Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 26, 2013

Initial Public Offerings (IPO) are back as an exit strategy. That is a 65% increase in the number of IPOs over 2012, and the highest proceeds raised since the year 2000. Most now routinely buy startups for new technology and new products. business entrepreneur investment IPO social media startup' percent to 23.4

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IPO Entrepreneur Social Media Startup 273

Seeing Both Sides

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

Bill Gurley’s excellent piece on Silicon Valley IPO Anxiety inspired me to take a companion look at the East Coast, particularly Massachusetts and New York, and evaluate the health of the local IPO economy and prospective pipeline. Akamai Technologies. Parametric Technologies Corp. Market Value (mn). 2009 Revenue (mn).

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IPO Massachusetts New York Silicon Valley 34

Startup Lessons Learned

OCTOBER 4, 2008

He previously co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups, and has worked as a consultant to a number of startups, companies, and venture capital firms. While an undergraduate at Yale Unviersity, he co-founded Catalyst Recruiting.

San Francisco 155

San Francisco Technical Cofounder Fractional CTO CTO 155

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And from a financial perspective, any investor would be better off buying stock in Amazon than buying and share of a corner bookshop; if you invested $100 in Amazon’s 1997 initial public offering (IPO), those shares would have been worth about $120,000 in 2018. Blitzscaling is a strategic technique for moving faster, not a reckless gamble.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

But knowing the right people and knowing a market only works well for angel investors in bullish tech markets in which IPO’s happen quickly (97-99) or where larger companies are actively scooping up little tiny companies at sub $50 million valuations to drive innovation (05-08, 10-?). Obviously I agree.

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Angel Investor Early Stage Cap Table Deal Flow 284

Pascal's View

AUGUST 22, 2009

On Monday, August 10, Barron’s ran a story “Does the IPO Market Shun Smaller Companies?”, This practice has created “ a near oligopolistic hold on tech IPOs ” by these large investment banks. The IPO chasm that exists today is the result of the death of the sub $50 million IPO. jobs today.

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IPO Merger Institutional Investors Venture Capital 40

Growthink Blog

JUNE 4, 2012

So lots of companies went public - 1,272 of them from 1990 to 1996 - and Wall Street was very much about "long" promotion of companies' growth potential and as "analog" distributors of their stocks. And the Facebook IPO debacle will only accelerate this sometimes disturbing but ultimately inevitable and yes welcome trend. read more.

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Private Equity Stock IPO Equity 72

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2016

This is a story about starting an enterprise seed fund called Boldstart in 2010 and our journey in enterprise since 1996. This was oversubscribed from our initial target of $30mm and mirrors not only our growth but also the power of NYC as a hub for enterprise technology.

Cap Table 60

Cap Table Cofounder Dividend Institutional Investors 60

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 19, 2015

Initial Public Offerings (IPO) are back as an exit strategy. Last year was the most active year for IPOs in the United States since 2000. 275 IPOs were completed in 2014, topping the 2013 total of 222 by more than 23%. IPO proceeds also shattered 2013’s high-water mark of $55 billion, with an impressive $85 billion in proceeds.

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IPO Angel Investor Startup Incubator 120

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

But knowing the right people and knowing a market only works well for angel investors in bullish tech markets in which IPO’s happen quickly (97-99) or where larger companies are actively scooping up little tiny companies at sub $50 million valuations to drive innovation (05-08, 10-?). Let’s call these cards 1996-99 and 2005-08.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cap Table Early Stage Deal Flow 152

Pascal's View

MAY 13, 2011

i. Pre bubble period 1991-1996 totals $28 billion. ii. Bubble period 1996-2000 totals $243.6 Number of IPO’s has shrunk while average size has increased. This is a good example of technology driven market change being accelerated by new securities regulations). Amount of venture capital raised has exploded.

Equity 31

Equity Securities and Exchange Commission IPO Marketing 31

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 30, 2015

Would you be surprised to know that almost half of the dot com companies founded when the boom started in 1996 were still around in 2004--four years after the peak of the NASDAQ? With growth rates reduced, IPOs would be even tougher to come by--but companies would survive. It would still make for a huge return to the early investors.

Hockey Stick 60

Hockey Stick Valuation Startup Maryland 60

Pascal's View

NOVEMBER 14, 2009

IPO market and simply dismiss the American equity markets for emerging growth companies today as “no longer engineered for brokers & bankers to make money via flipping over-valued startups to retail investors via institutional cronies” (from Paul Kedrosky’s blog). The current IPO markets in the U.S. jobs today.

Delaware 37

Delaware IPO Venture Capital Private Equity 37

Ben's Blog

MARCH 24, 2011

Lately, everybody seems to be talking about a new technology bubble. Similarly, in recent high profile private financing rounds for private technology companies with valuations over $1B, the valuation multiples were at or below corresponding multiples for publicly traded companies such as Google. LL Cool J, Going Back to Cali.

Technical Review 78

Technical Review Database Valuation Venture Capital 78

Seeing Both Sides

MAY 26, 2009

Terry co-founded Polaris in 1996 after seven years as a VC at Burr Egan.    In VC, it’s considered more naturally a young person’s game (perhaps because we’re always dealing with waves of new technology, young founders).  Terry’s ascension to chair of the NVCA comes at an interesting time, to say the least. 

Private Equity 20

Private Equity Boston Massachusetts IPO 20

www.paulgraham.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Its not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companiesspring up around them. In a technology startup, which most startups are, the foundersshould include technical people. The rulers of the technologybusiness tend to come from technology, not business. Its the same with technology.

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Startup Cofounder Software Stock 105

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

First, he was the co-founder of Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM – currently valued at $8 billion.) Akamai’s original name was Cachet Technologies. As a judge for the MIT $50k until 1996, there were always a lot of VCs hanging around. Second, he was likely the very first person to die in the 9/11 attack.

Denver 129

Denver IPO Cofounder 129

infochachkie.com

DECEMBER 5, 2011

To illustrate the extent to which a company’s name is largely irrelevant to its ultimate success, let’s examine the genesis of six successful technology companies’ names. eBay – Derived from Founder Pierre Omidyar’s consulting company, Echo Bay Technology Group. Expertcity was a great name for that business.

Naming 40

Naming Technical Review Product Product Name 40

Seeing Both Sides

SEPTEMBER 15, 2015

Decades ago, the thesis of Yossi Vardi , a prolific technology entrepreneur who has invested in 75 Israeli startups, was that Israeli entrepreneurs should seek quick exit opportunities through global corporations interested in buying a window into Israeli talent and technology. We think so. Today, this thesis is less relevant.

Cofounder 20

Cofounder Technical Review United States 20