---
title: 'Understanding the venture capitalist'
date: '2008-03-25T07:29:43-07:00'
type: post
word_count: 210
char_count: 1365
tokens: 273
categories:
  - Funding
  - VC
tags:
  - capital
  - Funding
  - VC
  - Venture
---

# Understanding the venture capitalist

One of the most enigmatic components of any startup’s life is “funding.” Do I need capital? Should I pursue capital? How do I approach venture capitalists? Should I avoid venture capitalists? What are the benefits? What are the drawbacks? Necessary evil or rite of passage?

There are a ton of questions.

And unless you’ve been fortunate enough to learn the funding mating dance as part of another company, it’s a completely foreign—and intimidating—proposition.

Well, have heart Web-app-mogul-to-be. [CenterNetworks is running a series on venture capitalists](http://www.centernetworks.com/vc-funding-limited-partners "Center Networks venture capitalist") that may help inform your understanding of this strange and elusive beast.

The topic? How VCs get *their* money:

> NYC Venture Capitalist Mark Davis is authoring a four-part series on how a VC is funded. Davis notes the four methods are: diverse limited partners, family office, government or public capital. Today, Davis looks at diverse limited partners. The other three methods will follow throughout the week.

I highly recommend you follow the series. Not only will this provide a great vantage point for helping you understand the motivations for the venture capitalist, it may just help demystify the whole venture capital question for you and your startup.