Our angel round last year cost about $70k in legals…. way too much.

And you won’t believe how much paper it took. Check out this photo:
http://www.shaiberger.com/?p=57

> YCombinator model is efficient… raise very tiny amounts of money in return for a small equity bite using cookie cutter terms.

It’s an efficient model but also a very limited one. I think their deal is $20,000 for 6%. If your start-up is two guys who want to do a web mash-up type thing, that’s ok. But otherwise, it’s too little money to get you far.

@Mark:

>”Venture as an asset class in Canada is not delivering returns.”

I think that’s because they have been too risk averse in the past. They end up sitting on the funds, too scared of betting on the wrong horse, so they make too few bets and end up with no big winners.

Venture as an asset class in Canada is not delivering returns. Also, Canadian VCs face additional challenges as their companies mature - any successful, growing startup in Canada will at some point choose to raise funds in the U.S. How do you remain relevant as an investor if the centre of gravity and decision making goes south? How do you compete with a Sequioa or a Bain Capital if you’re a local Canadian fund?

Brightspark’s approach is an extreme example of the solution: focus exclusively on seed / early stage. That is the role for the Canadian investment community - source and nurture the best early stage deals in Canada. Do the early funding, help build the early team and set it up for success. Don’t try and take it all the way to exit. Build good relations and deal flow with U.S. funds so that you can feed your best companies into them as they grow.

My 2 cents…