原文来自USV的合伙人Fred Wilson。 USV是硅谷最好的风险投资基金之一，一直以独角兽的命中率最高而闻名。Fred回顾了自己基金的融资艰难岁月，atv直播，告诉创业公司融资难未必是坏事，因为 1）你做的事情可能与众不同 2）经过无数次拒绝，你的业务会更加清晰。

　　In the summer of 2003, Brad Burnhamand I set out to raise a $100mm early stage venture capital fund. We had both been successful VCs in other firms and we had a thesis that the second wave of the Internet was upon us and that large networks were going to get built in this phase. The term “web 2.0” had not yet been coined and Facebook had not yet been started (LinkedIn was being built around this time).

　　2003年夏天，Brad和我着手筹集一个1亿美金的早期风险投资基金。（译者：10多年钱，钱还没今天这么宽松）。我们在其他公司已经是成功的VC，我们有一个投资的主旨：第二波的互联网迎面而来，这个阶段将出现大型的网络。那个时候，“web 2.0”这个词还没有，Facebook还没有启动（LinkedIn刚刚创建）。

　　It took us a year and a half to raise that fund. We traveled all around the country (and to the UK too which was a total waste of our time and money). We spent our own capital raising that fund. We believed in ourselves and our thesis, but it was very hard to get others to understand it. Sometime in the spring of 2004, someonegot it. And then a few others did. And by the summer, we had a group together and we were able to build to a first close in November of 2004. We had our final close in February 2005, eighteen months after we started. That was a hard raise.

　　我们花了一年半的时间来募资。我们在全国各地跑（还去了一趟英国，这完全是浪费时间和金钱）。我们花自己的钱来筹集资金。我们相信自己和我们的投资主旨，但很难让别人理解它。2004年春天的时候，有人终于懂我们了。然后更多人相信了。到了夏天，我们已经有一些人在手里了，从而得以在2004年11月完成第一次关闭。最后的基金募资关闭在2005年2月，这时距离开始已经是18个月了。这是一次艰难的融资。

　　But that fund, USV 2004, has been one of the very best venture capital funds ever put together. The numbers are publicbecause many (most) of our investors are public pension funds who have freedom of information act (FOIA) obligations to report the performance of the funds they invest in. At that time (early 2000s), the big VCs in the bay area were kicking out FOIA obligated limited partners out of their funds. That was a huge win for us and we got a bunch of those FOIA obligated LPs into our fund. Without FOIA, I am not sure we would have gotten USV 2004 done. But we did.

　　但是这期基金，即USV2004，是迄今为止最好的风险投资基金之一。这些数字是公开的，因为我们的许多（大多数）投资者是公共养老基金，按照信息自由法案（FOIA）他们有义务报告他们投资的基金的表现。当时（21世纪初），湾区的大型VC正要把这些执行FOIA的有限合伙人从其资金中踢出去。这对我们来说是一个巨大的利好，我们得到了一些有FOIA义务的LP的支持。没有FOIA，我不知道我们USV 2004这期基金是否能顺利完成募资。但我们做到了。

　　There is a correlation between hard raises and strong performing investments. It is not a perfect correlation by any means. Some great investments are obvious (Facebook in 2010, Airbnb in 2014) and get done easily by the company and perform very well. And many hard raises are hard because they aren’t good investments.

　　融资艰难和强劲的投资业绩之间存在相关性。虽然，这种相关性不是任何时候都那么完美。有些伟大的投资是显而易见的（比如2010年的Facebook，2014年的Airbnb）公司融资很容易，业绩表现也很好。而另外一些融资很艰难，因为他们不是好的投资。

　　But there are some investments that are very hard to get done that turn into incredibly strong performers. We have had a few of these in our portfolio over the past year as the expansion capital stage (Series C and D) of the venture capital market has contracted. We have seen companies need as much as six to nine months to get a financing done and we have seen founders and CEOs get rejected by more than fifty investors during that process.