The first book to offer a comprehensive framework for conducting the venture capital due diligence process

Venture capitalists and other professional investors use due diligence to uncover all of the critical aspects of a company in which they are considering investing in an attempt to estimate the ROI of this decision. The state of the market, management expertise within the firm, legal concerns, location, and environmental issues are just a few of the factors investors include in their due diligence analyses. This book is the only guide to provide investors with a rigorous due diligence framework that can be customized to fit the practice of the firm. The book provides readers with a clear and complete understanding of the due diligence process and formalizes the process for the VC community. The book is structured around key criteria presented in the form of questions. Each question is followed by in-depth explanations and analyses that incorporate the best practices of today's top VCs, including John Doerr, Don Valentine, Kevin Fong, and Ann Winblad.

Due diligence is the process by which venture capitalists assess a company. Camp, a lawyer and the founder of a venture capitalist firm, has created a clearly organized framework that considers the company's management, business model, and product. A lengthy section lists and explains legal issues. How financial statements are read and their role is also described.
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Performing Venture Capital Due Diligence the Right Way

Venture Capital Due Diligence provides a clear and complete explanation of the venture capital (VC) due diligence process and shows you how to use it to assess investment opportunities, make smart investment decisions, and increase the return on your overall venture capital portfolio.

This comprehensive guide offers a full explanation of the VC due diligence process, from using screening mechanisms that sort out potential opportunities, to assessing the management qualities, business models, legal issues, and even intangibles of target companies. Structured around a number of carefully crafted questions that venture capitalists often ask when performing due diligence, this book puts you– the reader– in the position of a VC conducting due diligence on a particular company.

In-depth discussions of these questions and their possible answers pull together opinions from many of the major players in today’ s venture capital industry, including . . .

• Richard Testa of Testa Hurwitz & Thibeault
• Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
• John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Craig Johnson of the Venture Law Group
• Don Valentine of Sequoia Capital
• Kevin Fong of the Mayfield Fund

. . . and many others who are qualified to comment on the proper methods of performing VC due diligence and making VC investment decisions.

An essential guide for anyone involved in venture capital investing, Venture Capital Due Diligence helps you uncover potential problems, while showing you where to look and what to look for when conducting VC duediligence.

Due diligence is the process venture capitalists follow when considering what new business opportunities to take and which ones to pass on. This book provides a clear and concise understanding of what the venture capital due diligence process is and how investors use it to assess investment opportunities and estimate their return-on-investment (ROI). Readers will learn the rigorous framework that surrounds the due diligence process and be able to implement this technique when approaching their own investments.