
YC Partners Taggar, Tan And Ohanian Raise $39M For Initialized Capital - immad
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/01/initialized-capital-39m/
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gojomo
So, there's Chris Sacca's 'LOWERCASE Capital' and now 'Initialized Capital'.

Can 'ALL CAPITAL', 'MiXeD Capital', 'trailinG capitaL', and 'CamelCase
CapitalPartners' be far behind?

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grinich
Alexis already runs Das Kapital Capital ;P

[http://daskapitalcapital.com/](http://daskapitalcapital.com/)

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JonnieCache
File under "irony abuse" next to the Rattling Stick advertising agency:
[http://www.rattlingstick.com/](http://www.rattlingstick.com/)

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badclient
Anyone have an idea how big the pool of institutional investors are? Everytime
I read one of these funding announcements I feel like its the same couple
hundred instituons giving their money to bunch of different funds...that end
up investing in mostly the same companies.

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pbiggar
I think you're asking about Limited Partners (institutional investors tends to
refer to larger VCs, like Sequoia, accel, or a16z).

Off the top of my head, I'd guess around 15,000, such as endowments, trusts,
rich families. Basically, anyone with a few hundred million dollars to invest.

I believe that getting into the top VC funds is very competitive and
difficult, which implies to me that it's not the same LPs spreading it around.
However, there are also funds of funds, which spread tens of billions from
10-20ish LPs across a range investment funds, and they would typically invest
in a number of VCs.

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prayag
Alexis is exceptional at giving advice around branding, marketing and brand
awareness, Garry is an amazing designer and Harj is really good at
strategizing. In addition, all three have vast experience as successful
entrepreneurs and YC partners. They are also very well connected in the
valley. Any founder would be extremely happy to have them on board. I see
bright future for the fund.

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greghinch

      "YC Partners Garry Tan and Harj Taggar along with the early-stage firm’s “Ambassador to the East” and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian have raised $39 million for a separate fund called Initialized Capital, according to an SEC filing today. 
      ...Taggar, who recently went part-time at Y Combinator, was not involved in raising this fund."
    

Am I the only one confused by this wording?

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CyrusL
Harj is traveling right now. She means that only Garry and Alexis raised the
money, but all three of them will invest it.

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seeingfurther
I'm with you. It's a confusing statement. Why include it?

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daveying99
To show that he wasn't fooling around with side projects when he was still
full time at YCombinator?

The journalist wouldn't have put it had it not been emphasized by his sources.
And if they brought it up it's likely because Harj giving less attention to YC
is a sensitive topic for the other partners at the firm.

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codex
This makes sense; YC is all about paying a pittance to a huge number of people
without experience or connections, and from that farm team a very small set of
promising candidates emerge. Investing in that set would likely be reasonably
profitable, especially as YC has already conditioned the founders to accept
low valuations even though they are now in a much more exclusive pool.

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tomhoward
_especially as YC has already conditioned the founders to accept low
valuations even though they are now in a much more exclusive pool._

Actually YC startups are conditioned (by the market) to expect higher
valuations post-YC than they would attract had they not been through YC.

However YC encourages founders to care more about the value offered by
investor than the valuation. At the same time, PG points out that the smartest
investors double down on the best companies, no matter the valuation.

The main benefit of this fund for both the investors and the founders is that
they'll be talking the same language and will be able to get deals closed
quickly.

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6thSigma
I wonder if they will invest in some companies who apply for YC but do not end
up getting in.

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josh2600
Why don't they just do A-rounds for YC companies? Wouldn't that be the most
obvious, and potentially profitable, play?

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nostrademons
$39M sounds very low for a fund that wants to do A-rounds. They'd be out of
money after about 5 companies.

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tptacek
While the term "A-round" has a changing meaning that has been especially fluid
over the last couple years, two responses to your point: first, 4MM is (as an
example) a perfectly respectable A round, and 39MM would buy 8-9 of those ---
which is also a perfectly respectable number of companies for a small fund
portfolio; second, full-on "institutional" lettered rounds are often
syndicated, and usually want primarily for a fund to lead the round, so
perhaps their play is to lead a bunch of syndicated rounds to help catalyze
funding for companies.

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diego
8-9 companies would turn it into a highly speculative fund, given the expected
distribution of returns for typical startups. I would expect a 39M fund to
invest in "seed stage" companies, in chunks of 100k to 1M tops. I'd expect
them to aim to have between 50 and 100 investments when the fund is fully
deployed.

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tptacek
Yep, this makes sense. Still, it's enough cash for them to be involved in or
even lead syndicated rounds. Either way: seems like a fun thing to be a part
of.

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gailees
an amazing convergence of talent to say the least

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pbiggar
$39m makes it an average-sized microVC/super-angel fund, likely to focus on
seed investments in the $100k-400k range as part of a syndicated round.

For comparison, you have a host of small funds like Data Collective ($10m) and
Crunchfund ($20), some mid-size seed investors like 500 startups ($30m) and SV
Angel ($40m), and larger seed investors like OATV ($85m), Harrison Metal
($85m?) and Baseline ($100m).

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faramarz
Cool.

Curiously, the simple homepage has an excessively cluttered source code.

[http://www.initialized.co/](http://www.initialized.co/)

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josh2600
Weebly always looks like that.

I was using Heap Analytics on a Weebly site and didn't understand any of the
variable names at first. They're definitely using naming conventions in the
source that make it easier for them to manage (as opposed to optimizing for
users).

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anujabro
Will this make them the go to firm for YC companies looking to raise?

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gailees
Hell yeah :)

