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If you read the email it states that the investor was a lead. Series A was led by USV and the email already ruled them out. This investor sold right during or a

If you read the email it states that the investor was a lead. Series A was led by USV and the email already ruled them out. This investor sold right during or after the series C. might be Brendan Dickinson from Canaan for the Series B.

tschwimmer 6y ago
Canaan still lists CircleUp as a portfolio company and the partner is Deepak Kamra. Curiously, a 2015 article lists the Canaan board memeber as Daniel Ciporin. Curious.
- anon_8362 6y ago
  Ryan explicitly calls Dan Ciporin "a great board member" in his blog post. The selected passage: "A great board member, Dan, called me to say, “Ryan, I’ve never in my career seen a CEO as worn out as you. Please, you need to take a sabbatical — at least six weeks”. He, and other board members, tried so hard to do the right thing and convince me to take care of myself." Further, on LinkedIn, Dan still lists himself as a current member of the Board of Directors. CircleUp is still listed as a current investment on Canaan's site. I have not worked with Dan but I have worked with Canaan. They have always struck me as founder-friendly. Indeed, they have several notable repeat entrepreneur relationships. It seems unlikely they would tolerate the sort of behavior Ryan described. --- Conversely, Collaborative Fund led the Series C in November 2015. Note that, in Ryan's letter, he cites board issues from 2016 to 2019. Further, Collaborative Fund no longer lists CircleUp anywhere on its site. Per Crunchbase, Jungju (Jay) Kim was the board partner for Collaborative's Series C investment in CircleUp. Note that, per his LinkedIn, Jay became a VC at Collaborative in 2014.
  - stickfigure 6y ago
    Plausible. The guy has a wikipedia page that was clearly written by a PR agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju There's way too much detail and it's all incredibly flattering, stuff like: He is known for strategic investments that aren’t limited to gaming companies, and he has acquired firms and invested in various fields. Being an avid Lego fan throughout his life, in 2013 he purchased Bricklink, the world’s largest online marketplace for Lego toys. It sometimes surprises me that wikipedia can be gamed this easily.
robocat 6y ago
Doxxing on HN feels like it should have an extremely good reason to do so, IMHO. Unless you are 100% sure you are correct, all speculation should be avoided since you could cause severe damage to others by misattribution. From reading other posts by Ryan, he seems to be trying to talk about the general problems he faced that simply don’t get surfaced often (for example, due to the associated risks to your career.) He provides enough detail to help anyone likely to be in the know to identify the person. There is a very difficult balance to make, and he has clearly been careful about judging that balance, and getting feedback from others on that balance.

tschwimmer 6y ago

Canaan still lists CircleUp as a portfolio company and the partner is Deepak Kamra. Curiously, a 2015 article lists the Canaan board memeber as Daniel Ciporin. Curious.

anon_8362 6y ago
Ryan explicitly calls Dan Ciporin "a great board member" in his blog post. The selected passage: "A great board member, Dan, called me to say, “Ryan, I’ve never in my career seen a CEO as worn out as you. Please, you need to take a sabbatical — at least six weeks”. He, and other board members, tried so hard to do the right thing and convince me to take care of myself." Further, on LinkedIn, Dan still lists himself as a current member of the Board of Directors. CircleUp is still listed as a current investment on Canaan's site. I have not worked with Dan but I have worked with Canaan. They have always struck me as founder-friendly. Indeed, they have several notable repeat entrepreneur relationships. It seems unlikely they would tolerate the sort of behavior Ryan described. --- Conversely, Collaborative Fund led the Series C in November 2015. Note that, in Ryan's letter, he cites board issues from 2016 to 2019. Further, Collaborative Fund no longer lists CircleUp anywhere on its site. Per Crunchbase, Jungju (Jay) Kim was the board partner for Collaborative's Series C investment in CircleUp. Note that, per his LinkedIn, Jay became a VC at Collaborative in 2014.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  Plausible. The guy has a wikipedia page that was clearly written by a PR agency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jung-ju There's way too much detail and it's all incredibly flattering, stuff like: He is known for strategic investments that aren’t limited to gaming companies, and he has acquired firms and invested in various fields. Being an avid Lego fan throughout his life, in 2013 he purchased Bricklink, the world’s largest online marketplace for Lego toys. It sometimes surprises me that wikipedia can be gamed this easily.

robocat 6y ago

Doxxing on HN feels like it should have an extremely good reason to do so, IMHO. Unless you are 100% sure you are correct, all speculation should be avoided since you could cause severe damage to others by misattribution. From reading other posts by Ryan, he seems to be trying to talk about the general problems he faced that simply don’t get surfaced often (for example, due to the associated risks to your career.) He provides enough detail to help anyone likely to be in the know to identify the person. There is a very difficult balance to make, and he has clearly been careful about judging that balance, and getting feedback from others on that balance.