Mark Mullen
Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Bonfire Ventures. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderexecutive@DoubleMcapital ↗LinkedIn ↗bonfirevc.com ↗
Mark Mullen co-founded Los Angeles-based Bonfire Ventures in 2017 to lead seed rounds in B2B software, vertical AI, and fintech startups, having previously founded Double M Partners and Mull Capital. Over more than twenty years of tech investing, his notable investments have included The Trade Desk, Scopely, GOAT, ChowNow, Niantic, and Pendo.
1shows
1appearances
23statements
5resolved
0supported
1contradicted
0%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Mark Mullen said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Mullen: VC Funds Should Be Required to Publish Quarterly Returns Publicly
“I wish everybody would have to post their returns publicly every quarter. Competition. Let's see what everybody, let's see the hands people are playing. You know, this business is very opaque, right? You can be a VC and never have a return for like 10 years.”
Mullen: Seed Pro Rata Signaling Risk Has Become Far Less Relevant
“One of the reasons that it was important to commit to doing your pro rata was there was this thing called signaling risk, which people were worried about. And that still is relevant today, but less relevant.”
Mullen Went Negative Cash to Buy Stocks and Crypto in March 2020
“And for the first time ever last March, I went negative cash and I went big into the market and big into crypto.”
Mullen: Series A Rounds Expanded to $20M on $80M Pre-Money
“What's interesting, what you're saying, though, is valuations have jumped, as we all know, and also the amount of capital the A firm is putting in. So where the A round three years ago should be six at 24, it's now 20 at 80, like you're saying.”
Bonfire Passes on Full Pro Rata in Preemptive Series A Rounds
“Yeah, and to be honest, like, we're not, in those situations we're talking about, we're not perhaps taking the entire prorata we have, ok? So, we are managing that capital.”
Mullen: Multi-Stage Venture Firms Cannot Scale Hands-On Seed Portfolio Support
“How does a company like Sequoia invest a six hundred million dollar seed fund? How do they write a two million dollar check, let's say in a seed round, and then actually give you the full Sequoia team behind? Maybe they do that. I'm not saying they don't. I'm …”
Mullen: Anyone Can Do VC; the Industry Is Put on a Pedestal
“Oh, that anybody can do this job. I mean I think VC has, is up on this pedestal in some ways, and that it's, there's some sort of secret key to unlock the door to become a VC, and I think you can do it from any type of position.”
Mullen: Venture Investing Requires a Barbell Strategy With Liquid Assets
“Ventures illiquid. You kind of end up having a barbell mentality where you have a lot of illiquid investments And then maybe some real liquid stuff, for example, in the stock market or just cash.”
Mullen Committed to Scopely and The Trade Desk in First Meetings
“When I first met Walter Driver from Scopely or Jeff Green from the Trade Desk, I invested in the first meeting. I committed to them in that first meeting.”
Bonfire Ventures No Longer Commits to Investments in First Meetings
“We don't do that anymore. It's really hard, right? And especially since I have a team, I can't just walk in and go, yeah, we're going to invest in this company. We need to really talk about it, get through it, understand the pluses and minuses, get people's op…”
Mark Mullen Turned Down Investing in Honey Twice
“I met Sean Radd from Tinder, and I met the guys from Honey. And I turned down honey twice.”
Bonfire Prefers Series A Leads Who Reserve Seed Pro Rata
“Also, we, of course, foster our relationships with the A investors, and we tend to start working and only work with A investors who we know are going to come in and say, hey, we want to put in twenty million. We're going to do 19. Figure out the one that you h…”
Bonfire Ventures Blocks Investment Deals if Two Partners Vote No
“When one of us says no, the deal can happen. When two of us says no, especially two of the partners, I mean, it's not going to happen, right?”
Bonfire Allows Team Members to Write $500K Checks Without Consensus
“So any one of the five of us can invest up to 500 grand in a company that we just absolutely believe in, whether it's the founder or the business, just absolutely believe in. And it may be not even a seed round. It's maybe a An angel round, maybe a million buc…”
Mullen: VC Investments Requiring Lengthy Justification Rarely Become Big Winners
“When we spend a lot of time over time making, you know, trying to almost in reverse justify the decision we're about to make, those companies ended up not being the big winners. The ones where you come in and like, we got to do this deal. That founder is unbel…”
Mullen: Sequoia Capital Reports 50% to 60% of Investments Go to Zero
“Even the greatest investors, I think Sequoia says, 50 to 60% of their investments go to zero.”
Bonfire Ventures Has Issued a Term Sheet Within Nine Days
“We have done a meeting to term sheet In nine days, which is now apparently a little bit long, I'm hearing things are happening over the weekend, but nine days is a big move for somebody investing in a seed company.”
Bonfire Targets 24 to 28 Seed Deals With 60% Follow-On Reserves
“We're not going to move out of that. So we have a very clear focus in what we do and we do about Seven to eight, seven to nine deals a year. We'll have a 24 to 28 company portfolio, and we do about 40% of the investments are the primary check and 60% follow-on…”
Bonfire Maintains Series A Pro Rata and Caps Follow-Ons After Series B
“We'll maintain our pro rata in the A round. We might do a little bit in the B, and then we're done.”
Bonfire Ventures Does Seven to Ten Deals Annually With Seven Board Seats
“We do about seven to 10 deals a year. We will take seven board seats of those 10, right?”
Bonfire Caps Individual $500K Check Autonomy to Two Deals Per Fund
“Well, you can only do one or two, right? And they are being watched. So in fairness, you have a lot of almost, I wouldn't call it this way, but there is peer pressure to make sure that these Two small checks you make over a three-year period are ones that are …”
Bonfire Gives Six Scouts $250K Each Strictly for B2B Deals
“And so we have six Scouts. We have four in LA, one in Boston, and one in San Francisco. Three men, women, three men. Diverse as well. And we've given each one of them 250,000 dollars. They are to spend it in unique opportunities which are B to B only.”
Mullen's First Angel Investment Generated a 40x Return via Warrants
“My first investment as an angel, which was never called that, as you know, until later on in life, was in... And they needed 10,000 dollars for a server to start their ISP, right? The web hosting company. And I gave them the 10,000, and then they paid me 15% i…”
The other half of the tape: Mark Mullen's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Mark Mullen, by other people (1)
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mark's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Bonfire Ventures | 1 | 23 | 0% 0/5 | full record on 20VC → |