It's always an interesting week in venture capital. Discover the best stories, blog posts and other information inside the VC ecosystem in the US and in hotspots around the world. Onward dear reader…
STARTUP LESSONS
Lightspeed Venture Partners has a Summer Fellowship Program where they bring in knowledgeable speakers from the tech world in Silicon Valley.
Lightspeed: Startup Lessons from Ben Silbermann of Pinterest
The post highlights five tips from the CEO of the rapidly growing consumer Internet service.
CONVERTIBLE DEBT GOING AWAY?
Lending money to early stage startups has waxed and waned as a strategy over the years.
Fortune: Convertible Equity
Inspired by Sequoia Capital, some startups are receiving capital contributions in the form of an equity investment at a future value, "like an option with a present-day purchase price."
DEBT VS. EQUITY
Canadian-based VC Mark MacLeod has a good overview of the pros and cons of debt versus equity financing.
Endeavor Global: Financing Your Business
The piece goes into some detail on different types of debt and equity financing, as well as specialized sources of funding.
ALL MONEY IS NOT THE SAME
This investor, a senior founding partner at Runa Capital, says that the source of venture capital is as important as the money itself:
TechCrunch: Consider the Source
“The net-net is that quality costs money. And quality money costs more, too.”
LIFETIME VALUE (LTV) IS OVERRATED
Noted VC Bill Gurley has a long and valuable post about the dangers of overusing the Lifetime Value Formula (LTV) for determining marketing spend dynamics.
Above the Crowd: A Dangerous Seduction
Gurley says that the widely used formula is overly simplistic and extremely sensitive to the assumptions used in the model, which are sometimes abused or misunderstood by its practitioners.
ANGEL BUBBLE
John Backus of New Atlantic Ventures pulled out an interesting chart from a new NVCA (National Venture Capital Association) report.
NAV Blog: Find the Bubble
The takeaway is that angel funded companies continue to be created at rates that cannot be absorbed by institutional venture capital.
SMALL-CAP IPOS
New York-based VC Alan Patricof is advocating the need to create conditions to allow smaller companies to go public.
Fortune: Bring Back the Small Cap IPO
Patricof supported the recent JOBS Act and wants regulations that encourage the return of small IPO underwriters, among other reforms.
CAN ELEPHANTS DANCE?
Scott Anthony has a thought-provoking piece about what he sees as the beginning of large corporations becoming better at developing innovations in-house.
Harvard Business Review: The New Corporate Garage
The author says that large companies are embracing open innovation and less hierarchical management to encourage entrepreneurial behaviors.
A WOMAN'S VIEW OF RAISING VENTURE CAPITAL
Forbes has an interesting article by Julia Pimsleur, an entrepreneur who recently raised venture capital financing.
Forbes: 10 Things I Wish I Knew
Point #2: Meet with Other Entrepreneurs and Advisors. She spent six weeks tapping her networks before taking any meetings.
VENTURE CAPITAL FRIEND: SECONDARY MARKETS
Xconomy has highlighted the viewpoint of a recent report on the impact of secondary markets in the technology venture capital world.
Xconomy: Secondary Markets: Friend or Foe?
The report says that secondary markets play an important role in generating liquidity, which is the lifeblood of innovation.