Seed-Stage Venture Investing

Creating, funding, and managing technology-based companies, a process knowingly referred to by venture capitalists and entrepreneurs as "doing start-ups," is a high-wire act unlike anything else in business. In Seed-Stage Venture Investing, start-up specialist William L. Robbins guides company founders, investors, service providers, and graduate students in business, science, and engineering through the venture formation, funding, and development process with refreshing candor and humor. With a start-up insider's sensibility, Robbins explains how to scout for promising technology, how to identify scientists and engineers who have the "right stuff," and how to navigate the ins and outs of "Start-Up Land" successfully"including helpful advice about technology transfer, intellectual property, fund-raising, team-building, working with service providers, and corporate partnering. With a combination of hands-on knowledge, true-to-life anecdotes, factual examples, and irrepressible wit, Seed-Stage Venture Investing tells it like it is, demystifying the start-up process for first-timers, and providing more experienced professionals with fresh insights.

Whatever your specific field of scientific, technical, or business interest, Seed-Stage Venture Investing is an informative and highly readable guide to the world of start-ups.

About The Author
William L. Robbins is managing director of Convergent Ventures, a seed-stage venture investment and development firm specializing in life science and technology start-ups. Founder or co-founder of more than a half-dozen new ventures, start-up CEO, consultant to more than thirty companies, and professional seed-stage investor, Robbins began his career in the pharmaceutical industry and joined his first start-up in 1992. Since then, he has focused on biotechnology, medical technology, advanced materials, and research services. He has done business with global corporations and start-ups in the U.S., Europe, Canada, and Israel, and is a leader of several non-profit organizations dedicated to supporting basic and applied research in the sciences, engineering, and medicine. Robbins is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia Business School.