That makes a ton of sense. Also: > I always asked after the partner pitch, so I felt like we'd dated enough that it was an acceptable question to ask (I could

That makes a ton of sense. Also: > I always asked after the partner pitch, so I felt like we'd dated enough that it was an acceptable question to ask (I could very well be wrong). This is a key piece of information that does not match my presumption. At that level in the process, to continue our dating analogy, I think this kind of question or concern is a lot more reasonable. But with that said, I think it is unfortunately a concern that will be a dealbreaker for a vast majority of VCs. With that said, the plus side is that alternate funding vehicles are more powerful than ever, whether that's crowdfunding, angels, alumni syndicates, revenue based funding, user based pre-orders. I respect that this may not have been the case when you last raised, but certainly this past year has minted an enormous amount of new HNW investors chomping at the bit to put their money into interesting causes, some for profit and some not. Dis-intermediating the VC has never been so viable as it is now, in my opinion.