Term Sheet Series Wrap Up
Index to Feld and Mendelson's 2005 series explaining every clause of a VC term sheet: liquidation preferences, anti-dilution, protective provisions, drag-along, and which terms actually matter. Later became the book Venture Deals.
How to Raise a Series A
Distilled from YC's Series A program data: how A rounds actually happen, why 'we'll preempt you' conversations mislead founders, benchmark metrics, and running a deliberate A process instead of drifting into one.
How to De-Risk a Startup
Polovets enumerates the specific risks investors price (team, market, product, execution, financing) and concrete actions that retire each one, reframing fundraising as selling reduced risk at increasing prices.
Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital
A book-length, edited, citation-heavy reference on the entire venture fundraising process, from instruments and terms through negotiation and close, reviewed by dozens of practitioners.
A Question About Risk That Founders Forget to Ask VCs
A short, sharp diligence-reversal tactic: ask every prospective investor 'what's a risk you're more comfortable with than the average VC?' and use the answer to test fit and conviction.
Bessemer's Published Investment Memos (LinkedIn, Shopify, Pinterest, Twilio and more)
Bessemer publishes the actual internal investment recommendation memos behind its best deals, showing exactly how partners argued for LinkedIn, Shopify, Pinterest and others: the risks flagged, the numbers at the time, and the bet being made.
The Confidential YouTube Investment Memo by Sequoia
Sequoia's actual 2005 YouTube Series A memo, made public through the Viacom lawsuit: written when YouTube was two months old with no CEO and no business plan, it shows how a top firm underwrote a raw, risky deal.