Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 60 posts

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#51

Post by MCRed »

jamesfranco wrote: post #36
bobjordan wrote: post #17

As a bootstrapper with 100% equity in company that just passed $1M YOY revenue and should hit $2M this year, I read these articles on HN and cringe. To me, it would be a special kind of hell to have 40 investors to answer to, no less in a company under $1M revenue. Seems to work for some founders to get rich quick but for god sakes I don't envy that position.

I'll say. Raising money is why many startups fail.

20 years of experience with startups, investors forcing bad decisions on the startup caused the majority of failures (about %60). Founder conflicts, and market timing caused the rest.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#52

Post by philip1209 »

arfliw wrote: post #31
philip1209 wrote: post #16

We predicted a June 2014 1.5M round at Telegraph Research: http://www.telegraphresearch.com/mattermark/

Got really excited about your site and clicked around to every page, only to discover you only have profiles for a handfull of companies! That would be a really useful/neat tool if it covered...like...all of them.

It would - unfortunately it takes significant time to put one of these reports together. They're normally on the order of 5K words.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#53

Post by tonydiv »

argonaut wrote: post #29
tonydiv wrote: post #23

The amount of dilution here is worth noting: YC: ~10% after conversion 500 Startups: ~10% after conversion Version One, Felicis, etc (Q1 14): $1M+ investment at $5-$7M valuation at most? Another 20% Flybridge, A16Z, Gramercy, etc (Q2 14): $1M investment at $6-$9M valuation at most? Another 20% Between just these 4 groups, they own 60%+ of the company. I'm not accounting for angels. In addition to this, with an option…

The math might not be quite right here. Depending on how earlier investors are diluted by later investors, if at all, the 4 groups could own as little as 49% of the company.

"As little as 49%?" Yes, you're right, I didn't account for dilution, but I also didn't account for the 20 other convertible notes they've taken.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#54

Post by tonydiv »

dmor wrote: post #37
tonydiv wrote: post #23

The amount of dilution here is worth noting: YC: ~10% after conversion 500 Startups: ~10% after conversion Version One, Felicis, etc (Q1 14): $1M+ investment at $5-$7M valuation at most? Another 20% Flybridge, A16Z, Gramercy, etc (Q2 14): $1M investment at $6-$9M valuation at most? Another 20% Between just these 4 groups, they own 60%+ of the company. I'm not accounting for angels. In addition to this, with an option…

We have taken nowhere near as much dilution as you are suggesting. I want to clarify this, because I don't want anyone else to think they should take 60% dilution before they take their real first equity round. Without revealing our entire cap table and terms (I'm transparent as I can be, but I think this would upset some of my investors) I can tell you the rule of thumb is to give up no more than 25% dilution on con…

Unless your valuation is $10M+ and your notes' caps were $6M+, I don't see how investors won't own ~55%+ after Series A (before accounting for 20% option pool).

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#55

Post by dmor »

tonydiv wrote: post #54
dmor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have taken nowhere near as much dilution as you are suggesting. I want to clarify this, because I don't want anyone else to think they should take 60% dilution before they take their real first equity round. Without revealing our entire cap table and terms (I'm transparent as I can be, but I think this would upset some of my investors) I can tell you the rule of thumb is to give up no more than 25% dilution on con…

Unless your valuation is $10M+ and your notes' caps were $6M+, I don't see how investors won't own ~55%+ after Series A (before accounting for 20% option pool).

Yup.

SmartAsset (YC S12) has an awesome calculator you can use to play with various scenarios: https://www.smartasset.com/infographic/startup

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#56

Post by jamesfranco »

MCRed wrote: post #51
jamesfranco wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll say. Raising money is why many startups fail.

20 years of experience with startups, investors forcing bad decisions on the startup caused the majority of failures (about %60). Founder conflicts, and market timing caused the rest.

There a lot of pressure when you have 40+ people expecting you making them a 10x + return. But raising money is something that startups think they must do these days.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#57

Post by proexploit »

650REDHAIR wrote: post #49
proexploit wrote: post #34

If I were looking for a new startup job, I would check out Mattermark first to develop a list of startups I thought looked like they were doing financially well / had strong employee growth etc and could succeed before then looking into which I was interested in the work at. I think Mattermark could have some other uses for their data that could prove valuable (I'd pay for that). Right now if I were in that situation…

They have a $99/mo founder price point. It's awesome.

Yeah, which would be a fair price but as an employee looking for companies to work at you wouldn't qualify.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#58

Post by pushkargaikwad »

bobjordan wrote: post #17

As a bootstrapper with 100% equity in company that just passed $1M YOY revenue and should hit $2M this year, I read these articles on HN and cringe. To me, it would be a special kind of hell to have 40 investors to answer to, no less in a company under $1M revenue. Seems to work for some founders to get rich quick but for god sakes I don't envy that position.

wholeheartedly agree with you since I am also on similar yet smaller boat.

Re: Mattermark Has Raised $2M in Our Second Seed Round

#60

Post by 650REDHAIR »

proexploit wrote: post #57
650REDHAIR wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a $99/mo founder price point. It's awesome.

Yeah, which would be a fair price but as an employee looking for companies to work at you wouldn't qualify.

Pretty sure Danielle would be willing to work out a $99/mo deal if you were going to be using it like that. Why not reach out?
Post reply on HN