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Seed Capital

The Accelerator Conundrum: Navigating Your Path to Startup Success

Posted on Friday, Jun 20th 2025

Alright, let’s cut through the noise and get to the brutal truth of the startup accelerator world. Many entrepreneurs, starry-eyed and naive, leap headfirst into 3-month accelerator programs without truly understanding the long-term implications. It’s time for an incisive commentary, a necessary dissection.

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1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Financing

Posted on Monday, Jul 17th 2023

Raising money to build a startup is a huge challenge. To be able to raise any money at all, you must first understand how investors think. We have developed the following courses catering to entrepreneurs in different stages of their entrepreneurial journey.

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Amit Grover, Member, Mumbai Angels (Part 1)

Posted on Saturday, Aug 28th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the nineteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Amit Grover, member of the Mumbai Angels and the founder of Nurture Talent Academy, a training institute for entrepreneurs in India.

Irina: Hi, Amit. Let’s start with your telling us a little bit about your background.

Amit: I am a mechanical engineer, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. I got my MBA from the India Institute of Management (IIM) Indore. I have worked with leading companies in the past few years, in different roles. I was a software engineer at Infosys Technology Limited, then I did my MBA. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Eric Paley, Managing Partner, Founder Collective (Part 1)

Posted on Saturday, Aug 21st 2010

By guest author Irina Patterson

This is the eighteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Eric Paley, managing partner of Founders Collective, a $50 million fund dedicated to investing in seed-stage deals. The fund has offices in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Irina: Hi, Eric. Let’s start with your background.

Eric: I am a two-time entrepreneur. My most recent company was founded when I was in business school and was called Brontes Technologies. It developed 3-D intra-oral imaging technology for use in dentistry. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Manu Kumar, Founder And Chief Firestarter, K9 Ventures (Part 1)

Posted on Wednesday, Aug 18th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Ravi Bulusu

This is the seventeenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Manu Kumar, the founder and chief firestarter at K9 Ventures, an early-stage venture fund that provides funding and support for concept-stage and seed-stage technology companies. It is based in Palo Alto, California.

Irina: Hi, Manu. Let’s start with your background.

Manu: I am an entrepreneur turned investor. I started my entrepreneurial career in the late 1990s while I was a grad student at Carnegie Mellon. I started my first company in 1996. That company was doing Web-based customer service. We built that company and sold it in 2000 to Epiphany. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Ho Nam, General Partner, Altos Ventures (Part 1)

Posted on Friday, Aug 6th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the sixteenth interview in our series on seed financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Ho Nam, general partner at Altos Ventures, a first-stage venture capital firm, based in Menlo Park, Silicon Valley.

Irina: Hi, Ho. Why don’t you start with your background?

Ho: I got started at Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, and got a taste of venture capital business in the early days. I was at Bain from 1988 to 1990. At that time there were only two offices in the whole country, San Francisco and Boston. Bain did some work with smaller companies for equity compensation. We worked for a company called Lattice Semiconductor, which I think might still be their client after twenty years or so. We were hired by the new CEO before it went public. That gave me an interesting view into startups and reporting to a board. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Aug 2nd 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fifteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Brad Feld, managing director of Foundry Group , venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet, and software startups, based in Boulder, Colorado. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Jeff Clavier, Founder And Managing Partner, SoftTech VC (Part 1)

Posted on Wednesday, Jul 28th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fourteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Palo Alto-based Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of SoftTech VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing a $15 million seed fund, SoftTech VC II.

Irina: Hi, Jeff. Could you tell us briefly about your personal background?

Jeff: I’m French born, raised and educated there. I have a master’s in computer science, with a minor in distributed computing. When I was at school, I did a startup in the financial services market (Effix Systems) that we sold to Reuters Venture Capital in 1993. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Alan Rossiter, Vice Chairman, Springboard Capital (Part 1)

Posted on Tuesday, Jul 20th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the thirteenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Alan Rossiter, vice chairman of Springboard Capital, an early-stage private equity fund in Jacksonville, Florida.

Irina: Hi, Alan. Could you please start with your own background?

Alan: In the recent past, I’ve been a private angel investor. Going back before that, I was a career naval officer, a Navy pilot for a number of years, and then I retired in the early 1990s. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Mike Maples, Founder And Managing Partner, Floodgate (Part 1)

Posted on Tuesday, Jul 13th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the twelfth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Mike Maples, managing partner of Floodgate, a fund with the superangel approach that bridges the gap between initial seed money raised from traditional angel investors and traditional VCs, and aims to find the fifteen most valuable companies that are created in any given year. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Basil Peters, CEO and Fund Manager, Fundamental Technologies II (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Jul 5th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the eleventh interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Basil Peters, an angel investor with a passion for exit transactions who has been founding, financing, growing, and selling technology companies for over two decades. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Basil is the founder, CEO and fund manager of his fund, Fundamental Technologies II.

Irina: Hi, Basil. Tell us briefly about your background.

Basil: I was trained as a computer and electrical engineer and got a PhD here in my hometown, Vancouver. While I was still in graduate school, I started my first company, which was called Nexus Engineering, and we started out manufacturing satellite television and cable television equipment. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager, RAIN Source Capital (Part 1)

Posted on Thursday, Jul 1st 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the tenth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Peter Birkeland, RAIN Fund Program Manager at RAIN Source Capital, a multistate network of RAIN® funds.

The network currently has more than $33 million invested in 55 companies. Its head office is in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Irina: Hi Pete, Could you tell us a little about your own background?

Pete: I started off in public accounting and then wound up doing some incubation in a company and decided I wanted to work with startup businesses. From there I went to do some tech transfer work, and then years ago I joined RAIN Source to help on the financial side. Now I manage our RAIN Fund program.

Irina: Tell us about RAIN Source Capital.

Pete: RAIN Source Capital is network of angel funds, 23 of them, that operate mainly in the upper Northwest – Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Montana, and Idaho. These 23 funds are made of 450 accredited investors, and we’ve been operating as an entity for about 12 years and focused on specifically angel investing for the past seven.

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Working Capital (Debt) Financing For Entrepreneurs: Mitch Jacobs, Founder And CEO, On Deck Capital (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Jun 28th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the ninth interview in our series on financing for entrepreneurs. I am talking to Mitch Jacobs, founder and CEO of On Deck Capital, a small business online lending platform.

Irina: Hi, Mitch. Let’s start with your background and how you arrived where you are today.

Mitch: I began a career in entrepreneurship, somewhat unintentionally, as a junior at Dartmouth College. I launched a company that enabled local businesses to accept the student ID card as a form of payment off campus. It had a different name at every campus. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Padmaja Ruparel, President, Indian Angel Network (Part 1)

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 23rd 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the eighth interview in our series on seed financing and angel investing. I am talking to Padmaja Ruparel, president of Indian Angel Network. She is based in New Delhi, India.

Irina: Hi, Padmaja. Let’s start with your telling us a little bit about yourself.

Padmaja: I have been in the early-stage entrepreneur ecosystem in India for over a decade now. It was something I did in addition to working for a software company as head of Indian corporate communications strategy. I operationalized The Indus Entrepreneur’s (TiE) Delhi chapter back in 1998. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: M. Todd Dean, Keiretsu Forum, Northwest Chapter President (Part 1)

Posted on Saturday, Jun 19th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the seventh interview in our series on seed financing and angel investing. I am talking to M. Todd Dean, Keiretsu Forum’s Northwest Chapter president.

Irina: Hi, Todd. Please tell us about yourself.

Todd: I was in insurance for about ten years, and then through a divorce, I stumbled into a startup company. Some friends and I invested in the company, and I worked for the company for about a year and a half, and it went bankrupt. And the reason it went out of business was leadership and the CEO of the company. So, that was my first induction into angel investing, which was in 2002. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Corey Silva, Assistant Manager, River Valley Investors (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Jun 14th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the sixth interview in our series on seed financing and angel investing. Corey Silva dropped into the angel universe by chance after being a serious rock n’ roll musician in his early days; he has written over 120 original songs. As fate would have it, he is now an assistant manager at River Valley Investors and a partner at Angel Catalyst, a management and consulting firm he runs with his brother. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.

Irina: Hi, Corey. So, River Valley Investors (RVI), where are they based?

Corey: The group is located in western Massachusetts, outside of Springfield. My brother, Paul Silva, is the manager of RVI and I’m the assistant manager. I live around two hours away from where they meet, in southeastern Massachusetts, so I have quite a bit of commuting to do when they have meetings. But the group is based in western Massachusetts, that’s where the majority of the membership is from, although they do have quite a few members from the Boston area who actually trek two hours to go to the meetings. >>>

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Seed Capital From Angel Investors: Randy Williams, Founder and CEO, Keiretsu Forum (Part 1)

Posted on Thursday, Jun 10th 2010

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

This is the fifth interview in our series on seed financing and angel investing. Our guest today is Randy Williams, founder and CEO of Keiretsu Forum, a growing angel network that currently has 850 investors in 19 chapters around the world. The forum has made 265 investments since its inception in 2000. >>>

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