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Praying to the God of Valuation

Both Sides of the Table

Something happened in the past 7 years in the startup and venture capital world that I hadn’t experienced since the late 90’s — we all began praying to the God of Valuation. And then in the late 90’s money crept in, swept in to town by public markets, instant wealth and an absurd sky-rocketing of valuations based on no reasonable metrics.

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Why Has Seed Investing Declined? And What Does this Mean for the Future?

Both Sides of the Table

As a result of the IPO window shifting we saw a massive inflow of public-market capital into the latest stages of venture. Between 1999–2005 the costs went down by 90% and between 2005–2010 they went down a further 90%. I launched my first startup in 1999 so I know the economics of launching from first-hand experience.

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7 Reasons To Reconsider A Planned IPO Exit Strategy

Startup Professionals Musings

Despite the fact that the number of IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) for startups have continued to stay low, I still hear it touted often as the preferred exit strategy. I suspect the exuberance for an IPO is still being driven by the highly visible successes of a few companies several years ago, including Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter.

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A Deep Dive into What Has Really Changed in Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

Valuations are out of control” is the mantra of others. Yes, VC / Startup Funding is up Massively If you look at how much VC firms have raised from Limited Partners (LPs) over the past 2 decades you’ll see that we’ve returned to a level that we haven’t seen since 1999. We’re in a new tech bubble!” some have pronounced.

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Debating the Tech Bubble with Steve Blank: Part II

Ben's Blog

In reading my friend Steve Blank’s arguments, I found the bubble definition quite compelling: “A tech bubble is the rapid inflation in the valuation of public and private technology companies that exceeds their fundamental value by a large margin.&#. Next, Mr Blank states, “The LinkedIn IPO valued the company at $8.9

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LinkedIn: The Series A Fundraising Story ? AGILEVC

Agile VC

Google is still a private company (their IPO was Aug 2004). The terms and valuation for both offers were comparable and when the team debated which path to choose, we all agreed both firms would have made good partners. round which closed in November 2003, and the pre-money valuation between $10 million and $15 million.

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Andreessen Horowitz: No bubble but rebalancing from IPO to late stage venture

The Equity Kicker

Firstly this table comparing 1999 and 2014 on key bubble-related metrics. But second there has been a big shift from IPOs to late stage private rounds. That makes sense, but it looks to me as if they have less valuation discipline than we normally see in either the public markets or in smaller venture rounds.

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