Fundraising is often called ‘The Dance’, a nuanced and potentially lengthy process that can frustrate founders. Often times there is one sole objective: raise as much capital as possible in a short period of time. And while I won’t argue that time is of the essence — founders need to be focused on building their businesses — this short-sighted […] Read more
2017 is shaping up to be a monumental year for Corigin Ventures. We’ve now been investing for over 4 years (35 deals) – we’ve always thought of CV as a startup ourselves, and internally we refer to this early period as our “Seed Round” – we created theses, conceived a ‘product’, tested a variety of […] Read more
One of my most widely read posts was last year’s Where Do Deals Come From, in which I opened up the kimono to give the backstory and source of my first 16 deals over 18 months. While I had assumed it would be popular with founders getting insight into the minds (and calendars) of an […] Read more
There’s been chatter over the years about Fund economics — specifially whether carry should be calculated on a fund level, or on a deal by deal basis. With the rise of Syndicates and SPVs (and the rise of Angelist as a platform for both), I believe it merits revisiting. My major concern is that all players involved (syndicate […] Read more
Given the recent legalization in NY, and that NFL opening kickoff is just 15 days away, I’ve been thinking a lot about the current and future state of DFS. I am not an investor in either of the well-known unicorns, and I’m ignoring legal issues, so most of my perspective is that from an avid consumer. […] Read more
We often work with first-time entrepreneurs here at Corigin Ventures. They bring a certain hunger and a unique perspective, and their ignorance to the difficult road ahead can be a weapon. But with that comes inexperience – not just in building a business (which is hard enough), but in navigating the process of fundraising. They’ve […] Read more
As venture investors, we see hundreds of deals a year. Even the most active firms invest in less than 20 (we’re at about one/month pace for last 2 years), so you can do the math on the number of “no’s” that have to go out. Here are some insights and opinions on how to deliver […] Read more
Up to this point, I’ve treated Corigin Ventures as a startup. In June 2014, Ryan Freedman and I had a vision, a hypotheses around building a successful value-add venture firm from scratch, and spent the next 18 months building, learning, testing, and adapting. Like any startup, we’ve made mistakes, and have had our ups and […] Read more
We often get asked “How do you source your deals?” While every deal is different, there are some consistent sources. We preach transparency here at Corigin Ventures, so in that vein, here is every deal we’ve done in the last 18 months (that’s when I started), the source of the deal, and some background context. […] Read more
It’s been a few years now since the uprising of on-demand startups in seemingly every vertical. Time to revisit, and see which have proven to be mainstays and which have faded. I’m taking off my investor hat for this one. No hype, no press, no unit economics, no valuations. Just straight-up value to customers, well, this […] Read more
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