Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been intending to comment on the recent report released by VCExperts released in June regarding trends in venture funding in Q1, 2008. The graph below illustrates some of the key data from the report. The labels of A, B, etc. refer to the Series Round of Financing. While… [Read more…]
August 12, 2008
After writing my weekend post about LinkedIn’s $1 bln valuation (“Locked in on Linked In“), I did a bit of reading about how some others viewed the matter. (I wanted to come to my own conclusion without being influenced too much by others who already wrote about the topic…) Michael Arrington wrote a nice article… [Read more…]
August 9, 2008
I read about the recent $53 mln Bain Capital investment to LinkedIn and I was prepared to write an article again questioning the valuation of another social/business networking site. Like many, I’m not particularly enamoured with the current $15 billion valuation of Facebook, so my initial reaction to the $1.035 billion valuation of LinkedIn was… [Read more…]
July 11, 2008
Found this article on VC Experts (a great source for articles and analysis on a myriad of venture capital topics) a couple weeks ago. In short, Barry Kramer and Michael Patrick of Fenwich & West LLP analyze the venture funding terms for over 100 companies in the San Francisco Bay Area. For those number-crunchers, this… [Read more…]
June 1, 2008
Traditionally, angel capital became known as “angel capital” because they were the first investors – the “pre-seed” funding, but with deals becoming more numerous and requiring more stringent expected ROI requirements, the entrepreneur in need of $50K or $100K in seed capital is left to bootstrap their business. If you are looking for that first… [Read more…]
April 30, 2008
Mark Cannice, Chair of the University of San Francisco Entrepreneurship Program, provided some great insight about how venture capital and venture capital activites may foreshadow overall financial market activity. In his video interview on The Wall Street Journal Online, Mark pointed out that venture capital operates at the “intersection of public and private finance,” providing… [Read more…]
April 30, 2008
I read an interesting article on VC Experts today regarding the movement of Angel Capital from the traditional equity stake in early stage firms to debt instruments. This seems to make sense for angel investors if the payback period for their initial investments is 5-7 years or longer. And considering that following the traditional model… [Read more…]
April 10, 2008
Quick update on a great event upcoming – April 24 – 26 – Hotel Kabuki (San Francisco’s Japan Town) The University of San Francisco Contest will feature 20 graduate student entrepreneur teams from around the world (MIT, Hong Kong UST, Cambridge, USF, Stanford, etc.) pitching their new venture proposals to panels of venture capitalists, top… [Read more…]
March 23, 2008
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, the “Ideas” page on the Sequoia Capital website is an outstanding resource. It’s rare (very rare) that a start-up can submit a business plan without any prior contacts and meetings with a venture capital firm and receive financing. But, this page is an outstanding primer of the themes and ideas… [Read more…]
March 17, 2008
I found an interesting spot on the PBS website – dot.con – that was aired and published back in 2002. Now that we’re starting to get some perspective on the first Internet rush, reading these pieces in retrospect offers some valuable lessons going forward.
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August 18, 2008
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