"There is no such thing as a B round." That's quite an emphatic, and almost frightening, statement made by Nat Goldhaber, managing director at Claremont Creek Ventures, who is currently on the boards of Adura Technologies, cFares, and TargetCast Networks.

"There are only A rounds and C rounds," he added. Goldhaber was speaking on a panel titled "How to Beat Kleiner and Sequoia after the apocalypse" at the AlwaysOn Venture Summit this week. Other panelists included Clint Chao, General Partner at Formative Ventures and Rob Hayes, Partner at First Round Capital. Steward Alsop, co-founder of Alsop Louie Partners was the affable moderator. 

Not surprisingly, it was a sobering, yet practical discussion about the tightening of the VC purse strings, and the implications on fundraising. 

"I define a C round as a round that's put into a comany that already has proven their product in the marketplace; that has sales; and is seeing either observably or [have a] really good argument that the hockey stick is beginning. That's where you're going to find more money from other venture capital funds."

The consequence of this missing round is that venture funds that do invest in the A round need to have sufficient enough funds to take care of the company until it gets to the C round, he said. With the A-round funds, a startup must be able to develop the product, begin the sales process and demonstrate dramatic upward growth.

(For more from the conference, look at posts below)