

AngelList Raising A Big Round, To Be Valued at $150 Million Or More - zosegal
http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/14/angellist-to-be-valued-at-150-million-or-more/

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DanBlake
Congrats to Naval and Team.

He was instrumental in helping me out when I was new to the game and of all
the investors/angels I have dealt with, he is the most down to earth and
awesome in many ways.

I feel very confident that he is one of the few guys in the valley who
actually cares about helping entrepreneurs and is not in it for the cash.
Angellist's success is proof of that.

~~~
prateekdayal
It is also pretty awesome that Naval tries to help out startups outside the
valley (and outside the US). In fact, not just Naval but other people in the
team really want to help startups succeed and will reach out to you and talk
to you. Great company DNA. Congratulations!

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joshfraser
I'm a huge fan of both Naval and AngelList. They have done so much already to
make life better for entrepreneurs. I'm excited to see what they do with the
cash infusion when it comes.

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inspiredworlds
AngelList is a game changer. Great idea and execution. I like how they are
moving into other areas like startup recruitment and facilitating the
financing process by providing standardised docs, electronic signatures, etc..

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vm
Naval has been a prolific angel investor over the past few years. It would be
interesting if some of this capital is used for direct investments out of
AngelList. Years ago Sequoia did something like that by investing in
YCombinator, and multiple venture funds created a similar structure when they
invested in Betaworks.

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bravura
What is the correct way to use angel list if you're not currently fundraising?
How should one engage on the site?

What is the strategy in deciding who to follow?

How do you attract people to follow you?

~~~
momoro
* Hire people at <https://angel.co/candidates>

* Browse jobs at <https://angel.co/talent>

* Follow markets you're interested in at <https://angel.co/markets>

* Apply to incubators (e.g. techstars)

Lots more.

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billywalsh
Must be easy to raise lots of funding from top investors when every investor
worth is salt is a regular user of your product!

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friendstock
I wonder if they raised the round on... AngelList? :P

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timdorr
Any idea why they need $150m? Any thoughts on what that kind of cash would be
used for? That could give you more employees than Twitter.

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jewel
Unless I misunderstand things, a valuation of $150m means that the company is
worth $150m, not that they'll be raising that much. Instead they'll be selling
a shares of the company at that valuation, so if they sell 10% they'll get
$15m.

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neya
Can you please share with us some resources (if you may have) on how these
companies are valued? What metrics, parameters are taken into account while
evaluating a company's worth?

Thanks!

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tinco
As far as I understand it, it is based on educated guesswork. The idea is that
you make a prognosis of where you think the company will be in the coming 5-10
years, and how much money they will be making at that time.

To aid your guesswork you look at the state of the market the company will be
in, and if possible compare it to similar companies.

Once you think you have an idea of what the company will be making, you can
calculate its worth. The worth of a company is usually between 5 and 15 times
its yearly profits (depending on the market), multiplied by some risk factor.

Though in practice this is hard because early-stage companies invest
most/all/more of their profits back in to the company to allow it to grow. And
ofcourse estimating risk is also a very hard thing to do.

This is the process as far as I understand it. If you think I missed something
or got something wrong please let me know. Also remember this is more a
science than an art, most of these parameters come from experience and gut
feeling.

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neya
Thank you for your valuable explanation :)

