Blog

Perspectives on entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital from K9 Ventures.

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If I had a hammer…

If I had a hammer,I’d hammer in the morningI’d hammer in the evening,All over this land. So goes The Hammer Song by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. Well, most VCs have just one tool in their toolbox. And yes, they use the tool to hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening. That tool […]

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A VC trick and a related startup mistake

There is a fundamental information imbalance in the startup world that stems from the fact that most  founders are raising money for the first time, but most investors are not investing for the first time. This used to be a much bigger issue ten or fifteen years ago, but these days, it is possible for […]

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4 Rules of M&A for Startup Founders

The following post was written by @TomioGeron for ExitRound based on an interview with me and was published on the ExitRound blog on January 9th, 2014. It is being reproduced in its entirety here with permission from the author… Manu Kumar, founder of seed stage venture firm K9 Ventures, focuses on investments that have a hard science […]

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Producers and Consumers on Social Media

I’m making a concerted effort to start blogging again on a more frequent basis. It’s not that I have suddenly discovered lots of free time. However, I’ve decided that it’s time to change priorities. In my attempt to keep up with the demands of work and home I had mostly given up on blogging. Part […]

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Protip for nascent startups on payroll cycles

If you ask most startups how often they run payroll, the most common answer will be: “Twice a month.” Now ask them why they run payroll twice a month, and they will give you a puzzled look and then probably respond with, “I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be,” or, “That’s how often I got […]

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The problem with getting an MBA

I was reading Dan Primack‘s Term Sheet this morning and saw the part about Chamath Palihapitiya making waves at HBS by telling current MBA candidates that “the overwhelming majority of us would not look favorably on a company started by one of you.” Chamath is correct in making that statement, especially if you’re careful to […]

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Watch out for the Board Observer request

Ah, I love it when someone cancels a meeting with me at the last minute. It’s like found time. So liberating to have an unscheduled hour that I can use for whatever I like. Anyways… I wanted to use some of this time to briefly make a point that I’ve made very often to K9 […]

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An Email Apology

Those that know me well know that I’m generally quite anal about email. To date, I’ve never declared email bankruptcy — despite being advised numerous times to do so. I read every email I receive (excluding obvious spam and mass emails) and make a sincere effort to respond to as many as I can. It’s become […]

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Coin: the missing link in payments

It’s 2013. We have a super computer in our pockets (or purses), but the way we pay for things hasn’t changed a whole lot. Yes, we don’t carry a lot of cash any more, but we all carry multiple credit cards. And the credit card hasn’t changed all that much since its introduction in the […]

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Announcing K9 Ventures II – A $40M technology-focused micro-VC fund

I am pleased to announce the formation of K9 Ventures II, L.P. – A $40M technology-focused micro-VC fund. This new $40M fund is backed by several high quality institutional limited partners including university endowments, foundations, family offices and fund of funds and key individuals.

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The Curse of Over-Capitalization

For VCs money is a commodity. VCs also operate in a limited time window. Now, combine those two motivations that venture investors have: 1) ownership, 2) quick growth, and what do you get? You get a situation whether investors are incentivized to put in more money into a company, not only to buy more equity, but also to fund the quick growth. In fact, it becomes a vicious circle. First, a company may get encouraged to raise more money that it really needs, just so that the venture fund can get to it’s desired level of ownership. Then the same company gets encouraged to spend that money to accelerate and to grow quickly, which in turn means it runs out of that money more quickly, and then needs to raise even more money.

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Hope and Numbers

The seed round happens on hope. The Series A happens on a combination of hope and numbers. And the Series B and beyond, happen largely based on numbers.

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Boomerang Calendar — scheduling done right

One of the downsides of being an investor is that you spend a lot of time in meetings. What’s worse is that most of these meetings need to be scheduled. And yes, in 2012, we all still mostly schedule meetings via email. Consequently, a fair number of emails that I exchange with people are about […]

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Torbit Insight – Real User Measurement of Web Performance

Torbit Insight uses Real User Measurement, i.e. when a visitor comes to your site, Torbit Insight measures how long the page takes to load for every visitor, on every page. It collects all the data from every visitor and gives you a real-time view of how your site is performing across all visitors to your site

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On Geography

Put simply: “What happens in Silicon Valley, simply doesn’t happen anywhere else,” and, “If you want to be an actor move to Hollywood.”

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Founder Liquidity

My recommendation is that founders should consider selling between 5%-10% of their stake once a company gets to a high-priced Series B or a Series C.

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‘Capital Efficiency’ doesn’t exist

“There is no such thing as a capital efficient company (at least in Silicon Valley). There are only two types of companies — those that attract capital, and those than don’t. And you obviously want to be the former.”

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Congratulations IndexTank!

IndexTank (@IndexTank) has been acquired by LinkedIn! Huge congratulations to the entire IndexTank Team and especially to IndexTank’s founder Diego Basch (@dbasch).

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Fifteen Years Later

Fifteen years ago, in 1996, while I was still a student at Carnegie Mellon University, I wrote an article (blog post in today’s parlance) about the future of computing…

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Welcoming @Occipital!

Today, I am pleased to welcome Occipital in to the K9 Ventures portfolio. The company announced today that it is raising $7M in a Series A led by the Foundry Group.

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