| Date | Title | Description |
| 12.09.2019 | Syntech ONE Demonstrates at Two U.S. Airports | Today, Synapse is excited to announce are participation in the Transportation Security Administration Innovative Task Force’s IDEA program. As part of this program, TSA is deploying Synapse’s Syntech ONE technology at passenger screening ch... |
| 19.09.2018 | To Health and Wellness | On this Yom Kippur reflection, I wanted to share some basic thoughts to a happier and healthy life.
First, be grateful for every day on this magical plant. We all know family, friends, neighbors, soldiers who have left this world far too y... |
| 15.08.2018 | Scout Ventures is hiring an Associate! | Scout Ventures is looking for a rock star associate to join our team. This is an exciting and unique opportunity to work directly with the investment team and become intimately involved in the day-to-day operations of the firm. The position... |
| 06.08.2018 | Brad Harrison Makes Forbes List of Top 50 Angel Investors | Please join us in congratulating Brad Harrison on making the Forbes List of Top 50 Angel Investors. We are grateful and honored for the recognition and all of your support.
Here is a link to the Forbes article if you would like to see the ... |
| 31.07.2018 | EP8: How to Build a Business | According to Mr. Parsons, the most important thing when building a business is partnering with the right folks – those that are complementary to you and are your “kind of folks.” If they are not your kind of folks or you don’t feed off each... |
| 24.07.2018 | EP7: How to Measure Success | In today’s video, Mr. Parsons reminds us of the importance of perspective when evaluating success.
To oversimplify things, for an investor, this means high performance and the great returns for your LPs. However, as an entrepreneur or on a... |
| 17.07.2018 | EP6: Top Qualities to Look for in Early Stage Investors | As an investor in Scout, Mr. Parsons highlights three main attributes of successful early-stage investors:
Discipline
Teamwork – motivate and inspire people
Patience – to let it play out in real time
EP7 on its way!
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| 10.07.2018 | EP5: What Makes an Effective Board Member? | Having served on the Board of some of the most prominent Fortune 100 companies, Mr. Parsons sheds some light on what makes a good Board member.
When Mr. Parsons would recruit for boards, he looked for someone “available to reason.” Meaning... |
| 03.07.2018 | EP4: Four Things | There are four main pitfalls entrepreneurs need to be wary of when launching a new venture. Here Brad highlights the four major pitfalls:
Bad critical hire in the beginning
Bad early investor
Bad anchor client
Running out of capital
For Di... |
| 26.06.2018 | EP3: How Scout is Different | In today’s post, Richard Parsons outlines the key difference in Scout Venture’s approach to investing that sets Scout aside from its competitors: the ability to proactively coach companies through the ups and downs of the startup journey.
... |
| 19.06.2018 | EP2: Building Over Time | In today’s post, we catch a glimpse of Richard Parson’s approach to building a company over time and taking the long-term perspective to build correctly.
Overview / Summary:
It takes time. Through an anecdote on the creation and utility o... |
| 12.06.2018 | EP1: Two Rules of Leadership | As a new series, every week, we will be releasing a video in which Brad Harrison, Scout Ventures – Managing Partner, interviews a long time mentor and industry expert, Richard Parsons.
Dick Parsons is a senior advisor of Providence Equity ... |
| 15.05.2018 | Wes Blackwell joins Scout Ventures to invest in early-stage, veteran-led startups | This post was written by Anthony Ha (TechCrunch) and originally posted here.
We haven’t written much about Scout Ventures, but the New York City-based firm has built up a big portfolio over nearly a decade of investing, with exits like Ola... |
| 23.10.2017 | Where will all the flying cars park? | This post was written by Nisa Amoils (Venture Partner) and originally posted here.
Yesterday Lilium jet became the latest to announce their flying car $90 million funding round for “airplane as a service” businesses. Add to the giants like... |
| 11.06.2017 | Gratitude | Some thoughts about how to have a happier future.
Be Happy
I find myself in one of the most grounded, healthy and happy places I think I’ve ever been.
While the constant ups and downs of life still continue, I have found an internal comp... |
| 13.03.2017 | Dilution: Priced Rounds vs Convertible Notes | There have been many posts by investors articulating the issues with convertible notes. Most recently, Fred Wilson wrote that one of his main issues with notes is that they “obfuscate the amount of dilution the founder(s) is taking.”
While... |
| 08.03.2017 | ID.me closes $19M led by FTV Capital | This article originally appeared on the Washington Post and can be found here.
Signing into web pages is almost universally known as one of the most annoying parts of the Internet.
Most people either have keep a separate list of every pas... |
| 24.02.2017 | Brad Harrison on Venture Studio | Brad Harrison recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dave Lerner on Venture Studio, where the two discussed investment philosophy, NY tech, Olapic, and much more. We highly recommend giving it a listen (37 minutes).
Dave is a serial... |
| 04.01.2017 | NYC VC 2017 | Be Happy
On a daily basis, I am inspired by blogs from the likes of Fred Wilson (AVC) and Brad Feld (Feld Thoughts) who consistently publish insightful and educational pieces for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone who wants to better und... |
| 02.11.2016 | Digi International Acquires IoT Cold Chain Provider FreshTemp | Original post can be found here.
Acquisition Broadens Temperature Monitoring and Adds Digital Task Management Solutions for the Cold Chain and Food Industry
MINNETONKA, Minn., Nov. 2, 2016 – Digi International®, (NASDAQ: DGII, www.digi.co... |
| 04.10.2016 | Beyonce Invests in Sidestep | This post originally appeared on TechCrunch and can be found here.
Joining celebrity investors like Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher, and Justin Bieber, Queen Bey is bringing her supreme business skills to the tech world. Beyoncé and the managem... |
| 15.09.2016 | Welcoming Nisa Amoils | Be Happy
I am very pleased to formally announce that we’ve added Nisa Amoils to the Scout family as our newest Venture Partner. Nisa is an experienced attorney, media executive, and noted tech investor in the New York community. She has sp... |
| 21.07.2016 | Olapic Acquired | Be Happy
Today, a company where I was the first investor was acquired.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160721005362/en/Monotype-Announces-Intent-Acquire-Olapic
What makes this so special is that these are just some of the most am... |
| 12.07.2016 | How to actually make America great again | Be Happy
I original drafted this post prior to the incidents in St. Louis, Louisiana and Dallas that rocked our nation last week…
As I reflect on this 4th of July celebration, I am overwhelmed with the realization that as a “people,” we h... |
| 20.04.2016 | Greensbury Market on HSN | Be Happy
Everyone here is my HSN debut. It starts at 12 min
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| 25.03.2016 | Good day | Be Happy
The other day was a rough day.
One of our companies failed to find a buyer and let all their employees go.
Over dinner my dear friend Joey Hundert provided support and counsel while reminding me that as entrepreneurs our lives a... |
| 17.02.2016 | Bloglovin’ Embraces Influencer Marketing With Sverve Acquisition | This article was originally posted on TechCrunch by Anthony Ha.
Bloglovin’ is announcing the acquisition of marketing startup Sverve, a move that should the expand monetization options for writers using the Bloglovin’ platform.
The New Yo... |
| 23.12.2015 | THE MIGHTY 25: VETERANS POISED FOR IMPACT IN 2016 | Happy to share this list (originally posted here) courtesy of We Are The Mighty. What makes me even more excited is the fact that some of our founders are on the list. They are Blake Hall of Id.me, Taylor Justice of Unite US, John Roger Jr.... |
| 03.12.2015 | The Dreaded Call | Be Happy
Last night I called one of my favorite entrepreneurs.
And about ten seconds into the call, I could hear him crying.
At that point, I knew the Company we had invested in, that had pivoted with hopes of rising like a phoenix from ... |
| 01.12.2015 | Residential Real Estate Platform Nestio Lands A $8M Series A Round | This article was originally posted by TechCrunch and can be viewed here.
Nestio, the NY-based leasing and marketing platform for residential landlords, announced today that is has raised $8M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Trini... |
| 16.11.2015 | How You Write Down Snapchat | Fidelity just wrote down the value of their Snapchat investment by 25%. You can read about it here.
It reminded me of when I learned the accounting rules on how these investments have to be valued. In terms of process, if you imagined a bu... |
| 11.11.2015 | Benchmarking Atlassian’s S-1 – How 7 Key SaaS Metrics Stack Up | Be Happy
Tomasz Tunguz wrote a great post recently about the Australian software maker, Atlassian. It is a fantastic example of an Australian flywheel SaaS company that has experienced tremendous growth, as seen from its S-1.
Tomasz’ post... |
| 05.11.2015 | The Ugly Unicorn: Greed | Be Happy
There has been much discussion these days about the changing landscape of early stage investing and how it impacts valuations and exits, so I wanted to share a brief story I heard yesterday from an investment banker.
As a pre-cur... |
| 02.11.2015 | Will This Female Founder Be The Next Disney? | This article was written by Kelly Hoey via Inc. It can be viewed in its original form here.
Stories Matter: Beyond a purple female panda as the lead character, Pan the Fearless Beribolt is not like most kids’ stories. It was created by ser... |
| 23.10.2015 | Voyat, The CRM Loyalty Platform For Hotels, Sees 500K New Guest Profiles Per Month (via TechCrunch) | This article is was originally posted on TechCrunch and can be viewed here.
Voyat, the hotel CRM tool revealed by Ben Habbel in July of last year, is now seeing more than 500,000 new guest profiles each month, with operations in 10 differe... |
| 23.10.2015 | The signaling value of AngelList and YC’s new fund announcements | AngelList and YC both announced big new funds last week. AngelList announced that CSC Upshot raised a $400M fund to invest in startups on AngelList. YC announced that they raised $700M for their YC Continuity Fund, which will support YC com... |
| 20.10.2015 | With Epoch, Adcade Makes It Easy For Designers And Developers To Build Cross-Platform, HTML5 Ads (Via TechCrunch) | This post was originally posted on TechCrunch here.
People have been talking about the death for Flash for years and years, and now it seems like the nails are finally being driven into the coffin, particularly in the online ad industry.
... |
| 01.10.2015 | WHAT I’VE LEARNED FROM BEING THERE FOR MY ENTREPRENEURS | This post was written by Brad Harrison
Last night, I had two great meetings scheduled back-to-back.
The first meeting was set up by an entrepreneur who I’ve known for about seven years. I’ve been actively mentoring him to include recommen... |
| 02.09.2015 | Apps as the Emerging Platform | This post was originally published here by Corey Miller, Analyst at Scout Ventures.
Most people have heard of WeChat. Connie Chan recently wrote a great piece on the app and how it has grown into a behemoth in China. Basically, the gist is... |
| 14.08.2015 | Brainscape—Portfolio and Founder Spotlight | I recently sat down with Andrew Cohen, CEO and Founder of Brainscape. This is a summary of our conversation, which highlights Andrew’s background, vision, and his company. Answers to these questions are summarized responses.
How would you ... |
| 12.08.2015 | 5 Key Considerations for South Florida Startups Seeking Funding | This post was originally posted in the Miami Herald and can be viewed here.
Since we opened our Miami office in the fall of 2014, thus becoming the first institutional venture capital firm in the MagicCity, we’ve met with countless South F... |
| 10.08.2015 | MAKING THE FOUNDER’S TOP FIVE | This article was originally posted by Brad Harrison on August 5, 2015. The original can be viewed here.
Yesterday morning I read a blog post from a colleague, Hunter Walk, where he talks about competition in the seed stage. Essentially, he... |
| 02.07.2015 | How I Make Sure Work Doesn’t Ruin My Vacation | Be Happy
Here’s the scenario: you have a vacation coming up in two weeks. You should be looking forward to it, imagining yourself letting stress melt away under the sun or on the slopes, but all you can think about is the work that will pi... |
| 24.06.2015 | Do Smaller Funds Perform Better? | In a report recently released from Mattermark, it is indicated that investment in startups from 2014 to probable year-end 2015 will eclipse all prior years, except for 2000. Now, ‘Unicorns’ are all the rage, leading many VC firms to raise b... |
| 19.06.2015 | Guest Post: Investing in Mini IPOs | This articled was originally posted at Inc. You can follow Ryan Feit on Twitter.
Historically, investing in startups and small businesses has been reserved for accredited investors, or just the wealthiest 2% of Americans. Now, after three ... |
| 18.06.2015 | Supply-Demand Curves In A Founder’s Fundraising Journey | Recently, a founder asked me if he should lower his valuation in order to close his seed round faster. His valuation was already fairly typical for the seed market. It sounds pretty intuitive and reminds us of our Econ 101 lectures from fre... |
| 07.06.2015 | Convertible Notes- The Phillips Screwdriver of Startup Financing Instruments | Contrary to what you might think, convertible notes have been around for a long time in early stage tech financing. What’s different today is that Y Combinator popularized it several years ago and since then, we’ve seen seed stage funding e... |
| 04.06.2015 | When the Tactic Becomes the Strategy | Historically, Google’s strategy was always aligned with an open web and Moore’s Law. As cheaper computing powered the growth of the open web, the value of Google increased. Why? Because as web content growth explodes, tools to find the info... |
| 03.06.2015 | Guest Post: Is REG A+ Right For Fred Wilson’s “Indie” Companies? | This post was written by Kiran Lingam and originally appeared on the SeedInvest Blog
Not every company is a perfect fit for conventional venture capital investment. In a recent blog post, Fred Wilson lamented the use of the somewhat deroga... |
| 02.06.2015 | Innovating a Legacy Business: Adapt, Die or Just Start Over? | This post originally appeared on mayorbrad.com
My profession exposes me to many young companies that feel the growing pains and pressure to keep up with the latest technologies and innovations. Although this is always challenging, young bu... |
| 29.05.2015 | Payment Innovation Must Be Accompanied by Strong Distribution | This article by Jay Bhattacharya, Founder and CEO of Zipmark, was originally published at paymentssource.com.
The changes happening in digital payments today are being driven by fintech innovators improving almost every way that people and... |
| 28.05.2015 | What a tech bubble deflation and the recent financial crisis would have in common | With all this tech bubble talk, I’ve been thinking about the last financial crisis and whether there are any commonalities. There’s one big difference– a tech bubble deflation wouldn’t be the main event. Something else will be and that will... |
| 22.05.2015 | A dead simple explanation of network effects | The concept of network effects and Metcalfe’s Law is really important in technology so it’s useful to understand how a network’s value grows with each new user that joins the network. Here’s an attempt at making the power of network effects... |
| 13.05.2015 | IPOs are not liquidity events | The world is abuzz about liquidation preferences right now so it’s really important to understand that IPOs are not liquidity events.
In multiple articles, I’ve seen writers assume that liquidation preferences protect late stage investors ... |
| 12.05.2015 | How To Raise $20.5 Million The Signpost Way | This post was originally published on Brad’s personal blog at mayorbrad.com
This month our longtime portfolio company, SignPost, humbly announced the close of their $20.5 million dollar Series C.
The Company offers consumer marketing tool... |
| 06.05.2015 | Valuation As A Coordination Device (Part 2) | This post was originally published by John Ryu on Medium
I wrote a post here awhile back titled “Valuation As A Coordination Device” but given the conversations today around valuations, I think it makes sense to highlight something I said ... |
| 06.05.2015 | Talking Tech With MeetAdvisors: Do VCs Read Business Plans? | This post was originally published by Brad Harrison at mayorbrad.com
I was recently invited over to MeetAdvisors for an interview with one of their hosts, Rachel Pollard. MeetAdvisors is a great platform where entrepreneurs can search for,... |
| 01.05.2015 | Are these the bubbles you’re looking for? | The more unicorn bubble chatter I hear, the more I think about the 2007 financial crisis and about the mispricing of risk that happened then. At the root of all the bad stuff that occurred was the severe mispricing of mortgage backed securi... |
| 28.04.2015 | You are the product until the product is ready | This post was originally published on Medium.
I meet with lots of founders who are quick to give me their startup elevator pitch. Yesterday, I was at an event where most of the founders I met were pre-product. They were all ready to get ri... |
| 28.04.2015 | The Modern Face of Angel Investing | This post was written by Ameet Padte and originally appeared on the SeedInvest Blog
Traditionally, the angel investor community has been comprised of a small set of well-connected individuals located in a few hub cities across the country.... |
| 22.04.2015 | Guest Post: A Busy Entrepreneur’s 3-Step Guide to Reading Business Books | Andrew Cohen is the Founder and CEO of Brainscape, an adaptive mobile education platform that helps you learn faster. This article originally appeared at Entrepreneur. You can follow Andrew on Twitter.
If you regularly read entrepreneurial... |
| 21.04.2015 | A Seed Pitchdeck Template: Keep It Punchy | Here’s a quick and dirty MVP slide deck for raising a seed round.
1. Team. Make it easy to speed read. List schools, diplomas, companies, etc.
2. Problem you’re trying to solve. Have a story about why you (i.e. founder/market fit)
3. You... |
| 17.04.2015 | Three Things That Kill Early Stage Companies | This post was originally published at Brad’s personal blog, mayorbrad.com
As a VC, we spend a lot of time thinking about where we want to invest our money. Last night, I was with my friend Pedro Torres-Pincon who recently presented “How to... |
| 14.04.2015 | What is determining value in startups right now? | Here’s a timeless quote from Bill Janeway on how value is determined in startups:
The value now is driven by supply and demand amongst speculators who have liquidity and will not have to stick around to find out what the fundamental value ... |
| 08.04.2015 | Different Kinds of Innovation: Disruptive vs. Sustaining | There’s this idea floating around these days that disruption in mobile is different because it comes from the high end and flows down to the middle and low end.
While it’s true that innovation in mobile is driven from the top end of the ma... |
| 02.04.2015 | Advisors are valuable, but they need to be engaged the right way | This post was originally published at mayorbrad.com:
As an entrepreneur and investor, I have also been asked to play the role of advisor.
The term “advisor” is often used without clearly defining the role and expectations of said advisor.... |
| 02.04.2015 | Guest Post: Why You Should Constantly ‘Fire’ Yourself and Your Employees | Andrew Cohen is the Founder and CEO of Brainscape, an adaptive mobile education platform that helps you learn faster. This article originally appeared at Entrepreneur. You can follow Andrew on Twitter.
I spent the first several years of my... |
| 31.03.2015 | Trends Move Fast In Venture | I recently found some old browser bookmarks from about a year ago and clicked to see what they were about. They were all articles about firms focusing on “post-seed” stage investments– a stage that became relevant and potentially valuable b... |
| 27.03.2015 | Game Changing: New JOBS Act Rule To Allow Raising Money From The General Public | Kiran Lingam is the General Counsel & VP Business Development at SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform that connects accredited investors to high-quality start-ups and small businesses seeking funding. He explains how this breakin... |
| 26.03.2015 | Innovation Comes from the Edges | We get caught up in the startup echo chamber so it’s really easy for us to lose touch with the reality that innovation comes from the edges.
Check out this week’s listing of IPOs from Renaissance Capital:
There’s not a single company list... |
| 25.03.2015 | The Importance of Reporting | Cross posted from MayorBrad.com:
Reporting is one of the most important tools for any management team to effectively run their business. But unfortunately, its a skill that most entrepreneurs lack. This is the result of many entrepreneurs ... |
| 24.03.2015 | Convertible Note: An Entrepreneurs’ Perspective | Rohit Vashisht is Founder and CEO of Sverve, a social consumer activation platform and social influencer network. He shares some valuable insights and his experience with raising money on convertible notes. This article originally appeared ... |
| 20.03.2015 | Is venture capital under attack? | Cross posted from mayorbrad.com:
I am an early stage technology investor. It’s what I love and I wouldn’t want to do anything else.
And with the job title of VC comes a few primary functions:
(1) Be great at finding, cultivating, and inv... |
