Seraf Investor Compass

If you have put time and effort into advising a company it breaks your heart to see them fail with investors. Some teams and ideas are just not fundable, and there is not much you can do there, but many fundable teams make absolutely silly mistakes when dealing with...

When a portfolio company raises a new round, the decision to reinvest isn’t always straightforward. Emotions, relationships, and momentum can cloud even the most experienced investor’s judgment. That’s why we created the Follow-on Investment Scorecard—a structured,...

While being a great director is often about adding strategic business value, and it is safe to say that thriving companies give rise to less risk than failing ones, there are some legal requirements which come with the job. Most of them are rooted in common-sense, but...

Understanding these core terms not only builds your confidence, but also helps you make smarter, faster investment decisions.

If you are helping an entrepreneur raise money, there is no way you are going to avoid one or more “deep dive” meetings. Whether you are working with the company’s very first investors, or trying to build out the syndicate for a round, once a founder makes a...

In the sport of Major League Baseball, the greatest hitters are those who get a hit just one out of every three times at bat and a home run 5 or 6 times out of 100 at bats. In the world of startup company investing, the best-known investors are those who invest in the...

Deciding whether to invest in a good idea is hard. Even when its potential is clearly explained. Trying to make that evaluation without a solid explanation is an exercise in needless frustration. I’ve talked about the role of a compelling executive summary to get an...

Deciding whether to invest in a good idea is hard. Even when its potential is clearly explained. Trying to make that evaluation without a solid explanation is an exercise in needless frustration. I’ve talked about the role of a compelling executive summary to get an...

I believe building a diverse portfolio is critical to success as an angel investor. But when I first sat down to write an article on diversification of angel investments, I knew right away I was facing a serious challenge. Numerous articles have been written on...

As part of our ongoing series on early stage deal terms, in this article we are going to take a close look at the individual term sheet provisions and make sense of them by assigning them to the categories where they belong: Deal Economics; Investor Rights/Protection;...