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You make some really excellent points, and having done this rodeo so many times now, if I was going to do it again, I would most certainly consider alternative funding. Thankfully I was able to raise the money I wanted and feel at least that it wasn't directly tied to things I felt uncomfortable with.

I also think that even though you're right, avoiding truly tainted money is near impossible, asking the question puts VCs on blast, something I feel fortunate to have been able to do (even if not common and they just ignore me as an edge case).

Just as one point of clarification, I always asked after the partner pitch, so I felt like we'd dated enough that it was an acceptable question to ask (I could very well be wrong).

That makes a ton of sense. Also:

> I always asked after the partner pitch, so I felt like we'd dated enough that it was an acceptable question to ask (I could very well be wrong).

This is a key piece of information that does not match my presumption. At that level in the process, to continue our dating analogy, I think this kind of question or concern is a lot more reasonable. But with that said, I think it is unfortunately a concern that will be a dealbreaker for a vast majority of VCs.

With that said, the plus side is that alternate funding vehicles are more powerful than ever, whether that's crowdfunding, angels, alumni syndicates, revenue based funding, user based pre-orders. I respect that this may not have been the case when you last raised, but certainly this past year has minted an enormous amount of new HNW investors chomping at the bit to put their money into interesting causes, some for profit and some not. Dis-intermediating the VC has never been so viable as it is now, in my opinion.

> It is, but I'm not sure it's for the reasons you are implying.

I'm curious now. Why is it poor form?

> Perhaps you don't, but phrasing it that way is a seriously tonedeaf way to signal it.

So you're saying they should have phrased the question differently - perhaps they did in fact do that.

But I think asking is perfectly legitimate.

Now I'm not implying you said this, but I feel like I should point something out anyways: Raising questions of morality is not poor form because it might make someone uncomfortable about what they're doing. That's kind of what morality is about. "How dare you make me think about the bloodstains on my money" is not exactly a form of indignation that'll get you people rallying in support.

It's an bad question to ask outside the context of a relationship. It's like asking a very personal question of someone before even meeting them for a first date.

'Who the LP's are' is basically none of your business unless you are entering into some kind of relationship, even then - it may be out of bounds. Of course you have the right to not take money even in that case, but that's a different thing then knowing when to ask.

All of this talk about 'tainted money' is bordering on naive - it's very subjective, moreover, if people would actually take a moment to grasp how this world operates they might find a lot of things they don't agree with.

I'm not suggesting people don't make decisions about where their money comes from - that's very reasonable - rather that it's much more complicated than 'boycott Nike or Chic-Filet' populism.

As far as LP's - it's definitely not a question you ask, unsolicited, over email, without an established relationship.

You can try to do your own research on it, or, ask 'in person' once you have some semblance of a material conversation with an investor and hope they give you a hint one way or another. It would help to ask it in an informal, indirect manner, possibly lumped in with a few other speculative LP questions.

You still haven't explained why it is poor form, besides saying "it's a bad question to ask". I see many words but no explanation.

I said it clearly: it's private information.

It would be like some random person on the internet sending you an email, asking about specific details on your cap table.

One can care about fundraising for their startup and care about raising untainted money without it being one's primary concern. Then you move the goalposts a little more and essentially say that you shouldn't be concerned with funding sources at all. The latter point especially seems amoral.

It's all a bit of a straw man. I'm curious what motivations are backing your reasons for advocating for this position?

I just think that all big money is tainted and founders should be honest about what they're raising when they raise, so there aren't surprises later. If one reads the Panama Papers, this comes into very clear detail.

I guess I should add a bit more color here, which is I also don't necessarily think of this tainting as a purely moral question, as I believe it's also a logistical one. The more money is being managed by a fund, the more likely it is that some nefarious utilizations of it will come into the picture. I think of it a lot like the law of large numbers.