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by romaster
4444 days ago
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There's always going to be a battle between VC money/specialists and Much-much-bigger money/generalists (ala hedge funds, asset managers, private arms of big banks or corporations). Some of these 'big money' folks actually don't need as high IRR as a VC, or can pitch to their own management the type of synergies or 'track record' they are building by paying a premium now. Marc's "heads up and watch out" falls short in one key respect: it doesn't give any color. It doesn't let the newbie startup CEO understand what bed he might actually get stuck with before it's too late. It doesn't provide any detail about what to really look for or the types of terms and conditions that get discussed 'in more detail' when the offer and final paperwork start getting hashed out. And from that perspective, it is a bit of a disservice to a newbie because if such a CEO starts to immediately take Marc's words at full value (and it's hard not to, given the legend that he is), that creates a negative bias and an air of skepticism if that newbie CEO is approached in the future by big money and overly large valuations..... and that, would be a clear negative to the startups, and a clear positive to the VCs. |
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We're not talking about newbie CEOs here. The big-money "outsiders" are not coming in and wooing inexperienced entrepreneurs so that they can invest in their seed or Series A rounds. We're talking about CEOs of growth-stage companies. These are folks who, even if they're relatively young, have been running their companies for years and have the counsel of experienced advisers. The notion that they're haphazardly and naively choosing to negotiate exclusively with a single investor is laughable.
Andreessen Horowitz's latest $1.5 billion fund is big by venture capital standards. You can't manage a fund of that size by doing tons of small deals. My read on Marc's comments is that he's very concerned about players with bigger money using their leverage to push firms like his out of the type of deals that his firm needs.
In essence, he sees that bigger capital has the potential to disrupt his business in big bank take little bank fashion. For anyone who doesn't know what big bank take little bank is, I'm sure you can find the definition on Rap Genius. The irony.