WALTHAM, MA & MENLO PARK, CA --
Charles River Ventures (CRV) has launched "CRV Quick Start," a program designed to get up to $250,000 quickly into the hands of promising seed-stage companies.
The firm is offering the program to very early stage start ups, usually internet-related companies, as a way of funding them to prototype or sometimes even beta stage. In return for the funding, CRV doesn't take equity, instead it receives a promissory note convertible into stock if the company garners a next round of financing.
The advantages of the program are that it can quickly provide funding to a start up and the lack of an equity component means there are no reporting requirements so a company can stay in stealth mode longer. Finally, there is no equity dilution for early stage founders.