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AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

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Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#51

Post by refurb »

benmarten wrote: post #49
hammock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really max out a Roth IRA (that's an illusion). Backdoor contributions are unlimited.

Weird, i thought its 5500/year. That's what you can do with betterment at least....

It is. All a backdoor Roth does is it gets around the income limits for Roth IRAs. If you make more than ~$130K per year, you aren't allowed to contribute.

With a backdoor Roth, you contribute to a normal, post tax IRA, then convert to Roth. However, if you have a rollover IRA, then you can't do it without taking a tax hit.

However, I have heard of people putting more than $5500 per year in a Roth. Search for it on the Bogleheads forum. I can't remember the details, but your employer needs to be on board as you contribute to a 401k, then do some conversion.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#52

Post by mangeletti »

kapilkale wrote: post #40
mangeletti wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I updated the comment.

Oh man, I'd take this bet! Loser donates money to the winner's charity of choice. Pick an amount up to $200, and tweet @kapil so it's in the public record.

Hey, I got an HN Replies email before you changed it from $500 to $200... :)

Just kidding. Ok, let's do this. $200 it is, but you have to pick your charity now, and the timeframe for a return has to be sufficiently short such that $200 can still at least buy a mosquito net or something.

My charity choice is the US Treasury.

Also, HN is fine (my real name / twitter / github are in my profile).

P.S. You didn't ask why I thought it wouldn't return a profit. It's not because I disbelieve in your company (you guys have more startup data than just about anyone).

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#53

Post by contingencies »

I feel like AngelList is a specialized social network with maximum utility ~10 years ago and for people who already know each other or are clearly in the same network, who basically use it as a less-spammy LinkedIn. I've had zero luck communicating with people over it and have frankly given up in favor of raising domestically here in China.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#54

Post by logicallee »

daphinz wrote: post #50
logicallee wrote: post #26

this is absolutely ridiculous. there is next to no seed funding in existence. Let me tell you how the seed market for startups is: imagine you had a orchard, right, but instead of apples it grew dollar bills, and you just had to water them or they wouldn't grow. Under this scenario a guy with acres of dollar-tree bills could not get funding to water them with some kind of farm equipment. That's the state of the start…

You're not entitled to seed funding. However the government does offer SBIR grants of ~225k, from all branches of the government, DOJ, NIH, NSF etc. Odds of getting the grant range from 1/5 to 1/12 depending on the year. With solicitations twice a year.

so if you total the value of all of those grants combined (regardless of the "odds" of getting them) it's next to nothing in existence. it's really, really small when compared with the value under my analogy of the money-sprouting trees that those founders ('farmers') are asking to water (which obviously is the value of the resulting companies when successful). if you do know the sum of all of those grants combined it would be interesting to know that number.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#55

Post by deelowe »

benmarten wrote: post #49
hammock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really max out a Roth IRA (that's an illusion). Backdoor contributions are unlimited.

Weird, i thought its 5500/year. That's what you can do with betterment at least....

Look up backdoor roth and mega backdoor roth.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#56

Post by ulkram »

hkmurakami wrote: post #18
swanson wrote: post #16

> Investors can buy a share of the fund, called the Access Fund, for $100,000 or more. This is really interesting to me, but I wish it were at a $10k level. That would be a no-brainer shift for me to move some money going into Vanguard into this, but I'm in that weird spot where I'm not rich enough to have $100k to toss around but am maxing out a Roth IRA and looking for more upside.

Be careful to examine what's actually in the fund as your underlying. This isn't like buying the S&P500 where the sector exposure is well defined. One "startup index fund" can perform very disparately from another "startup index fund". edit: If there's data that shows the performance of a basket of random 100 company samples being equivalent to any number of other random 100 company samples, then I am happy to admit…

central limit theorum?

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#57

Post by pyromine »

ulkram wrote: post #56
hkmurakami wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful to examine what's actually in the fund as your underlying. This isn't like buying the S&P500 where the sector exposure is well defined. One "startup index fund" can perform very disparately from another "startup index fund". edit: If there's data that shows the performance of a basket of random 100 company samples being equivalent to any number of other random 100 company samples, then I am happy to admit…

central limit theorum?

Statistically the central limit theorem is assuming sampling from the same population, there is no guarantee that two startup indexes are actually sampling from the same population

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#58

Post by adamhooper »

kapilkale wrote: post #33
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything stopping me from buying one of your $100k shares with an LLC that has multiple members?

No issues with that on our end. Plenty of investors using funds or LLCs with multiple members to invest. You'll want to work with a lawyer to structure the vehicle, and have a full understanding of legal, compliance and tax considerations associated with it. Edit: the entity investing must be accredited. Here's an overview of the criteria: https://angel.co/help/accreditation/what-is-an-accredited-in...

How are you guys assessing the lookthrough in that case? If an entity is formed for the sole purpose of investing in your fund, I believe those investors count towards your limit.

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#59

Post by hamhamed »

I have a startup and want to raise money. It just feels like listing on Angellist won't do anything, and I'm better off doing "offline" (emails) traditional way of raising. It just feels like good deals are done through emails and meetings not through a portal. At least for now

Re: AngelList Braces for Rainy Days as Startup Seed Funding Falls

#60

Post by ci5er »

logicallee wrote: post #26

this is absolutely ridiculous. there is next to no seed funding in existence. Let me tell you how the seed market for startups is: imagine you had a orchard, right, but instead of apples it grew dollar bills, and you just had to water them or they wouldn't grow. Under this scenario a guy with acres of dollar-tree bills could not get funding to water them with some kind of farm equipment. That's the state of the start…

Your claim is ... what exactly? I'm not disagreeing - I'm just not following. That revenue is hard to come by for startups? That seed money for revenue-less company is getting more difficult for startups to raise? If so, where? In the US? In California? In Europe?

I've never dealt with any structured seed funds, but high net worth individuals that like to kick-start startups still appear to be active in the US...

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