class. At this investment level the return profile of the industry maps to a reasonable expectation of inputs and outputs (the money invested in start-ups as compared to the exit activity). By that measure, we actually still have a ways to go to reach that equilibrium in the venture markets.

According to VentureSource, $21Bn was invested by the venture capital asset class in 2009, and this amount was the lowest investment total in the 10 years of data that I had access to. The system is still a little bit out of equilibrium, however, as this is a far greater total than the amount of capital raised by venture firms in 2009 ($12Bn). In fact looking back at the past five years $14Bn more has been invested by firms than has been raised. While presumably this will lead (eventually) to fewer dollars invested, the VC fundraising average for the past 5 years has been almost $25Bn, suggesting that we still have a ways to go to get to Fred’s $15Bn bogy. 

What’s even more interesting to me is to consider the nature of this fundraising and the ramifications it has on the industry as a whole. I believe what we’re going to see in the venture industry is a bifurcation of fundraising– basically a barbell on the graph of fund sizes. Large, well known, multi-sector and multi-stage “mega-funds” will be able to raise $750MM or greater at one end of the scale, and smaller, more focused funds will raise $250MM or less on the other end – with a relatively small number of funds in the middle.

Looking at the 2009 fundraising data shows that this trend is already taking shape, three well known funds in the former category closed on over $3Bn in commitments

– NEA ($1.24Bn), Norwest ($1.2Bn) and Khosla Ventures ($800MM). At the bottom end of the scale there were numerous funds that raised money in the $25MM – $250MM range).  And while there were certainly a few funds raised in the middle (notably Greylock, Matrix, DCM, CRV and Andressen Horowitz) my hypothesis is that fundraising in this size range will diminish over time as LPs move their money either to a smaller number of diversified, extremely large funds or the larger number of smaller, more focused funds (Foundry is clearly in the latter category).

Thoughts?

This is a cross post from the VCIR blog. We recently put together an analysis of companies that have presented at VCIR over the last 10 years. And the numbers are pretty impressive – reinforcing why the conference is such a great opportunity to see great companies from around the rocky mountain region. For more information on the conference itself, including how to register, visit the VCIR Winter website.

VCIR By the Numbers:

Presenting companies: 212

Companies who raised additional funding after their VCIR appearance: 127

Total funding raised by these companies (only includes amounts raised after their VCIR presentations): $2.5 Billion

Presenting companies acquired: 29

Total acquisition value (includes announced values for 19 of the 29 transactions): $4.4 Billion

The clear take-away, of course, is that VCIR is an event that showcases outstanding companies from around the Rocky Mountain region. Hope to see you there.

In the latest lob into the morass that has become somewhat of a sport amongst journalists and those that follow the venture capital industry, Carl Schramm and Harold Bradley write in BusinessWeek about “How Venture Capital Lost Its Way”. The evidence? Venture capital funding is down – from an “astonishing” 1.1% of US GDP in 2000; and in the 3rd quarter of 2009 down 33% from the same period a year earlier. To add to Schramm and Bradley’s collective horror, “two areas crucial to American progress cry out for capital-intensive investment: clean energy technology and biotech. And the VC industry isn’t delivering it. (Info tech, which by now requires few capital investments, still accounts for the lion’s share of those shrinking VC investments)” 

While I strongly believe that the venture capital model is (and should be) changing, this kind of journalism, drawn on incorrect interpretations of the data serve only to sensationalize and add little to the real debate on venture capital. It poorly sets up the 2nd half of their article that talks about the VC funding model (more on that in a post later this week). Here’s my view:

Is there a problem with the current market for VC funding?

Comparing anything about Venture Capital to the markets of 1999 and 2000 is a fools errand. Without question, the venture markets (and the markets in general) were completely overblown in that time period. There were too many venture firms and too many companies getting funded. While this might have been good for some VCs that managed to cash in on the bubble (I, alas, was not one of them – my venture career started in the very dark days of late 2001) it was clearly bad for the industry as a whole (none of the participants benefit when an industry goes through a bubble and burst cycle such as the one that venture capital and technology did during that time period – and we’ve been struggling to “normalize” the industry ever since). I’d argue forcefully that we’re still searching for the optimum level of venture capital funding. Schramm and Bradley seem to be relying on a “less = bad” analysis of the funding markets and are completely ignoring the question of equilibrium (whether we’ve reached one, what the right level of funding should be, etc). Markets function optimally when there is balance and while this balance in private markets such as venture can be illusive, we’re much closer to that balance now than we have been at any other time that I’ve been a venture capitalist (and certainly much more so than in 2000).

Are VCs falling short in their funding of CleanTech and Life Science and favoring IT?

Schramm and Bradley site the PriceWaterhouseCoopers study on 3rd Quarter 2009 investing to back up their assertions. Yet the study contains data that completely contradict a number of their key points. In fact event the title of the PWC press release that announced the 3rd Quarter funding results contradicts the conclusions that Schramm and Bradley draw from it: “Venture capital investment increase in Q3 2009 driven by clean technology sector, according to the MoneyTree Report” (I’ve added the italics). The very first paragraph of the release states in part: “The increase in dollars invested was driven by several large rounds in the Clean Technology sector, one of which is the ninth largest deal since 1995.  The Life Sciences sector (biotechnology and medical device industries combined) also had a solid quarter relative to other industry sectors, leaving Software as the third highest investment sector, a notable decline in industry ranking.“ I won’t quote it here to limit the length of this post, but if you click over to the press release take a look at the 3rd paragraph which is entirely focused on the shift of capital from IT to CleanTech and Life Sciences.  Also missing from the Schramm and Bradley article was that the 3rd Quarter funding totals were actually up from the 2nd Quarter (their article implies that venture funding is falling off a cliff – clearly not the case).

Is there still a market for IT investing?

As an IT investor, of course my answer is going to be a resounding “yes"!” But don’t take my word for it – just look around you at the amazing pace of continued innovation in technology and the Internet. From new ways to communicate (Twitter, Facebook), to new ways to advertise your business (Google, AdMob, etc, etc) to new ways to play games with your friends (Zynga), there’s still plenty of innovation going on in information technology.

What’s sad is that there’s a real debate to be had on the future of venture capital and the changing VC model (see my partner Jason’s take on that subject here). If we drop the pretence that “VC is Dead” perhaps we’ll finally get to the interesting part of the conversation…

Shout-out to Sequoia for featuring Omar Hamoui on their home page today (he’s the CEO of AdMob which was acquired by Google today for $750M). Well done!

I was recently talking to someone about an issue in one of their portfolio companies (this was not a Foundry or Mobius company). The issue was pretty serious (it related to safety standards at the company that were being ignored and a resulting accident at the business) and the person relating this story was (understandably) pretty worked up and asking me what I thought they should do.  My advice?

I can’t say that I come by this naturally (I can be pretty excitable) or that I was a particularly good practitioner of my own advice earlier in my venture career, but I’ve managed to reign myself in and strongly believe that the priority in any interaction is simply to not panic or over-react. Every situation is better viewed from a calmer perspective and without question your judgment is more solid and reliable when you’re thinking with a clear head. It’s not just that things are often not as bad as they seem (in the example above I think they were actually worse than they originally appeared) or that everything will eventually work itself out (sometimes it doesn’t) but rather that with a little perspective and by giving yourself enough time to assess the situation and consider your options you’re almost always going to make a better decision.

I recently participated in a Thomson Reuters webinar entitled "Boosting Returns with Web 2.0 Technology". The seminar was targeted to VC and Private Equity professionals and focused on how investment firms can use social media in managing their investment business. 

I was reminded of the mew media technology bubble that I live in a few months ago when I spoke on a similar topic at the PEI Investor Relations and Communications Forum. When I asked the crowd of about 150 people how many were on Twitter and a single hand went up I realized that I had my work cut out for me (I might have guessed that that when I walked into the room and was the only person wearing jeans, but that’s another story)…

Because of my experience at the PEI forum (realizing that most VC/PE professionals are still just beginning to understand social media and how they might use it for promoting themselves or their firm) I focused my presentation for the Thomson Reuters webinar on the basics of social media (and reinforcing that there are a handful of firms – primarily early stage VC firms – that are active users of the technology). I highlighted how we’ve used social media at Foundry Group and specifically the benefits we’ve gotten out of being extremely public about our investment themes, our reasons for investing in specific companies, etc (see the slide that highlights the Lijit search tag cloud on our blog). The builds in the deck don’t come through SlideShare, so some of the slides are busier (or more confusing) than they were when built up correctly, but you’ll get the idea. One of my co-presenters, David Teten of Teten Advisors has a post up about the seminar as well (along with a link to his slides).

Dan Primack sited a study on PE Hub today that found that over 50% of VC professionals believe that the VC industry is “broken”.  My response:

WHO CARES?

Seriously. It seems like the venture industry these days spends more time lamenting its future than actually working towards a future that’s different.  And they couldn’t be more short term in their perspective.  VC sentiment has started to become like consumer sentiment – something that moves on a monthly basis. Are we forgetting that our business is about spotting long term trends and funding business cycles that are measured in years, not months?!? 

It’s possible I’m simply in the wrong demographic (almost 85% of the respondents were east- or west-coast VCs), the wrong fund stage (we raised capital in late 2007 and as a result are still in our active investment phase), have the wrong fears (in the “very worried” category “Exit Markets” was a 2x favorite over all other choices – but good companies continue to find liquidity), or am simply in the wrong mindset (I think now is a great time to start a business and an equally great time to be an early stage investor). 

My partner Jason has a thoughtful response to the study (as you might imagine he shares my optimistic view) in which he points out a few key reasons why now is a great time to be an investor (you can read the full article here):

• Its never been cheaper to start a business
• There are a ton of entrepreneurs around working on interesting projects
• Many of these entrepreneurs have been around the block a few times
• The venture markets aren’t dependent on the credit markets, etc.
• What we thought/hoped would happen 10 years ago has – the world of technology is larger and more lucrative than we even imagined

I’m done talking/listening about how the venture model is broken. If that’s how you feel and you’re in venture, perhaps you should find a new job.

There’s a great post up on the NYT Bits Blog that asks “Do Young Venture Capitalists Have an Advantage?”  While established (i.e., older) venture capitalists have more name recognition and therefore theoretically access to better deal flow, younger VCs are closer to the technology and have more in common with today’s set of technology entrepreneurs – according to the article – which makes them have an advantage in today’s venture market.

This is a great question and one that I think about a lot as I consider ways to be a better venture capitalist myself. In fact, one of the reasons I started this blog was to shed light on the progress of an individual VC as I rose in the business. As part of this I try to think introspectively about what makes a great venture capitalist and how one hones these skills. Seeing the post on the NYT blog seems like a great opportunity to dive into this question again. And the Times has it wrong in my view – they are playing off of a stereotype which may have some general applicability but misplaces the attribute.

Age is not the defining attribute of a good (or bad) venture capitalist – it’s drive. And while there’s some correlation between being a younger VC (which in our business at the partner level is generally late-30’s through mid-40’s) it’s just not the differentiator. In my view all great VCs have drive. And while having drive won’t make you a great VC, not having it will almost certainly leave you behind. I think the Times is mistaking age for this hunger to work, learn and stay current on technology that characterizes the drive of great VCs. It’s true that many people who have been in the venture business for a while lack this drive and it’s also true that many younger VCs that I know have an incredible desire to work hard and succeed but there are plenty of “experienced” VCs that have been at it for 15 years that still wake up every morning charged up for their day and spend their weeks crisscrossing the country in search of new ideas (my partner Brad comes to mind – he’s by no means “older” at only 43, but he has been in the VC business for a long time and without question has no lack of drive or work ethic). 

I may be over-generalizing but in my world view there are Old School VCs and New School VCs.  Old School VCs are partners/firms that prefer to sit back in their offices, have entrepreneurs come to them, invest only in their back yard and show up at monthly board meetings to offer their wisdom. New School VCs are out in the technology community, seek out new trends and companies, engage with the tech ecosystem (both start-ups and more established companies), invest where their investment focus takes them, aren’t afraid to travel and generally work significantly harder than the stereotype of a venture capitalist. The former aren’t necessarily old, they’re just old school. Likewise the latter aren’t necessarily young, they just aren’t resting on their laurels (or don’t have them yet).

When I think about what we’re trying to accomplish at Foundry Group (and what my friends at similar firms like USV, Spark, True, HW12, etc.) are trying to accomplish I don’t define our style of investing and managing our firm based of our ages. I think about how much my partners and I enjoy our work, how much we care about being successful and how hard we’re willing to work to be so. That drive is not a trait of a young or old venture capitalist – that the trait of successful venture capitalists.