
AngelList raises $24 million at a heavenly valuation - quant
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/09/22/angellist-raises-24/
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asanwal
This has been tried multiple times before (a startup funding marketplace) but
all have failed because they couldn't build out the two-sided network.

AL is the first to solve this. They have quality investors and startups (the 2
critical sides of this network) which is what gets the flywheel turning on
these marketplaces.

We see lots of Crowdfunding platforms getting funded and all focus on
competing on features and fees but fail to build out credible network
participants on both sides and getting liquidity on the platform. AL is doing
this well.

Given that Naval also seems smart as heck, this is going to be big and I
suspect quite disruptive to the broken VC model.

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7Figures2Commas
> ...to the broken VC model.

I'm always curious when I see comments like this. What is broken about the VC
model?

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asanwal
The returns are abysmal primarily. They lag Wall Street (while taking much
more risk)

[http://www.geekwire.com/2013/vc-returns-improve-10year-
horiz...](http://www.geekwire.com/2013/vc-returns-improve-10year-horizon-
investing-wall-street/)

This may sort itself out on its own, however, as LPs are investing less and
less in the VC asset class.

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diziet
How does early stage jump from 5.8 to 68.8% when going from 10 to 15 years? It
seems there is some small sampling issues going on there.

Anyway, you can take a certain time frame, slice the start/end dates to match
when certain companies sell or are the market is doing well and make your
point look in either side's favor, especially for short time intervals like
1-3 years. Also curious as to how NVCA collects this data.

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asanwal
Absolutely fair critique. Cambridge Associates and Preqin are primary data
providers in this world, but in talking to our VC customers, we've heard that
sample size, reporting bias (funds doing well may be more inclined to
participate) and large time lags are a problem with judging VC performance
based on their data. Some studies have also found that the same fund can have
different returns in each system.

That said, it's the best of what's available today.

The best indicator or proxy that returns suck is that LPs are voting with
their wallets and leaving the asset class and investing in it less.

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brianchu
The interesting thing is that, from when I talked to the guys at AngelList,
the bigger market (with larger monetization potential) _is not_ its funding
platform. It's the hiring platform.

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joshfraser
I'm a huge fan of both Naval and AngelList. I'm excited to see what they do
with this new war chest. AngelList played a big role in getting my company
funded & I was lucky to have Naval as an investor as well. To me, the most
impressive thing is they run AngelList like any other startup. I remember
emailing Naval about a bug and 10 mins later he responded with news that it
was fixed. The implicit data they are collecting is incredibly valuable and
there's no one better positioned to capitalize on it than the team they have
put together.

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nugget
What's to prevent one of the incorporation mills from creating a flat fee
syndication platform to manage the LLC and provide template documents? Asking
for % carry as a platform that streamlines the legal filing and record keeping
seems aggressive.

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prostoalex
Comes down to dealflow. Quality angels are sought after, and if they're
capable of syndicating a larger round, so much the better.

To quote PG from
[http://paulgraham.com/fr.html](http://paulgraham.com/fr.html): "The best type
of intro is from a well-known investor who has just invested in you. So when
you get an investor to commit, ask them to introduce you to other investors
they respect."

AL just automates the above behavior.

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ddon
Hopefully we will see AngelList app on Android and iOS now :)

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yesplorer
because using your favorite mobile browser to view webpages is too mainstream
I guess.

