TechStars Co-Founder Brad Feld discussed topics ranging from investing to communities during the opening keynote at the annual Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium Tuesday at the Monona Terrace.

On the Series A “crunch:”

“I think the notion of a Series A ‘crunch’ is total and utter nonsense. It’s always incredibly difficult to raise Series A financing. (The notion of a crunch) undermines what you have to do to get from seed financing to institutional financing. You have to build this dynamic over time.

“Growth financing simply doesn’t care about geography. If you have a company that’s growing, you’ll easily raise expansion capital. The middle level is incredibly hard no matter where you are.”

On crowdfunding:

“We’re very fascinated with crowdfunding as a source of funding. Crowdfunding has a potential to have a broader impact on seed-stage financing.”

On communities within communities:

“I segment all the people who take part in a startup community into two groups, leaders and feeders. Both play important but different roles. The leaders are entrepreneurs, the feeders are everyone else (the government, investors, etc.). The magic of thinking about the leader-feeder dynamic … happens when individual members of the feeder organizations become part of the network.

“In a small city like Boulder, the city is a startup community. But in bigger cities like New York and Boston, you have neighborhoods with startup activity, and the key is to connect those neighborhoods.”

On the relationship with a university in a city:

“There’s a common misperception that you need a research university in the city to have a startup community. The presence of a university is extremely helpful, but the highest order of value is to have a steady stream of people who graduate and a flow of young people who move into the city.”

On hardware vs. software companies:

“The accelerator process works just as well for a hardware company. It’s remembering what you’re trying to accomplish in those 90 days. The mistake is thinking you’re going to launch a product within the accelerator program.”