Ten questions to ask your VC

Reproducing from Dispatches Weblog [via TJ's Weblog] without the footnotes, so do visit Dispatches as well (link below):

1. How big is your fund?
2. How much is left in the fund after commitments and reserves for follow-ons are accounted for?
3. When do you intend to go out fundraising?
4. When you fundraise and tell the story of your three most successful investments, how will you describe how value was created for LPs?
5. Who is on your firm's investment committee?
6. What was your firm's advertised IRR when you raised your last fund?
7. May I get a copy of the "book" you sent around when you raised this fund?
8. What do you think the exit will be on this investment?  Do you think it will be a financial buyer or a strategic buyer?
9. As you think about how to shape the company so that it is optimally positioned for that exit, what three things do you think need to be done in my company?
10. What was your firm's biggest disaster as an investor?  How did the investment go sideways?

I read answers to these questions on a VC's blog recently. Don't remember who! Will update this post if I remember.

Link: 10 Questions to Ask a VC

Update (Mar 28, 2005): Jeff Nolan answered these questions on his blog. Thanks to David Bayless for pointing this out.

Comments

[Dave Bayless]

Jeff Nolan of SAP Ventures took the bait and offered is answers to Tom McMakin's list of questions to ask VCs. Click on the hyperlink below for more.