Category Archives: Venture Capital

Jun 3
Fred Destin

Pillpack: Adding $50M in funding to bring redesigned pharmacy to all

There are some people in the world that it is simply a joy to work with, and when good things happened to them you can only feel joy.  TJ Parker and Elliott Cohen are two such people and I’m delighted …

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Oct 2
Fred Destin

Cytokinesis at Atlas Venture: bio and tech take off

Atlas Venture announced at his latest annual meeting that the biotech and tech groups were going their own way.  Since I did spend ten years there, let me give you my view on it. Aligned, yet different The two groups …

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Mar 5
Fred Destin

Pro-rata rights: the good, the bad and the ugly

 Fred Wilson posted an article to explain the concept and value of pro-rata rights, with his usual elegance in making the concept clear. Pro-rata rights are incredibly valuable for a simple reason: most startup companies fail, but pro-rata rights are …

3 Comments
Oct 12
Fred Destin

A (reconstituted) interview with Marc Andreessen

 Thanks to a slightly unfortunate messaging glitch (which of you entrepreneurs would like his labor of love to be compared to “fruit fly experiments” in the Wall Street Journal), pmarca a.k.a Marc Andreessen has been drawn into in-depth conversation on HackerNews.   …

5 Comments
Oct 9
Fred Destin

The Glorious Post Seed Startup Financing Chaos

The other day I got a call from Scott Kirstner at the Boston Globe answering: “what happens to all these incubators entrepreneurs after Demo Day”.   The short answer: chaos.  Full of opportunity, but chaos nonetheless.  Cue fractals on this …

19 Comments
Oct 2
Fred Destin

High Risk + Founders First + Boston: The Atlas Venture way

I am re-publishing an interview with Tom Lytton-Dickie in which we discussed Atlas’ focus on people, our high risk strategy and the benefits of existing within a single location.  Excellent write-up, I did not touch it. Putting people first In response to …

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May 1
Fred Destin

Men on Mars : The Reinvention of Atlas Venture

 I joined Atlas Venture 9 years ago. At the time we had 5 offices, 22 partners, 7 board rooms, a team of over 60,  over two billion in assets managed. And boy, were we making life difficult for ourselves. Today: …

26 Comments
Dec 5
Fred Destin

Series A Crunch, Seed Blues

If you’re an entrepreneur, what are you supposed to make of all this hoopla about the Series A crunch ?  The line of argumentation is nothing new, so is there something real to worry about or is it business as …

10 Comments
Nov 1
Fred Destin

On historical returns and venture capital flavours

Story of of the last few years in Venture Fund Land : large institutional investors concentrate money with fewer managers and flagship brands AND / OR find emerging managers. Since VC offerings have generally been undifferentiated, LP’s had little choice …

11 Comments
May 13
Fred Destin

The Singularity hits Venture Capital (Wilson/Kauffman Redux)

I mean, really, who still wants to be a venture capitalist ?  It’s fast moving from job to have for new HBS grads with flat abs and trophy girlfriend (or vice versa) to labour of love for guys or gals …

9 Comments