Session I - Seed Accelerators:

“Start-up Scourge or Super-charger?”

Monday July 29, 2013

General Assembly Seminar

Part of the “Show me the $$$$!” GA event series:

Insider perspective on fundraising and entrepreneurship

Tom Wisniewski

RosePaul Investments

Thanks to all who participated at the event last night @ GA NYC and a special thanks to our guest speakers:

Kamran Ansari, Greycroft Partners;

Brian Cohen, New York Angels ;

Charlie Kemper, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator;

Shai Goldman, 500 Startups;

Fred Cook, Moveline (TechStars Alum);

Jonathon Ende, SeamlessDocs (ERA Alum);

Heather Marie, 72Lux (500 Startups Alum)

-TW (Thomas@rosepaul.com)

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Agenda

I. Kick-off and Introduction

II. Panel with Accelerators (ERA, 500 Start-ups)

III. Panel with Investors (Greycroft, NY Angels)

IV. [Brief Networking Break]

V. Panel with Founders (Moveline, 72Lux, SeamlessDocs)

VI. More Networking/ Beverages………

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I. Kick-Off and Introduction

Show me the $$$$! Series: An Insider’s Guide.

Monthly series on the critical elements of successful start-up

development, fundraising and entrepreneurship.

Goal: make it a great, impactful event.

Leverage:

Interesting/Meaningful Topics

Present some prepared, well structure content

Get great experienced, successful “insiders” to share

there perspective

Include Networking (…and some beer and wine!)

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Tonight’s Focus

There are a lot of challenges in launching a start-up: the odds

appear to be heavily stacked against you.

Less than 100:1 will succeed

Its not all about a fantastic idea and great team. Two huge factors:

• Getting the necessary guidance, input, and access ….that allow

you to refine and build the business

• Raising the capital you need.

……..Media can make it look easy, but the reality is: it’s really

hard.

Accelerators: Seem to offer the keys to both.

• Lots of help: during the program, demo day, after

• Capital: Modest investment upfront, some follow-on(?) and….a

huge boost in raising capital from Angels/VC’s post

program.

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After B-school: joined a start-up management consulting firm Mitchell Madison

Group; focus on Strategy/Operations/IT for financial services, tech, outsourcing,

private equity/VC clients (1993 to 2000)

Walker Digital: helped set-up and run an early “internet incubator” (2000)

Independent Advisor / Turn-arounds: Advised VC and PE Firms on portfolio

company strategy and new investments; joined the management team of two

companies

Currently:

• Early stage investor and advisor to start-ups

• Member and director at New York Angels

Investor in:

• Moveline (Uber for the moving industry) --Techstars Alum;

• SeamlessDocs (“Adobe 2.0” internet document sharing) – ERA Alum

• DealFlicks ( “Hotel.com” for movie tickets) –500 Start-Ups Alum;

…..and ~10 other ventures that didn’t go through Accelerators,

Tom Wisniewski: My background

Born in NYC; grew-up in Montclair, NJ

Physics and Philosophy major undergrad

(Clark University); MBA at Tuck School

(Dartmouth)

1st Job: Programmer at Morgan Stanley then

moved to Investment Banking

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Sources of Investment: Seed Fundraising, Angels and VC’s

Stage (Pre-Round):

• Expected to

have:

• You and a pitch. • Well developed pitch

• Answers to “b-plan” questions

• Some product…

• Some traction….

• Significant variation among firms but….

Angel req. +:

- More Traction! Clients, users/stats,

more proof. E.g. “$100K monthly revs”

- …..Growth potential! $1B Industry,

$100M Rev

• Don’t Expect: • Product, Traction,

Team

• Proven business model, product

market fit (know it will change)

Who/what are

they?

• People you already

know, that trust you

• Individuals that are experienced

early stage investors

• A Firm. A group of professional

investors that raises, invests and

manages other people’s $

Angel InvestmentFriends and

FamilyVenture Capital

“You”

aka Bootstrapped

Earlier Stage Later Stage

Round Size $: • $10’s of K

to $100K

• $100’s of K

to $1M+

• $500K to

$1.5M

Investment Size $: $5K – $10’s of K • $25K – $75K • $250K-$750K

Valuation (Pre-

Mon):

• < $1 M • $1 – 5 M • $5-10 M

II. Start-up Life-Cycle and Fundraising

“Seed” VC “Traditional Series A” VC

• $5M-$15M

• $3M – $5M

• $10 – 25 M

“Seed”

Where do the Accelerators fit in?

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Accelerators: Some Stats

Stats from Seed-DB (www.seed-db.com):

• 171 “Seed Accelerator” Programs world-wide

• 2862 companies “accelerated”

• $2.5B raised (Includes all subsequent

rounds); $1.1B if we exclude Y-Combinator

• 148 Exits

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Name LocationDate

FoundedAccept.

Rate Funding CostCohort

SizeClass

Timing Class LengthFunded to Date

Examples of Graduates

Y Combinator Mountain View, CA

2005 2% $14K-$20K + $80K note

None 82 Jan-Mar, Jun-Aug

3 months 550 Reddit, Scribd, Weebly, Dropbox, Airbnb, Codecademy, 42Floors

TechStars Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Chicago, IL; New York, NY

2007 <1% $18K + optional $100K convertible debt

None 8-13 Varies 3 months 162 Filtrbox, IntenseDebate, MadKast, Socialthing, Localcents, DailyBurn

500 Startups Mountain View, CA

2010 <2% $50K for 5% equity

$6K/founder, $3K/non-founder

25-35 Varies(NYC every 9 Mo. ?)

4 months 288 9GAG, InternMatch, 72Lux, Fitocracy

Dreamit Philadelphia, PA; Austin, TX; Israel; New York, NY

2008 N/A $5K + $5K for each founding member (up to 4)

None 10-15 Varies 3 months 95 MindSnacks, SCVNGR, SeatGeek, Notehall(acquired by Chegg),

Entrepreneur's RoundatableAccelerator

NY, NY 2011 1% $40K None 10 Jun-Sept, Jan-Apr

4 months 50 TripleLift, Stray Boots, numberFire

Accelerators: Some Stats

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So….what questions do you have?

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???

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Our guest speakers tonight:

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Kamran Ansari, Greycroft Partners

Brian Cohen, New York Angels

Charlie Kemper, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator

Shai Goldman, 500 Startups

Fred Cook, Moveline (TechStars Alum)

Jonathon Ende, SeamlessDocs (ERA Alum)

Heather Marie, 72Lux (500 Startups Alum)

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Thanks! Thomas Wisniewski

Contact Info

Email: Thomas@RosePaul.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswis

Twitter: @thomaswis

This presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/Thomaswis/

Next event in the SMTM series:

Monday September 30th

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THANKS!

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Extra Slides

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Tom Wisniewski: Investor Profile Direct “Angel” Investor in Companies

• $25K-250K investments; Typical valuations: $1-5 Million,

• Typical Stage: at least some “product” done, some customer/sales traction

• Sector focus: Opportunistic generally within internet/software space;

- fair amount of Saas B2B, and consumer “marketplace” models, ecommerce enablers.

- NOT (or not much?): hardware, heathcare/pharma, cleantech

• NYC based: 50% investments in NYC area companies; total of ~80% NE overall (e.g

Boston, DC), 20% West Coast.

• Examples:

- Sociocast (social/behavioral big data analytics)

- LiveLook (Saas, live collaboration sales/service platform)

- Anvato (Ad insertion to live video streaming via proprietary machine vision)

- Moveline (Uber for the moving industry)

- SeamlessDocs (Saas, paperwork automation; “Adobe 2.0” internet document sharing)

- Movio (Digital “RedBox”; content delivery via “last 100 ft” of wifi internet)

- HeTexted (Relationship advice forum generating content, media opportunities)

- Wanderu (Kayak for ground transportation)

- DealFlicks (a “Priceline” or “Hotel.com” for movie theater tickets)

- iCharts (tool that enables engaging, sharable, embedible chart content)

Investor in Funds

• In addition to direct investments in start-ups, invest in VC and PE funds.

• Examples:

- Social Starts (Seed fund for start-ups leveraging the Social Web)

- Brooklyn Bridge Ventures (Charlie O’Donnell’s fund)

- Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA Fund)

- Greycroft Partners (Venture Fund)

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