Slides from a GA event on Seed Accelerators.

1. Session I - Seed Accelerators:
“Start-up Scourge or Super-charger?”
Monday July 29, 2013
General Assembly Seminar
Part of the “Show me the $$$$!” GA event series:
Insider perspective on fundraising and entrepreneurship
Tom Wisniewski
RosePaul Investments
Thanks to all who participated at the event last night @ GA NYC and a special thanks to our guest speakers:
Kamran Ansari, Greycroft Partners;
Brian Cohen, New York Angels ;
Charlie Kemper, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator;
Shai Goldman, 500 Startups;
Fred Cook, Moveline (TechStars Alum);
Jonathon Ende, SeamlessDocs (ERA Alum);
Heather Marie, 72Lux (500 Startups Alum)
-TW (Thomas@rosepaul.com)

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Agenda
I. Kick-off and Introduction
II. Panel with Accelerators (ERA, 500 Start-ups)
III. Panel with Investors (Greycroft, NY Angels)
IV. [Brief Networking Break]
V. Panel with Founders (Moveline, 72Lux, SeamlessDocs)
VI. More Networking/ Beverages………

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I. Kick-Off and Introduction
Show me the $$$$! Series: An Insider’s Guide.
Monthly series on the critical elements of successful start-up
development, fundraising and entrepreneurship.
Goal: make it a great, impactful event.
Leverage:
 Interesting/Meaningful Topics
 Present some prepared, well structure content
 Get great experienced, successful “insiders” to share
there perspective
 Include Networking (…and some beer and wine!)

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Tonight’s Focus
 There are a lot of challenges in launching a start-up: the odds
appear to be heavily stacked against you.
Less than 100:1 will succeed
 Its not all about a fantastic idea and great team. Two huge factors:
• Getting the necessary guidance, input, and access ….that allow
you to refine and build the business
• Raising the capital you need.
……..Media can make it look easy, but the reality is: it’s really
hard.
 Accelerators: Seem to offer the keys to both.
• Lots of help: during the program, demo day, after
• Capital: Modest investment upfront, some follow-on(?) and….a
huge boost in raising capital from Angels/VC’s post
program.

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 After B-school: joined a start-up management consulting firm Mitchell Madison
Group; focus on Strategy/Operations/IT for financial services, tech, outsourcing,
private equity/VC clients (1993 to 2000)
 Walker Digital: helped set-up and run an early “internet incubator” (2000)
 Independent Advisor / Turn-arounds: Advised VC and PE Firms on portfolio
company strategy and new investments; joined the management team of two
companies
 Currently:
• Early stage investor and advisor to start-ups
• Member and director at New York Angels
 Investor in:
• Moveline (Uber for the moving industry) --Techstars Alum;
• SeamlessDocs (“Adobe 2.0” internet document sharing) – ERA Alum
• DealFlicks ( “Hotel.com” for movie tickets) –500 Start-Ups Alum;
…..and ~10 other ventures that didn’t go through Accelerators,
Tom Wisniewski: My background
 Born in NYC; grew-up in Montclair, NJ
 Physics and Philosophy major undergrad
(Clark University); MBA at Tuck School
(Dartmouth)
 1st Job: Programmer at Morgan Stanley then
moved to Investment Banking

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Sources of Investment: Seed Fundraising, Angels and VC’s
Stage (Pre-Round):
• Expected to
have:
• You and a pitch. • Well developed pitch
• Answers to “b-plan” questions
• Some product…
• Some traction….
• Significant variation among firms but….
Angel req. +:
- More Traction! Clients, users/stats,
more proof. E.g. “$100K monthly revs”
- …..Growth potential! $1B Industry,
$100M Rev
• Don’t Expect: • Product, Traction,
Team
• Proven business model, product
market fit (know it will change)
Who/what are
they?
• People you already
know, that trust you
• Individuals that are experienced
early stage investors
• A Firm. A group of professional
investors that raises, invests and
manages other people’s $
Angel Investment
Friends and
Family
Venture Capital
“You”
aka Bootstrapped
Earlier Stage Later Stage
Round Size $: • $10’s of K
to $100K
• $100’s of K
to $1M+
• $500K to
$1.5M
Investment Size $: $5K – $10’s of K • $25K – $75K • $250K-$750K
Valuation (Pre-
Mon):
• < $1 M • $1 – 5 M • $5-10 M
II. Start-up Life-Cycle and Fundraising
“Seed” VC “Traditional Series A” VC
• $5M-$15M
• $3M – $5M
• $10 – 25 M
“Seed”
Where do the Accelerators fit in?

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Accelerators: Some Stats
Stats from Seed-DB (www.seed-db.com):
• 171 “Seed Accelerator” Programs world-wide
• 2862 companies “accelerated”
• $2.5B raised (Includes all subsequent
rounds); $1.1B if we exclude Y-Combinator
• 148 Exits

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Name Location
Date
Founded
Accept.
Rate Funding Cost
Cohort
Size
Class
Timing Class Length
Funded
to Date
Examples of
Graduates
Y Combinator Mountain
View, CA
2005 2% $14K-$20K +
$80K note
None 82 Jan-
Mar,
Jun-Aug
3 months 550 Reddit, Scribd,
Weebly,
Dropbox,
Airbnb,
Codecademy,
42Floors
TechStars Boston, MA;
Boulder, CO;
Chicago, IL;
New York,
NY
2007 <1% $18K +
optional
$100K
convertible
debt
None 8-13 Varies 3 months 162 Filtrbox,
IntenseDebat
e, MadKast,
Socialthing,
Localcents,
DailyBurn
500 Startups Mountain
View, CA
2010 <2% $50K for 5%
equity
$6K/founder,
$3K/non-
founder
25-35 Varies
(NYC
every 9
Mo. ?)
4 months 288 9GAG,
InternMatch,
72Lux,
Fitocracy
Dreamit Philadelphia,
PA; Austin,
TX; Israel;
New York,
NY
2008 N/A $5K + $5K for
each founding
member (up
to 4)
None 10-15 Varies 3 months 95 MindSnacks,
SCVNGR,
SeatGeek,
Notehall
(acquired by
Chegg),
Entrepreneur's
Roundatable
Accelerator
NY, NY 2011 1% $40K None 10 Jun-
Sept,
Jan-Apr
4 months 50 TripleLift,
Stray Boots,
numberFire
Accelerators: Some Stats

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So….what questions do you have?
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 ???

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Our guest speakers tonight:
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 Kamran Ansari, Greycroft Partners
 Brian Cohen, New York Angels
 Charlie Kemper, Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
 Shai Goldman, 500 Startups
 Fred Cook, Moveline (TechStars Alum)
 Jonathon Ende, SeamlessDocs (ERA Alum)
 Heather Marie, 72Lux (500 Startups Alum)

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Thanks!
Thomas Wisniewski
Contact Info
Email: Thomas@RosePaul.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswis
Twitter: @thomaswis
This presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/Thomaswis/
Next event in the SMTM series:
Monday September 30th

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THANKS!
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Extra Slides
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Tom Wisniewski: Investor Profile
 Direct “Angel” Investor in Companies
• $25K-250K investments; Typical valuations: $1-5 Million,
• Typical Stage: at least some “product” done, some customer/sales traction
• Sector focus: Opportunistic generally within internet/software space;
- fair amount of Saas B2B, and consumer “marketplace” models, ecommerce enablers.
- NOT (or not much?): hardware, heathcare/pharma, cleantech
• NYC based: 50% investments in NYC area companies; total of ~80% NE overall (e.g
Boston, DC), 20% West Coast.
• Examples:
- Sociocast (social/behavioral big data analytics)
- LiveLook (Saas, live collaboration sales/service platform)
- Anvato (Ad insertion to live video streaming via proprietary machine vision)
- Moveline (Uber for the moving industry)
- SeamlessDocs (Saas, paperwork automation; “Adobe 2.0” internet document sharing)
- Movio (Digital “RedBox”; content delivery via “last 100 ft” of wifi internet)
- HeTexted (Relationship advice forum generating content, media opportunities)
- Wanderu (Kayak for ground transportation)
- DealFlicks (a “Priceline” or “Hotel.com” for movie theater tickets)
- iCharts (tool that enables engaging, sharable, embedible chart content)
 Investor in Funds
• In addition to direct investments in start-ups, invest in VC and PE funds.
• Examples:
- Social Starts (Seed fund for start-ups leveraging the Social Web)
- Brooklyn Bridge Ventures (Charlie O’Donnell’s fund)
- Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA Fund)
- Greycroft Partners (Venture Fund)
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