Ali: Passed on $25K Coinbase Series A worth $200M at IPO
Suleman "Suli" Ali · Behind The Scenes of Selling My Company For Millions | Suli Ali (#410) · Jan 24, 2023 · at 41:52
Suli Ali recounts his biggest investing miss after advising Coinbase co-founders Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam to pick a16z for their Series A.
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“Biggest miss was Coinbase. My at TinyCo, we had this guy who worked for me named Adam Merber. He was roommates with Fred, the Coinbase co-founder. And so Brian Armstrong and Fred were fundraising for their Series A. They got a term sheet from Andreessen Horowitz and Benjmark and a bunch of other firms. And so they called me and said, hey, should we go with Benchmark? Should we go with Andreessen Horowitz? You know, we at Tiny Co raised money from Andreessen Horowitz. Mark Andreessen was on the board. And I was like, go with Andreessen Horowitz. Here's what's awesome about them. And on that call, if I was like, hey, by the way, can I put in 25 K into this round? I feel like they would have said yes. And that 25 K at their IPO was worth two hundred million dollars.”
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