Comments on: Inter-Firm VC Politics: Never Boring http://blog.payne.org/2007/10/28/inter-firm-vc-politics-never-boring/ Working hard to improve the signal-to-noise ratio Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:58:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 By: Steve Kane http://blog.payne.org/2007/10/28/inter-firm-vc-politics-never-boring/#comment-14 Steve Kane Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:26:39 +0000 http://blog.payne.org/2007/10/28/inter-firm-vc-politics-never-boring/#comment-14 agree 100% but have to gently take issue with the idea that "If the VCs are driving the process, that’s a sign of a weak CEO..." note to all entrepreneurs: the nanosecond you take funding from a VC, you give up control of your company. period. if the VCs choose to exercise control over the fundraising process they absolutely have the contractual authority to do so, and often do, either overtly (telling the CEO whether or not they agree with proposed investors/funding terms/process/whatever) or passively (by letting the CEO seemingly run the fundraising but then exercising a pocket veto whenever they feel like it, e.g. brushing off due diligence requests from prospective new investors) caveat entrepreneur. agree 100% but have to gently take issue with the idea that “If the VCs are driving the process, that’s a sign of a weak CEO…”

note to all entrepreneurs: the nanosecond you take funding from a VC, you give up control of your company. period.

if the VCs choose to exercise control over the fundraising process they absolutely have the contractual authority to do so, and often do, either overtly (telling the CEO whether or not they agree with proposed investors/funding terms/process/whatever) or passively (by letting the CEO seemingly run the fundraising but then exercising a pocket veto whenever they feel like it, e.g. brushing off due diligence requests from prospective new investors)

caveat entrepreneur.

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