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The future of financing startups. Paul Graham talks about how to make an investment decision in 10 minutes

More and more people with large personal capital come to understand that investing in startups with the right approach can be a stronger asset than banks and mutual funds. The number of business angels and those who want to become them is growing at the expense of various courses . In addition to profit, there is another factor - investments in start-ups allow you to be involved in visionary and the approach of the future, and not just trade “water with sugar”.

There is still some easy money in the states, but the trend is waning - fewer and fewer angels and ventures give cash for powerpoint startups. In Russia, easy money ended up much faster, and now the only option to attract investment is to prove at the initial stage that the project can be cost-effective, popular with people and has a large market for growth.

Paul Graham talked about the future financing of startups five years ago, but he has been doing this financing even longer, so I invite you to get acquainted with his views on this issue and compare it with the current state of affairs and understand in what direction business angels will develop.
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The future of startup funding

Paul Graham, August 2010
Original - The Future of Startup Funding
Translation - Dmitry Pichugin

Two years ago, I wrote about what I called “a huge and unused opportunity to finance startups” - a growing gap between venture capital funds, whose business model involves investing large sums of money at a time, and a large class of startups that need less money than they used to invest funds Increasingly, new projects need only a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and not a couple of millions. [one]

Now this feature is used much more actively. Investors broke into a niche and master it from two directions. Venture funds have become more active in investing small amounts than a year ago, and at the same time last year there was a sharp increase in the number of investors of the new type: “super-angels”, who act like ordinary business angels (note: Translator: private venture capitalists, providing financial support to companies in the early stages of development), but operating with other people's money, which brings them closer to venture funds.

Although many investors are in the financing niche for startups, there is still room for new ones on the market. The distribution of investors must correspond to the distribution of startups, which varies exponentially. On this basis, there should be much more among investors who are willing to invest tens or hundreds of thousands than millions. [2]

In fact, it is possible for angels to have a large number of competitors in a niche. In this case, entrepreneurs will trust “angel investments” more, and will probably prefer them in the future, even if they have the opportunity to try to attract the “A rounds” series from the venture capital fund (note: Translator: you can find out more about the stages of venture investment here ). Now one of the reasons why startups prefer “A rounds” is prestige. However, if the “angels” will become more active and well-known investors in the market, then one day they will be able to compete in terms of authority with venture funds.

Naturally, prestige is not the main reason why startups prefer “A rounds”. Having received a series of “A rounds”, a startup will most certainly attract more investor attention than in the case of an investment from an angel. Therefore, when a startup chooses between “A round” from a good venture fund and “angel” money, I usually advise choosing the first one. [3]

But I believe that, as long as the “A rounds” series remain on the market, it is the venture funds that should worry about “super-angels”, and not vice versa. Despite the name, “super-angels” are in fact mini-venture funds, and they clearly aim to replace existing funds.

I think the story will be on their side. The situation is similar to those in which startups and large companies enter a new market. As soon as online video became technically possible, Youtube burst into the emerging niche; At the same time, large media companies were slowly and reluctantly embracing new perspectives, driven more by fear than hope, and seeking to protect their sphere of influence rather than create something that the user wanted. The same is true for PayPal. The pattern repeats again and again, usually ending in a victory for the aggressors. For the investment market, the aggressors are super-angels. Their entire business is built on angel investment (just as online video was the main business for YouTube). And venture funds usually make small investments only to create a starting point from which it will be possible to start the flow of deals for full-fledged “A rounds” series. [four]

On the other hand, financing startups is a very unusual business. Almost all profits are concentrated in some of the most successful projects. And if the “super-angel” failed to find and invest his funds in them, then he would be out of business even if he invested money in all the other participants.

Venture funds
Why venture funds will not start using smaller series of "A rounds"? The stumbling block is the participation of the fund in the management of each startup funded by it. Usually, in the “A round”, the investor who provided the financing gets a seat on the board of directors. Suppose that an average start-up lives for about 6 years and the partner responsible for the transaction can take part in managing no more than 12 startups at the same time. In such a situation, an investment fund may conclude only two transactions per year for each partner.

It always seemed to me that the solution to the problem lies in the refusal of the fund from politics to have a place on the board of directors of each startup. You do not need to be on the board of directors to help a startup. Perhaps venture funds consider the power gained from a seat on the board of directors as a certain guarantee that their money will not be wasted. But did they test this theory? If only they did not try to reduce the degree of their participation in the management of start-ups and then did not find a decline in profits, then we can conclude that they did not even try to change the situation.

I do not claim that venture funds do not help start-ups. Good foundations help, and significantly. I'm just trying to say - to provide substantial assistance, it is not necessary to have a seat on the board of directors. [five]

How will all this end? Some venture funds will be able to adapt by increasing the amount of small investments. I would not be surprised if, by streamlining the process of selecting candidates and reducing the number of seats on boards of directors, funds can conclude 2-3 times more A-Rounds series without losing in quality.

Other venture funds will limit themselves to superficial changes. The threat is not fatal, and these organizations are very conservative. Such funds will not be brutally expelled from the market, but gradually, without knowing it, will be transferred to another business. These funds will continue to invest and even call it the “A round” series, but de facto these will be the “B round” series. [6]

In these rounds, they will not be able to count on 25-40% of a startup, as it is now. With the exception of very bad situations, the founders do not need to sell such a large share of the company in the later stages of financing. Since non-adapted funds will provide financing at a later stage, their profits from each successful startup will decrease accordingly. However, the number of unsuccessful transactions will also decrease. Because of this, the risk / reward ratio may remain the same, or even improve. These funds will simply become investors of a different, more conservative type.

Angels
Now in large “angel investments”, which are increasingly competing with the “A rounds” series, investors do not take as much startup capital as venture capital funds. Funds trying to compete with the “angels” by concluding more smaller deals will surely find that they will have to settle for less capital. And this is great news for founders of startups: they will keep most of the company's capital under their control!

Angel round conditions will also be less stringent. Not just less stringent than for the “A rounds” series, but less stringent than the conditions for angel rounds that have ever been.

In the future, “Angel Investments” will increasingly be limited to a certain amount or have a lead investor. Previously, the usual course of action for any startup was to search for one angel, who would act as a lead investor. With a lead investor who will provide some (but not all) of the money, the startup will subsequently discuss the company's market value and the size of the round. After this, the startup and the lead investor cooperate to search for the remaining investors.

Rather, the future of “angel investments” looks like this: instead of a fixed round size, a startup will look for money, negotiating with each investor separately (the so-called “rolling close”). This will continue until the founders decide that there is enough money. [7]

And although there will be one, the very first investor, and his help in finding and negotiating with investors, of course, will be welcome, this investor will not be the “lead” in the old sense of managing the round. Now the startup will do it on their own.

Will remain the so-called. “Lead investors” who will take on the role of helping startups with business advice. These investors can also make the greatest investments in a startup, but now they will not always be the only party to negotiate or those who first wrote a check. Unified documentation will do away with the need to agree on something other than the market valuation of the project. And it will simplify this process.

If several investors start from the same market value of the project, this will be the amount that will convince the first of them to write a check. However, you need to consider whether this cost will scare other investors. It is not necessary to stop at a one-time assessment of the cost of a startup. Startups are increasingly attracting money through convertible bonds that do not give a stake in the company, but define a “market value estimate limit”: when converting debt into capital (with subsequent revaluation, or privatization, whichever happens earlier), such an investor will receive a share of capital from a discount defined by a convertible bond. This is a very important difference, because it gives a startup the opportunity to make several loans with different restrictions. At the moment, this method is only getting spread, but I suppose that it will become more popular. (Note of the Translator: You can read more about convertible loans here )

Sheeps
The reason for the current events - for startups the old ways were frankly bad. Leading investors could use and use the fixed round size as an excuse for a position that all founders of startups hate: “I invest if others invest.” Most investors are not able to independently evaluate startups - instead they rely on the opinion of other investors. If other investors participate, then they will, and if not, then no. Founders of startups hate such an attitude because it leads to a stalemate and a delay, and this is the last thing a startup can afford. Most investors understand that such a course of action is ineffective, and very few openly admit that they are working under this scheme. The most inventive of investors achieve the same effect by offering fixed rounds and providing only a fraction of the amount needed for financing. If the startup fails to find the missing, then they exit the deal. How can you succeed with such a deal? The startup will be underfinanced!

In the future, investors will no longer be able to offer investments with such uncertain conditions as the participation of other people. More precisely, such an investor will be the last in the queue. A start-up will resort to their money only if it is necessary to supplement an almost-financed round. And considering that investors are usually more “hot” at start-ups than they need money, being the last in line means that they are likely to miss out on the “hottest” deals. “Hot” deals and successful startups are not the same thing, but they strongly correlate with each other. [8] Based on the foregoing, non-self-investing investors will be the losers.

Surely investors will find that by getting rid of this crutch, they will cope better. The pursuit of attractive deals does not force the investor to choose more carefully, but makes them feel better about their choice. I have seen the birth and extinction of not one investment fever and, as far as I can tell, they are usually random. [9] If investors can no longer rely on the herd instinct, they will have to carefully analyze each startup before investing. They will probably be surprised how well it works.

Stalemate situations are not the only unpleasant consequence of the transfer of angel investment management to a leading investor. Often, investors come to an agreement to push the market value of a startup down. Or a round collects funds for too long, because an investor in search of money does not have a tenth of the motivation of the founders of a startup.

Increasingly, start-ups manage their own angel rounds. So far, only a few have gone so far, but I think that this is a sufficient reason to declare the old way dead, because these are some of the best startups. They are the ones who can impose their vision of the round by the investor. And if a startup in which you want to invest, works on a certain principle, then what difference does the rest work?

Traction
In fact, to say that “angelic investments” are increasingly crowding out the “A rounds” series will be a delusion. In fact, start-up-controlled rounds are starting to replace rounds under the control of investors.

This is an example of a very important general trend on which Y Combinator was founded from the very beginning: founders are becoming more influential in comparison with investors. Therefore, if you want to predict how venture financing will develop, simply ask: “How do startup founders want to see it?” Everything that did not suit the founders in the funding process will be eliminated one by one. [ten]

Having resorted to heuristics, I will predict a few things. First, investors will not be able to wait any longer until the startup “picks up steam” before investing significant sums in it. It is difficult to predict in advance which of the startups will “shoot”. Therefore, now the strategy of most investors is to wait until the startup succeeds, and then quickly come up with a proposal. Startups also hate this approach because it can create a stalemate, and also because it seems like a scam. If you are a promising, but still insufficiently developed startup, then most investors will be your friends in words, but you will not get it done. They will loudly declare that they support you, but they will leave the money with them. However, when the startup starts to grow, they will argue that they have supported you all this time and they are just terrified by the idea that you will be so ungrateful that you leave them behind your “round”. In case the founders become more influential, they will be able to receive a large amount of money in advance from investors.

(The worst manifestation of this approach is tranche financing. In this case, the investor makes a small initial investment with the intention to invest more in the future, but only if the startup is successful. In fact, this approach gives the investor the opportunity to freely exit the next round of financing And the investor will take advantage of it if he finds a better option on the market. The transaction, including financing in tranches, is clearly an abuse. Such transactions are very rare and in the future they will be is smaller.) [11]

Although investors do not like to predict which of the startups will be successful, they will have to do it more often. However, not the fact that the current situation will force them to change. Perhaps they will simply be replaced by investors with a different attitude to startups - investors who understand startups well enough to cope with the problem of predicting the project's trajectory. These new investors will gradually force out those businessmen whose skills lie mainly in the plane of receiving money from other investors.

Speed
Another part of the fundraising process hated by the founders is the huge amount of time it takes. Therefore, with the growing influence of the founders of startups, the rounds will be gained in less time.

The search for investment is still a distracting start-up. If the founders are in the middle of the process of finding funding, then it is a priority in their minds, which negatively affects the main field of activity of a startup. If the search process takes two months (which is acceptable by today's standards), this means that 2 months of the campaign actually makes water in a mortar. And this is the worst thing a startup can ever do.

Therefore, if investors want to make better deals, they will have to provide funds an order of magnitude faster. Investors do not need weeks to make a decision. We make a decision based on 10 minutes of reading the application and 10 minutes of interviewing the candidate and regret only 10% of the decisions. If we are able to make a decision in 20 minutes, then future investors will be able to do the same in a few days. [12]

There are many well-established delays in financing startups: a multi-week marriage dance with investors; differences between the initial terms and the actual duration of the transaction; the need for complex work with documents for each series of "A rounds". They are taken for granted by both investors and founders - simply because it has always been like this. However, the underlying cause of these delays is that they are beneficial to investors. , , .

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: Sam Altman, John Bautista, Trevor Blackwell, Paul Buchheit, Jeff Clavier, Patrick Collison, Ron Conway, Matt Cohler, Chris Dixon, Mitch Kapor, Josh Kopelman, Pete Koomen, Carolynn Levy, Jessica Livingston, Ariel Poler, Geoff Ralston, Naval Ravikant, Dan Siroker, Harj Taggar, Fred Wilson .


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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/296396/


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