Startup Funding Quotes

State funds, private equity, venture capital, and institutional lending all have their role in the lifecycle of a high tech startup, but angel capital is crucial for first-time entrepreneurs. Angel investors provide more than just cash; they bring years of expertise as both founders of businesses and as seasoned investors.

Some incubators, like Y Combinator and TechStars, were started by successful entrepreneurs wishing to help the next generation learn from their experiences. Other programs, such as Viterbi Startup Garage and Austin Technology Incubator, were created by universities to help young entrepreneurs bridge the knowledge gap from student to funded company.

The market is ridiculously overcrowded with early stage investors. This results in a talent drain, where the best talent gets diffused and work for their own startups.

When I graduate, I will either run a division of a company... or I'll get funding for my own company.

... We probably funded a rate of something like one out of ten solo teams.

At Sequoia, upwards of a hundred entrepreneurs a week present, and if we're lucky, maybe a dozen of them are focusing on the enterprise.

Government support is not only investing in upstream areas like basic research, but also in downstream areas like applied research and early-stage financing for the companies themselves. This means there are great risks.

Good ideas will always get funded, so that's not going to be a problem. But you will see that it will be harder and harder for bad ideas to get funded.

If you're a teenager in Palo Alto launching an app, you know from the outset how you plan to finance your business.

Little startups are ridiculously overfunded.

Venture-backed startups with billion dollar market caps are called 'unicorns' because they are supposed to be rare mythical creatures that few entrepreneurs will ever ride.

A bubble in early-stage funding means maybe there's $300 million at work when maybe there should be $150, as opposed to a bubble in late-stage funding which means there's $20 billion at work when there should be $3.

Anybody who runs is a VC. Anybody who stands still is a well-disciplined VC.

Only morons start a business on a loan?

I focus on consumer Internet. Sometimes it's a working prototype; sometimes it's an idea on a napkin. I don't do a ton of deals a year, and I really like working with startups - it's the only way I can invest. It fits my ADD brain.

Women are starting something like twice as many companies as men, but the money is primarily going to companies started by men.

For resourceful tech founders, finding capital is rarely a problem; making the best use of it is another story. A few years slinging pepperoni pies and chicken wings - on tiny margins and with minimal investment - might not be the worst fiscal training.

A NASA-funded study estimates that if the price of a ticket to space approached $100,000, close to a million people would buy one. That's a $100 billion industry. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gave me $20 million in startup funding to go after that market.

A savvy entrepreneur will not always look for investment money, first.

Learn to raise capital by any means necessary. That's your primary job as an entrepreneur. You must continually raise capital from family and friends, banks, suppliers, customers and investors.

I think entrepreneurs should demand transparency for startup accelerators.

The funding of mobile first companies will increase significantly.

With tech startups, it's all loose-goosie. You raise money as you go, often from friends, family and investors.

It's rare for a startup to make money immediately, so you need to make sure that you have enough saved or that you have another income stream that can support you.

I started Shutterstock without any outside funding; I believe in creating a lean startup. By not taking outside investors early, I was forced to use every dollar I had as efficiently as possible. And I was able to keep a large part of the company.