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Corporate Acquisitions of Startups: Why Do They Fail?

Steve Blank

More often than not the results of these acquisitions are disappointing. buy out an entire company for its revenue and profits. The goal is to get a corporate investment or an outright acquisition of the startup. The common mistake acquirers make is treating all acquisitions the same.

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M&A or IPO?

Reid Hoffman

The fundamental choice that venture-backed entrepreneurs face is simple: M&A or IPO? Companies make acquisitions based on strategic goal that are aligned with their inner workings. If you win that market, you’re going to be valuable as an acquisition. You’re also going to be valuable and attractive as an IPO candidate.

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What Does the Post Crash VC Market Look Like?

Both Sides of the Table

Should SaaS companies trade at a 24x Enterprise Value (EV) to Next Twelve Month (NTM) Revenue multiple as they did in November 2021? We drew this conclusion after a meeting we had with Morgan Stanley where they showed us historical 15 & 20 year valuation trends and we all discussed what we thought this meant.

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What Type of Business Structure is Right for a SaaS, AI or IoT Company?

ReadWriteStart

And even though an LLC is legally required to report its revenues, profits, and losses, it does not have to pay corporate income taxes on profits. If a founder’s goal is to grow the business for some time and exit by selling the company, through merger/acquisition, or through IPO, then the corporation (C-Corp) structure might be the best.

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6 Risks For Taking A Side Door Into A Public Exchange

Startup Professionals Musings

A reverse merger is the acquisition of an already public company (usually a dormant shell) to avoid the Initial Public Offering (IPO) process and cost, to quickly get your startup on a public exchange for fund raising through visibility and selling stock. Being a public company isn’t cheap or easy. Yet reverse mergers are not all bad.

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10 Real World Hazards With Taking Your Startup Public

Startup Professionals Musings

Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is finally up from the dead zone of the last two decades, and is now double the rate back in 1999. Thus, today around 90 percent of successful startups are still acquired by bigger companies versus an IPO, as the safer and preferred method of growth and funding.

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The Next Chapter for NextView

View from Seed

As someone who has seen multiple companies go from concept to $1B scale (and IPO), her experience and insight will be invaluable to the founders we work with. Of all the billion-dollar companies we have backed, 2/3 of our initial investments were pre-revenue, and many pre-product.

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