MZ Zaveri, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, discusses structural shifts in West Coast seed financing since 2012-2013 on The 20 Minute VC.
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“Anecdotally speaking, you're seeing less of these rounds from like, 2012, 2013, where there's like, 12, 13 people on a cap table, and you've thrown the financing together, and you might have two to three million bucks on a note where, and I mean, it could still be on a note. It's a matter of sort of having excessive number of investors, and no one's sort of really having a claim. I'm seeing less of it”
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Zaveri: Dismissing founders or ideas as just a feature is dangerous
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