Emerging Enterprise Center Blog - Commentary and Analysis For Entrepreneurs and Startups

The venture industry has spawned a fairly standard set of legal forms. Sarah Reed, formerly general counsel to Charles River Ventures, was the primary moving force behind the forms project. I was one of the early participants along with representatives from many of the major venture funds and law firms that regularly practice in the venture space. This includes east coast and west coast firms.. The project is perhaps six or seven years old. The project has produces a comprehensive set of investment documents and the group meets annually to upkeep and improve the documents. These docs are publicly available... More

Below you'll find my article from the March '09 issue of EEC Perspectives, entitled The End of Gloom and Doom. I like my gloom and doom as much as the next guy, but a whole year of unrelenting gloom and doom is overdoing it. Looking back on a year’s worth of numbers, it occurs to me that there is a lot to say that is not in the numbers. Entrepreneurs are like weeds If you just look at the national numbers you could come to the conclusion that there are fewer deals than last year, that the VCs are taking... More

We present with pleasure the next issue of EEC Perspectives, our periodic look at venture activity in the New England region. With this issue we are back to Series A transactions, featuring those closing during the third quarter of 2008. (Prior issues of EEC Perspectives, which alternate between Series A and later rounds, can be found in the News and Publications section of  the EEC website.)... More

The EEC's analysis of Series A transactions in New England for Q2 just came out.  It shows what is shows -- that there has been a decline in Series A deals compared to the same period in 2007.  As I look at our publication (which covers data through June -- three months ago), I have to note that so much changed so dramatically in Q3 that Q2 seems like it was thirty months ago.  We are in the process of finalizing our data for Q2 Series B and later stage financings and expect it to come out in the next couple or three... More