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March 31, 2008

Venture Capitalists Fight Back Against TheFunded

Michael Arrington

53 comments »

TheFunded, a site where entrepreneurs can leave anonymous feedback about their experiences with venture capitalists, has created quite a stir on Sand Hill Road. Rarely do I meet with a VC without the subject of it coming up, and how unfair it is. The fact that the site is now publishing confidential term sheet clauses as well only exacerbates the angst.

Now VCs are fighting back. Someone has launched TheUnFunded, a site that works very much like TheFunded but let’s VCs share their opinions of the entrepreneurs they meet with. The site will officially launch tomorrow (4/1), but it’s live now:

Inspired by TheFunded.com’s ability to allow entrepreneurs to anonymously rate VC firms, we thought it was only fair that investors also be able to anonymously rate startups and entrepreneurs. So we decided to launch TheUnfunded to do just that.

Only investors that can prove their identity will be allowed to join TheUnfunded, where they can anonymously provide feedback on the startups that they’ve met with along a five point scale. The fund raising process is indeed a long, difficult one. From an investors perspective there was just no way to tell how much an entrepreneurs well-crafted story matched the reality of their business. Until now.

The VC behind the site reached out to me to tell me about it, but asked to remain anonymous for now. There’s already entertaining content on the site, though:

The founder arrived 10 minutes late — and began the meeting by telling me that he just came from Sequioa (yeah, right). He then proceeded to state (five times) that his company was the next Facebook.

Wow - this guy was clueless. He started his slide deck and went on autopilot. I think he spoke for 18 minutes straight without even looking to see if I was awake. But worse than his pitching skills is his knowledge of his industry and competitors. I named four competitive companies that he never heard of.

The founder arrived on time and hit on my receptionist. My assistant came to bring him back to the board room, and the founder hit on my assistant.

CrunchBase Information
The Funded
Information provided by CrunchBase
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. RealityCrunch - VCs Once Again Prove They Are Childish Assh*les

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:18 pm

  2. geyq.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 9:08 pm

  3. Now VCs are fighting back. TheUnFunded founded. Is that a April Fools Joke ? : albinoalbinism

    April 1st, 2008 at 2:20 am

  4. TheUnFunded asks entrepreneurs: You can dish it out, but can you take it? » VentureBeat

    April 1st, 2008 at 8:56 am

  5. www.teletubis.info » Blog Archive » TheFunded Founder Gives Startups Some Advice

    April 3rd, 2008 at 4:47 am

  6. TheFunded Founder Gives Startups Some Advice

    April 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

Comments

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  1. Avatar

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    i guess that for you this will be like watching a soap opera.

  2. Jeremy Wright

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:35 pm

    The difference between the two is that one (TheFunded) is about empowering those without power. The other (TheUnFunded) seems like the elite (who already say these things behind closed doors) just saying them in public.

    I’m most interested to see who’s behind this, as I’m guessing it’ll be like “oh yeah, of course, that makes perfect sense”.

    /me goes to see if anyone’s b*tching about my pitches yet, heh!

  3. lawrence

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    lol - i love it, counter their punch - with one of your own.

    people are so prissy…if they get rejected.

  4. Kufflink

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:39 pm

    beware of April Fools Day.

  5. Michael Arrington

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    indeed

  6. Michael Ostendorff

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    That’s why our company is now so popular. At http://www.pedatacenter.com we use publicly filed documents (i.e. amended Certificated) to reveal the deal terms used by a venture backed company as well as present a valuation for that company. It takes away the need to rely solely upon survey type data, and ours can be validated because it is on file with the Secretary of State (not to mention you can download these docs from the database).

    U.S. Venture Capital Investments only. Approximately 65% of quarterly investments are in database for starters.

  7. antje wilsch

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:42 pm

    Is it an April Fool’s Day joke? If not it seems terribly petty.

  8. xavierv

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    Hmm, VC humor, that’s a first!

  9. un.valley

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:43 pm

    the valley is a cartoon.

  10. Emea

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    Check the site. Its comedy gold.

  11. ohnopirates

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    I don’t make pitches to VC investors as the projects I work on all go for non-profit funding and other various public or academic grants, but I have to agree with post 2 here.

    Yes, people are bitchy - that’s part of the power found in being an anonymous member of a crowd, the issue here is who is being bitchy: Those with the power to make or break the dreams of a young child (born after I graduated from college) or that kid trying to do something special?

    I’m not saying thefunded is a nice place, it’s not. But I can see a place for it, I don’t see a place for taking back-room corporate power brokers snickering at those getting just started and placing it out in the open.

    The other issue here is VCs will always have applicants, people will always have ideas and come to them, no matter their rating on thefunded.
    But honestly, will a VC even grant a meeting to someone with a horrid rating on theunfunded?

    It’s creating a permanent record based on the, often arbitrary, value judgment created by a single Venture Capitalist possibly having a bad day.

  12. ohnopirates

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    Owned by early april fools I am.

  13. Harish

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    Jeremy,
    I thought the same thing initially (about the inequity of the 2 sites because of the entrepreneur-VC balance of power). The opinions on this site, however, aren’t made public– VC’s have to register to get access to the names of the companies/founders being critiqued.
    If this helps the VC’s separate the wheat from the chaff, so be it. This will only help the tech industry, by raising standards. Hopefully we don’t see nasty politics taking over.

  14. john erik

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    here’s another funny excerpt from the site. this time from the JOIN page

    “You need to be work at a venture capital firm.”

    outsourcing?

    –
    April Fools!

  15. Michael Ostendorff

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    Touche for whomever put this together last night.

  16. Andrew

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    @13 thats even worse, because it basically black lists a person for screwing up 1 interview

  17. Andrew

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:54 pm

    and looks like the site was made by idiots, I sincerely doubt this site is legit

    from: http://www.theunfunded.com/index.php?act=join
    “You need to be work at a venture capital firm. “

  18. Matt

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    Michael: at this point you might as well post the yahoo rumor from earlier… ;) lol… you could just call it the entire day of april fools @ techcrunch… :)

  19. jim

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Are you sure this in not April’s Fools? CMON, TechCrunch is a candybar??

  20. frankie

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    I thought a TechCrunch Bar was the developers equivalent to a Power Bar

  21. alexis

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    Aprils fool..I hope

  22. Jeremy Wright

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    Wow, I always forget about April Fool’s. I’m such a douche. I feel better now, knowing this is satire. I’m an idjut.

  23. ClayZ

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm

    This is just pathetic. And does nothing but underscores and exacerbates the tension between VCs and entrepreneurs.

    At a time when angel investing is increasing dramatically, VC returns are lackluster, and exit strategies are few and far between, why would the VC community want to burn bridges with the people they depend upon for their livelihood?

  24. Owen Byrne

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:55 pm

    If it’s not an april fools, then has techcrunch actually sunk so low to report on a site that has exactly 4 posts?

    No, I think they’ve sunk so low as to have an April Fool’s joke on March 31 (I’m sure they’ll say it’s April 1 in Australia).

  25. Thomas P

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    “You need to be work at a venture capital firm”

    “Can I has funding?”

  26. johnny

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    testing

  27. calkevin

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    Um someone at the theUnFunded needs to do some grammer… I am no expert.. but…

    “You need to be work at a venture capital firm.”

    should be…

    You need to be at a venture capital firm OR
    You need to work at a venture capital firm… but not both! Ha

    Leave it to the VC’s to ignore the details.

  28. CARversation.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:21 pm

    What a dumb idea.

  29. Afraid of the dark

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    I really hope this is real? As an entrepreneur seeking money, this could be an excellent “what not to do” resource.

  30. Fabian Schonholz

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:29 pm

    Wouldn’t it be cool if the sites merged??? :) :D

  31. Max M

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:37 pm

    If this is an early April fools joke, then Thefunded.com is the fool. They actually bought it and responded with a blog post. They are going to be pretty embarrassed.
    http://www.thefunded.com/funds/item/3191

    The whois for theunfunded.com is at
    http://www.networksolutions.co.....funded.com

    There might be some clues there. Actually, it looks pretty clean. There is an email address (it comes with the website) listed for the creator:
    h27292m763u@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com

  32. Job Board News

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    there must be something in the air these days… very similar to recently launched http://www.nothired.com but only a fraction as interesting, entertaining and well done.

  33. Q dub

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    No need, VC circlces are tight enough to share information informally. They’ve been gossiping about entrepreneurs long before TheFunded =)

  34. fred wilson

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:43 pm

    all of this is stupid.

    there is nothing wrong or nothing right about the funded. i originally thought, wow this is a great idea. but i’ve come to the point where i don’t care about it and honestly i don’t know anyone in the VC business who really cares about it or the ratings.

    and to trash entrepreneurs, the raw material of the VC business, is about the dumbest thing i’ve heard of in a long time

    they should not be trashed, they should be celebrated.

    fred

  35. Steve C.

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    Too bad…I hope this site is for real.

    Both sides should be able to express their opinion, although, there’s always 3 sides to every story; your side, the other side…and the truth.

  36. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 9

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    now THIS is an april fools’ joke. nice job guys.

  37. Anthony Ha

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:59 pm

    Dear Michael Arrington,

    You are a bad person.

    Love,
    Anthony Ha

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....thefunded/

  38. Paul

    March 31st, 2008 at 5:05 pm

    That third VC in your article must really know how to hire well.

    Single guys who don’t need financing should get their, er, decks ready for that firm.

  39. Jason Jenkins

    March 31st, 2008 at 6:55 pm

    After reading the first few posts on theunfunded.com, I am shocked! I have never sought funding in 10 years for my company Abstract10.com, so I am a bit in the dark about the entire process. I know I would NEVER do some of the things mentioned on the site. SOME PEOPLE JUST DONT KNOW HOW LUCKY THEY ARE!!!!

  40. 113.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 7:22 pm

    The VC’s have a reason to be real busy, for real, for now.

  41. Simon

    March 31st, 2008 at 8:27 pm

    I joined thefunded - can’t say I have used it yet

    My experience in raising capital has been that the VC industry tells one story “risk takers - active investors - add value” but its all a bit overstated. They are less risk takers and add less value. Well especially here in the wasteland of investment nearer where the penguins live……………

    That said I do appreciate when a VC sends a nice brief no thank you reply. We http://www.puku.co.nz have been funded by private finance to date, with a about 750K from individuals.

    Hasn’t been enough …………. but not raising much finance can be great way to retain equity!

  42. Mike

    March 31st, 2008 at 9:41 pm

    I’m hours away from launching “TheUnderFunded” a social network for connecting angel investors, friends and family and struggling entrepreneurs/bootstrappers along with ratings on angels and terms on angel deals.

    Just kidding, but seriously Mike, who do I have to bl*w to get a write-up about my latest start-up? You wrote that my last one would get acquired and it was! I’m now hoping you’ll write that this one will be bigger than Google…hopefully you’ll prove prescient again :)

  43. Metrofunk.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    All this really does amuse me. I think anyone who takes an anonymous comment for much more than entertainment value probably shouldn’t be investing in NOR starting a business. Comment submissions are bias enough as it is, as those that comment are already a self-selected subset of those with an agenda. Now an anonymous comment? Come on now, you have a better chance of getting honest feedback from the door guy at a happy ending massage parlor in Vegas. I personally would rather Talk to REAL people and get REAL feedback. But what do i know, im just a nightclub promoter =) …

    See you at the party!

    Han

  44. hana

    March 31st, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    HAHAHAHAHA. Wow. I laughed out loud. Good job guys.

  45. Andrew J Scott

    April 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am

    Lol. And I was just wondering why there were no good April fools this year.

    ” * Become a Member and log-in for these benefits: (Link underlined part to Join page) ”

    “Copyright 2007″

    hhmmm. lol.

  46. PS

    April 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am

    Looks like fun! Too bad they’re illiterate ….. to sign up “You need to be work at a venture capital firm.” Er, right, I need to get me grammar checked …

  47. Eugene

    April 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    This site is NOT going to work ! Period ! Just think about how many startups are looking for money ? And How many VCs are there ? And not mention these busy VCs are going to put their comments to the site ? Well, it is fun to read some of the comments so I won’t make same error when I pitch to VCs.

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