Axion
"U.S. venture capitalists invested $84 billion into 8,035 companies in 2017, up from $72 billion in 2016 and the highest annual total since the dotcom era."
All in Industry Insights
Venturebeat
"Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, and western Pennsylvania ... have seen an increase in the number of seed and early stage investments in the past several years, relative to the rest of the nation."
UVA Friday Forum Webinars
Watch NRV Director of Business Development, Paul Nolde offer his perspective on the VC industry.
Entrepreneur
"Venture capital (VC) firms are often regarded as the holy grail of startup financiers. But what do venture capitalists want? For entrepreneurs in search of funding, this is the perennial question."
Village Capital
"Several months ago, our team set out to tilt against the windmills — to create a new tool to identify and communicate what makes a founder 'strong'."
TechCrunch
"Innovation is a hot topic, and it can be confusing for large corporations. With terms like incubator, accelerator and corporate venturing frequently mentioned, but rarely defined, the menu of innovation options can be overwhelming."
"The Goodwater Index helps entrepreneurs understand the overall health of the venture capital funding environment for consumer tech. The monthly score (41.9 in March 2017) is a simple assessment of fundraising prospects for consumer tech companies, offering perspective on how much the market has improved or worsened over the last few months or years."
Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and TechNet
"All across the country, entrepreneurs are founding and building new companies that use technology in innovative ways. The American startup ecosystem — the envy of the world — has spread outside of the coasts and high-profile tech hubs."
Both Sides of the Table
VCs are feeling far more optimistic about funding startups than they were in 2016. Here are some reasons why...
The Wall Street Journal
Steve Case, along with his investment firm, Revolution, are bringing investment opportunities to start-ups outside of California, New York and Massachusetts. Part of Case's strategy to do so will be through Rise of the Rest startup bus tours, which are described as "a series of weeklong tours of startups, meetings with elected leaders, speeches at incubators and pitch competitions."
USA TODAY
AOL founder, Steve Case, has a different point of view than most investors when it comes to supporting and investing in early-stage companies. To grow the US economy, Case argues that capital must be more equally distributed to states other than California, New York and Massachusetts, which currently receive about 80% of the nation's venture capital investments.
Food Tech Connect
The food industry needs to step up their game when it comes to innovative new products. Many large food companies today rely heavily on marketing rather than research and development of new products to attract customers. However, this is becoming less effective as the average consumer is rapidly changing. Health Warrior, one of NRV's portfolio companies, is recognized as an innovative food company for its development of unique products, such as Chia Bars, which are one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet.
McKinsey&Company
NRV believes taking a hands-on approach to mentoring is essential to positioning early stage companies for success - our Portfolio Adviser program was created to offer start-ups real world industry expertise to help take them to the next level. In this article, longtime private equity CEO Don Gogel discusses how operating partners give firms a competitive advantage "because they love getting their hands around a business and coaching senior people," creating operational improvements in portfolio companies.
ExitEvent
Not many VC firms can claim companies with multi-million dollar valuations as portfolio companies. Even fewer can claim half their investments go to female or minority-led companies. Achieving these results starts with a strong and shared commitment to improving diversity, understanding biases and working to dismantle institutional barriers.
Sena Hill
"In black and white, the term sheet stated: “Series A investor shall have right to appoint two Directors to the Board.” My initial knee-jerk reaction was not very accepting. What Board of Directors (BOD)? Who and why do we need outsiders dictating how we run our company? Ultimately, my partner and I held our noses and signed the deal. Fortunately, our BOD proved itself a valuable asset not only to our business, but also to us individually as entrepreneurs and executives." Kyle Zasky of Sena Hill discusses the mix of talents, skills, and experience that go into building a high-performance board.
Forbes
Serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley resident Jenny Lefcourt discusses verbiage in the start-up world and voices her concerns that, in this funding environment, entrepreneurs who are not familiar with "VC speak" may struggle to find capital without engaged, motivated investors by their side. Lefcourt offers resources and tips that help entrepreneurs give VCs the information they are after.
USCIS
"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is proposing a new rule, which would allow certain international entrepreneurs to be considered for temporary permission to be in the US so that they may start or scale their businesses here. This proposed rule, when finalized, will help our economy grow by expanding immigration options for foreign entrepreneurs who meet certain criteria for creating jobs, attracting investment and generating revenue in the U.S."
New York Times
"Five years ago Google became focused on building the perfect team, guided by the belief that studying workers can transform productivity. In the last decade, Google's People Operations department has scrutinized everything from how people eat together, to traits the best managers share - all with the goal of determining why some teams flourish where others fail."
TechCrunch
"The food industry is going through an interesting shift in the U.S., moving away from an era of processed food and microwave meals, to one where people are increasingly concerned about the kinds of foods their eating, their freshness, sustainability, and other factors."
Next Juggernaut
"On Demand Services offer the customer an exciting new world of lifestyle convenience, but is often explained as "the uberification" of services, only describing one of the many models emerging now. While product designers focus on the characteristics buyers will value, service designers focus on the experiences customers want to have again and again"