As a semi-sequal to "Zombie Startups," Danielle Morrill recently wrote about a type of investor in the startup community known as a "zombie VC."
"Once you have identified that you may be meeting with a zombie it can be frustrating, but what you need to understand is that just like Bruce Willis in the 6th Sense zombies usually don’t realize they’re dead."
Here are her tips on how to spot a zombie VC:
- They haven’t made any series A investments in the past 6 months
- They haven’t invested outside their existing portfolio in the past 3 months
- They haven’t made ANY investment in the past 3 months (after a more regular pace in the past)
- They tell you they’re re-focusing on later stage deals, or raising a new fund
On her Twitter stream (@daniellemorrill), the startup and investment community seem to take exception with the dataset (from Crunchbase) she used to categorize zombie VCs. In her defense, however, the dataset would be better if investors were more transparent (and accurate) about their investments. In other words, better than nothing. Also kind of really makes you think about avoiding VCs altogether and just bootstrapping instead.
Read the dataset for yourself (hopefully you're not on it), and tell us what you think about the concept of zombie VCs.
"In the same way at a VC will often send you to an associate because they’re 'too nice' to say no, zombies will meet with you and make you feel like you’re making progress on the fundraising path, but can ultimately wind up being a huge waste of time."
This post was originally featured on FounderCode.com
Source: "Zombie VCs"
Image: Davis, Molly