How much do you know about what goes on within your VCs’ own firms?

 During my time in VC, we did a lot of due diligence on the founders in whom we might invest, learning about their personalities, work histories, management styles, strengths, and weaknesses. We assessed their management teams, how well the members of those teams worked together on tough issues, and current and future holes in the team. Such due diligence efforts are standard within the industry.

However, not a single founder turned the tables and asked me questions about the personality and style of the GP who might be joining their boards, how well the GP got along with the firm's other GPs, how much gunpowder was left in the firm’s current fund, or when the next round of fund-raising would commence. (Several did ask about the firm's overall history of investing in their segments and similar general issues.) Due diligence was largely a one-way process.

Some founders succeed despite this ignorance about their investors. However, they are the lucky ones, for I have seen many other founders get burned by their ignorance of the inner workings of their VCs’ firms and about the specific GP joining their board. Some examples:

1. A GP on a company’s board pushes for a dramatic strategic change (changing a consumer-focused company into an enterprise-software company) and has the company hire two high-priced consultants to plan the change. The founder doesn’t believe in making such a change, but feels the need to listen to his board member and investor, and goes along with the plan. Then, the founder finds out that the GP’s firm is starting to raise its next fund, is feeling pressure to show that they invest in the enterprise-software segment, and wants the founder’s company to fill that hole. (In another case, fund-raising pressures led to the VC's focusing inordinate attention on getting the venture a higher valuation in its next round, to the detriment of other key terms that round.)
2. A company takes money from a VC Principal making his first investment. Before the next round of financing, the Principal is let go by his firm. Knowing that it is a bad sign if a company’s existing investors don’t re-up in the next round, the founder has to pitch the VC firm on re-upping – with the VC firm not being familiar any more with the company (now being more "new investor" than "existing investor") and with the VC firm already inclined not to invest because of the company’s association with the fired Principal. (Making it even tougher, the Principal had failed to inform the GPs in his firm that the company’s board had decided to halt a CEO search that had been under way for several months. When the founder met with a GP from the firm, the GP opened the conversation with, “So you’re the founder we’re replacing!”)
3. A founder really “clicks” with the specific GP leading the investment, believes that the GP will add tremendous value to the company, and decides to accept capital from the GP’s firm. Six months later, the GP leaves the firm and the company’s board, after a long feud with the other GPs in his firm. The GP is replaced on the board by a junior Associate from the firm. (More dramatically, in another case, the GP left the board because his firm was in receivership for not repaying a loan, and a representative of that debt-holder replaced the GP on the board.)

A similar, but much more public, story was highlighted in August and September by Daniel Primack in two Private Equity Week postings.