Did you guys recycle a domain name? Blocked due to security concerns. You may need to work with the big vendors to get yourselves off the naughty list for actions taken by prior domain owners.
Introducing Initialized Capital
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Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#42very cool. i know you guys mention startups, and IMO thats a pretty generally encompassing term. would that include game development?
We've definitely spent some time and talked to a number of startups there. I'm happy to talk with you and help you with your pitch, and if we end up investing then all the better. garry@initialized.com
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#43Hi Garry, and congrats on your new firm.
the age old question comes to mind; how do you value startups with a prototype with little traction. assuming the target market is the size of markets for airbnb,facebook,dropbox, etc.
do you guys follow YC with a fixed rate, (7% for 120K) like 10% for 1M; do you have a min and max for equity and valuation?
Thanks,
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#44Did you guys recycle a domain name? Blocked due to security concerns. You may need to work with the big vendors to get yourselves off the naughty list for actions taken by prior domain owners.
We finally got the initialized.com domain this year. What are you seeing? Let us know and we'll take care of it. Thanks for the note.
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#45This site needs to be recategorized https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/initialized.com
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi Garry, congrats and good luck! My question: will you follow other investors pattern for whom only warm introductions matter? I read in the press other SV investors stating that exactly zero investments were made as a consequence of a pitch through the contact email. Will this be true to you as well? thanks!
We're trying to figure out ways to get around this for later stage seed investments. We don't have a solution yet, but we're working on it. In a thread below I talk about file cabinet industries — industries that basically have no software, and are horribly inefficient. Investing is absolutely one of those, but only using email and calendaring. The main bottleneck for investors is number of hours in the day, because…
There's https://aleph.vc/meet-ampliphy-our-aleph-operating-system-47... - but AFAIK it is homegrown and not being offered to other funds.
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#47Hi Garry, and congrats on your new firm. the age old question comes to mind; how do you value startups with a prototype with little traction. assuming the target market is the size of markets for airbnb,facebook,dropbox, etc. do you guys follow YC with a fixed rate, (7% for 120K) like 10% for 1M; do you have a min and max for equity and valuation? Thanks,
At the early stage this is always classically difficult. For both founders and early stage investors, you're balancing dilution vs. percentage ownership.
We think buying 5% of the company is the right level for a given seed fund. It's enough to be significant to return the fund, but not so much that you're crowding everyone else who you would want in the round. It takes a village to build a great startup and we particularly like to help founders put together a good syndicate of angels and seed funds, all of whom can help with advice, connections, customers, employees and just general support.
It's basically binary whether a company gets to metrics that help it either be profitable or get to a Series A— so that's why at the early stage (all the way to Series A really) most VCs work backwards from percentage ownership. So we write checks of as small as $300K for earlier companies at lower valuation, up to $1M or more for companies later stage.
It's enough to either get to the next milestone, or put together a good round. All of the real work happens after the raise, and it's usually a huge relief to founders to be able to get back to work.
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#48What percent of company do you expect in return. YC has a pretty deterministic formula. Do you have a similar formula? Or do you decide (or negotiate) on a case-by-case basis
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#49Congrats Garry!! Curious who else is on the investment team?
"We’re founders who are engineers, designers, and product people. "
Re: Introducing Initialized Capital
#50Hi HN! Happy to answer questions here, which is funny because this is where it all really started for me back in 2007 when I was first thinking of starting my first company. I started as an HN reader working at a friend's startup, applied to YC and got in, became a YC partner, and then an early stage investor. We're engineers and designers and product folks, and most investors aren't still (which is crazy, right?) so…
Hi Garry - awesome news! Couple of questions: you mentioned about funding outside of SF, do you invest outside of the States too (i.e. the UK)?
Also, great to hear about support for smaller team sizes and investing pre-team as it were, but what's the plan for growth sizes? Pushing for unicorns or some of the portfolio aimed at smaller niches?
Edit: also, used to be a Posterous user, and actually had a product in a similar space which Arrington read out on your TWIST episode :)