Rebecca Kaden, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, explains why early-stage startups with complex growth paths struggle to raise Series A rounds despite representing good venture opportunities.
“On the other hand, I think anything with a complicated story, things that are figuring it out and are seeing some growth curve, but it took a while for that to figure it out, so maybe they had to spend some of that seed money, so their, you know, ultimate revenue is less than what you ultimately would like, and their curve is newer. Very hard to raise money for, big opportunity in, right?”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Rebecca Kaden
PredictionDidn’t hold up
Kaden: Seed-stage startup valuations will decrease in the near future
“I think seed valuations are going to go down.”
Rebecca KadenNov 17, 2023▶ 8:38Roundtable #6 with Rebecca Kaden, Nicole Quinn, Eurie Kim, Harry Stebbings | E1083 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Kaden: Multi-billion dollar venture funds writing $2M seed checks does not work
“The strategy of very large funds writing two million dollar checks does not work.”
Rebecca KadenNov 17, 2023▶ 9:16Roundtable #6 with Rebecca Kaden, Nicole Quinn, Eurie Kim, Harry Stebbings | E1083 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Kaden: LPs say some recent seed funds will fail to raise again
“Some seed funds won't be able to raise another fund given the vintage we just left. We're hearing that from LPs”
Rebecca KadenNov 17, 2023▶ 9:54Roundtable #6 with Rebecca Kaden, Nicole Quinn, Eurie Kim, Harry Stebbings | E1083 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kaden: AI application-layer tools will capture significant market value
“If you believe all of the value is going to aggregate in a very small number of underlying models and platforms, that may be correct, but I think what you're hearing here is there's a tremendous amount of excitement around application layer and point solution …”
Rebecca KadenNov 17, 2023▶ 25:29Roundtable #6 with Rebecca Kaden, Nicole Quinn, Eurie Kim, Harry Stebbings | E1083 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Kaden: Paid ads on Google and Facebook enrich platforms, not startups
“I, you know, I think Peter Fenton's also making a comment on the acquisition landscape where most of paid acquisition is coming through these third party platforms like Facebook or Google, where you're actually largely boosting the equity value of the platform…”
Rebecca KadenOct 1, 2018▶ 7:2420VC: USV's Rebecca Kaden on Whether Venture Returns Can Be Made At Scale In Consumer Today & How To Navigate Consumer Investing In A World of Amazon
Insight
Kaden: Startups dependent on continuous paid acquisition are poor VC investments
“We don't believe that businesses that are going to pay to acquire customer after customer are great venture businesses. They require way too much capital, and you don't get enough leverage on those dollars.”
Rebecca KadenOct 1, 2018▶ 10:0220VC: USV's Rebecca Kaden on Whether Venture Returns Can Be Made At Scale In Consumer Today & How To Navigate Consumer Investing In A World of Amazon
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.