4 ms·
What's the smallest annual net income target (say, within 10 years) for a company that you would suggest VC is a good fit for?
by luxmanR1050 8y ago
What's the smallest annual net income target (say, within 10 years) for a company that you would suggest VC is a good fit for?
- ttul 8y ago$100M - that is the level at which an IPO becomes feasible. This implies that whatever idea you are pursuing needs to have a potential scale far beyond $100M if things go right, because you can’t IPO at $100M if investors don’t believe that $200M is around the corner.
- lpolovets 8y agoIf you think you only need that first round of funding ($1m-$3m seed round) and would never need to raise again, then $25m+/year would be reasonable. A company like that could exit for $150m-$250m in 10 years, and if the seed investor is getting 20x or 30x on their investment, they'll be happy. However, 1) a lot of seed stage companies predict that "this is the last round of funding we'll ever need" and that's rarely the case, and 2) because of #1 it's hard to convince investors that you'll never need to raise more money. For most VC-backed companies -- the ones that raise multiple rounds before an exit -- $100m+/year in revenue is a good 10-year goal. That's about the level required to go public or exit for $1b+. Investors won't be unhappy if you shoot for $100m in annual revenue but "only" hit $40m or $6m. The nature of startups is that most don't end up going public. But it's hard to see any path where you could end up with $100m+/year in revenue within a decade, then most VCs will pass.