Adeo Ressi launched TheFunded.com roughly a year ago, and his unbiased opinion is that it's already changed the way the industry works.
(For those unfamiliar with TheFunded, the site is a centralized place for entrepreneurs to post reviews of VCs.)
Now Ressi is trying to push the functionality of TheFunded by introducing social features that allow entrepreneurs to post a pitch, get feedback from peers, get funding suggestions, and refine the idea.
The idea behind the new service -- called TheFunded Connect -- is that it's easier to raise funding if you have an introduction to a venture capitalist. And, assuming entrepreneurs are willing to introduce each other to the money men, it improves the probability of landing cash.
"I've literally seen the premise of TheFunded Connect in action," says Ressi. "I once pitched Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and I got a form rejection letter from a secretary. Then, a friend of mine -- who is a famous CEO guy -- walked me in the [DFJ] office and they ended up investing. Tim Draper ended up investing. If you get in through the right channels, your probability [of raising money] is exponentially improved."
Ressi, who landed in Silicon Valley six months ago, says he isn't looking for funding for himself, mostly because most VCs hate him. His next venture, which he expects will be launched by the end of the summer, involves developing models for a "city of the future."
"The vision is to collect one idea from a billion people, have them tagged -- geotagged -- so you can come up with new models for living based on ideas from different populations. The theory is that everyone in the world has an idea about how we all could live better," says Ressi.
But that doesn't mean he's giving up TheFunded any time soon.
"I expect that TheFunded will continue for as long as -- well, forever is my goal. But at some point it will have to change because it will have fixed all the problems it sought to address, including the rampant abuses of power, bad terms, and the difficulty of pitching" he says. "Venture capital is like an old stodgy closed industry. You literally have to be referred, and [VC] processes are kind of secretive and bureaucratic. It is rife for change."
Photo: Rainer Hosch/Wired
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