Almost every established VC is a potential competitor as much as a potential backer, because they already have backed ventures in/near your market, you won't ge

Almost every established VC is a potential competitor as much as a potential backer, because they already have backed ventures in/near your market, you won't get approached by one without expertise in your market. Any of their other backed ventures might be mulling over a new strategic goal and doing indirect research on you via their sponsors. Before you say NDA, it's practically unenforceable, you can't stop a VC chatting about what they've seen in confidence to a trusted friend, the bar to prosecute breach is far too high. You can't stop someone seeing what you offer, and it's hard to prevent competitors from seeing how successful you are, especially giving the lack of privacy in consumer space. In this article, we don't know if Amazon used any IP, we are told they just copied the offering, which anyone is free to try. I bet the problem with DefinedCrowd is not so much they revealed too much, rather they revealed too little. How so? The VC dance is really about demonstrating to the uncertain backer-competitor that you are so good, it's not worth competing. That's a main point to inviting outside parties in. I imagine these guys were just so weak, they made competition more appealing that partnership.