Lessons about company building from the WeWork drama
The WeWork drama of the past weeks is a great reminder of how perceptions of a start-up opportunity can change very dramatically in a short period of time. What was one of the highest flying start-ups with a private market valuation of $47B was brought down to Earth when trying to IPO. (Important to note […]
Announcing Flow, a new blockchain for entertainment applications
Our portfolio company Dapper Labs, the creators of CryptoKitties and the Dapper Wallet, today announced Flow, a new blockchain for entertainment applications. Why do we need another blockchain, you ask? And wasn’t CryptoKitties built on Ethereum? And aren’t there already many other blockchains that are trying to do what Ethereum cannot do (or cannot do […]
The Version One Promise to Founders
The venture capital market has become very noisy over the past few years, especially on the early-stage side. Not a day goes by that a new fund isn’t being announced. Entrepreneurs have an increasing amount of financing options – that’s good news, but it also makes it harder to choose the right partners for your […]
How times have changed in twenty years…
It was 20 years ago next month that we started JustBooks, creating a marketplace that connected buyers and sellers of used, rare, and out-of-print books. We initially launched in Germany before expanding into the UK and France, and then sold the company to our North American competitor AbeBooks in 2001. My co-founder Hannes Blum and […]
Charting return multiples over time
Last week I blogged about the return multiples for our Fund I and how they perfectly illustrate just how much the power law drives VC return. Alex Norman from AngelList asked how these return multiples have changed over time and what insights could be won from that data. It was a great question and I […]