Short Hefty Seed Rounds

ICYMI, in “📱Is Tech in Trouble?📱,” we asked whether…well…tech was in trouble. We aren’t alone.

A few weeks ago Brad Feld of Foundry Group wrote the following in a piece entitled, “Early Stage VCs — Be Careful Out There”:

Yesterday, in one of the quarterly updates that we get, I saw the following paragraph.

“Historically, the $10 million valuation mark has been somewhat of a ceiling for seed stage startups. But so far this year, we’ve seen that a number of companies, often times with nothing more than a team and a Powerpoint presentation, have had great success raising capital north of that $10 million level. Furthermore, round sizes continue to tick up, with many seed rounds now in the $2.5 million to $4.0 million range.”

We are seeing this also and have been talking about it internally, so it prompted me to say something about it.

I view this is a significant negative indicator.

It has happened only one other time in my investing career – in 1999.

Man. There’s so much money out there looking for some action.

Read the piece. It’s short. He closes with this:

For anyone that remembers 2000-2003, this obviously ended badly. By 2002 investments at the seed level had evaporated (there were almost no seed financings happening). In 2003 the angels started to reappear (some of the best angel deals of all time were done between 2004 and 2007) and the super angel language started to be used around 2007.

All the experienced finance people I know talk regularly about cycles. If you believe in cycles, this one feels pretty predictable. Of course, there is an opportunity in every part of the cycle. But, be careful out there.

The kinds of companies he’s talking about aren’t in the same zone as those that we wrote about last week. These early stage companies are too early to have any of the characteristics (i.e., public equity, advanced IP, leases, exposed directors) that we noted might qualify a company to leap outside of the sphere of an assignment of benefit of creditors and into bankruptcy court. But still. This piece could just as easily slide into our “What to Make of the Credit Cycle” series.

To put a cherry on top, read this piece from Jason Calacanis. We typically think Mr. Calacanis is too high on his own sh*t but this cautionary letter to the founders he’s invested in is, in fact, instructive. We particularly liked his link to a Sequoia Capital presentation circa 2008. It’s a must read for anyone who wants a primer/refresher on what the hell happened back in the financial crisis and some insight into how investors thought about the time.

The upshot: he instructs his founders to do everything they can to ensure 12-18 months of runway.

So, where are we in the credit cycle? The part where a number of folks are starting to exercise and advise a bit more caution.