Feld Thoughts

MARCH 24, 2017

Not only are the downsides of overcapitalization problematic for founders, but FC also examined overcapitalization in upside scenarios by studying the data from the last five years of tech IPOs. The findings were surprising in that the amount of money a company raised and its success in the public markets were not positively correlated.

Founder 75

Founder LP Technical Review Seed Stage 75

Feld Thoughts

JULY 9, 2019

This was before the IPO Summer of 2019 when all conventional valuation metrics have entered the land of “suspension of disbelief” which is short-term good and long-term well-we-will-see-…-eventually. Yeah, I know I can be riveting, but stay with me.

Revenue 179

Revenue Valuation .Net IPO 179

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 14, 2018

I spent the weekend with a friend from the last 1990s who was the lead banker on the Interliant IPO (I was a co-founder and co-chairman.) If you like to read IPO prospectuses, here’s the final S-1 filing after INIT went effective and started trading on July 8, 1999.

Prospectus 80

Prospectus IPO Cofounder Internet 80

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 21, 2014

They range from “the sky is falling” to “the IPO market window is closing” to “there will be more stupid television shows about Silicon Valley” (I prefer Game of Thrones and 24, thank you very much.). Suddenly the IPO market window closed. ” I remember a moment in time in 1997.

Stock 140

Stock Internet SEC Italy 140

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 6, 2012

” In short, this act would allow for an IPO on-ramp that would minimize costly and burdensome regulation on smaller offerings. My partner Jason has a longer post up on Senate Bill 1933 , but I’m supporting S. 1933, otherwise known as “Re-opening American Capital Markets To Emerging Growth Companies Act.”

IPO 120

IPO Marketing Partner Cost 120

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 2, 2017

The first is on Thursday 1/5: 1 – 1:45: Fireside chat with Fitbit: From Inspiration to IPO. I’m giving two talks this year at CES as part of Startup Stage at the Sands, Level 1, Hall G. The second is on Friday 1/6: 1 – 1:45: Diversity in Tech. If you are around and interested, come listen and say hello.

IPO 70

IPO Startup 70

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 2, 2019

By the time people are prognosticating on the direction of things, the prices of crypto, interest rates, IPOs, the stock market, P/E multiples, and everything else, it’s too late – you have already missed the moment you are probably searching for. So, the search for signal gets harder, more complicated, and more important.

United States 104

United States IPO Stock Search 104

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 25, 2015

Not really; it was a result of an industry investing into a frothy market at higher and higher valuations in expectation of near term liquidity, and suddenly the IPO window shutting, leading to no exits and little additional capital to support these companies.

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital SBIC Technical Review Silicon Valley 70

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Examples would be “an acquisition” or “a financing” or “an IPO.” I like to start with things that often are optional, but consume a lot of time and energy. ” Let’s take “acquisition” as an example. Assume you are a fast growing company with plenty of financial resources.

Acquisition 145

Acquisition IPO Metrics Finance 145

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 29, 2014

4/11 and @pmarca on why the IPO is not what it used to be – [link]. ” Also, success was defined as a company having an IPO (the data range for the study was 1975 – 2003). The links are good, so here they are if you want to get in the headspace for what I really want to talk about. 9/11 I end with Haiku.

Venture Capital 139

Venture Capital IPO Syndicate Syndication 139

Feld Thoughts

MAY 11, 2017

Is an IPO in your future? Once you hit this point, you have a brand, you have a fully baked team, you have a robust product, and you have a self-generating stream of new leads and new business. Will you get from $10m ARR to $100M ARR? I don’t know. But once you hit $10m in ARR or so, you cannot be killed by anything.

IPO 171

IPO Portfolio Channel Revenue 171

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 16, 2018

The company had gone public in 1999 and the market cap rose to just under $3 billion ($55 / share, up from $10 / share at the IPO). .” In 2000 I was co-chairman of a public company called Interliant. By the end of 2000, the stock price was at $13.

Stock 134

Stock IPO Finance Technology 134

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 28, 2014

Hedge funds are once again allocating big money to private companies and lots of cross-over public company investors are trying to get large dollars into private companies pre-IPO. What’s old is new again. As we know from BSG, “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.”

Angel Investor 140

Angel Investor Venture Capital IPO Sales 140

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 2, 2017

Thursday 1/5: 1 – 1:45: Fireside chat with Fitbit: From Inspiration to IPO. I’m giving two talks this year at CES as part of Startup Stage at the Sands, Level 1, Hall G. Friday 1/6: 1 – 1:45: Diversity in Tech. I don’t go to CES to find the next great thing. I go to soak myself in what companies are releasing now.

IPO 71

IPO Hosting Programming Startup 71

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 29, 2014

4/11 and @pmarca on why the IPO is not what it used to be – [link]. ” Also, success was defined as a company having an IPO (the data range for the study was 1975 – 2003). The links are good, so here they are if you want to get in the headspace for what I really want to talk about. 9/11 I end with Haiku.

Venture Capital 111

Venture Capital IPO Syndicate Syndication 111

Feld Thoughts

JULY 13, 2014

And, very late stage / pre-IPO investors already investing in companies worth over $1 billion are interested in an even smaller absolute return, often being delighted with 2x in a relatively short period of time.

Later Stage 195

Later Stage Early Stage Valuation Seed Stage 195

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 11, 2021

I remember signing document after document with him at Interliant and remember sitting at the Interliant office in Purchase after the IPO roadshow, waiting for the SEC to clear our filing so we could price. Under the terms, he signed his name.

SEC 164

SEC Cofounder Boston New York 164

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 4, 2016

We’ve already heard lots of predictions about the late stage financing market, tech IPOs, and what is going to happen to unicorns this year. Welcome to 2016. And it’s only Monday, January 4th. Remember that these are predictions. No one really has a clue. And a year is a long time.

IPO 70

IPO Early Stage Finance Revenue 70

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 14, 2018

Why do a play off the acronym IPO – call them something innocuous like “Papayas” instead. When I first heard the phrase “ ICO ” three or four years ago, my immediate thought was something like “that’s just an invitation to the SEC to regulate that.

Advertising 86

Advertising SEC Private Equity Equity 86

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 19, 2014

In the late 1990s, what looked like my biggest success at the time, went public, peaked at an almost $3 billion market cap, and then went bankrupt three years after the IPO. While my first angel investment was a success, I resigned as the chairman after the VCs came in and left the board after the CEO was replaced.

IPO 195

IPO Technology Community Software 195

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 22, 2011

financings, IPOs, valuations, and bubbles (or not bubbles). Many of the tech blogs / news blogs that I’m reading are suddenly about deals. Several years ago, there was a lot more about “how to startup a company&# , especially around product, vision, and team. Now a lot of that focus has shifted to deal making and exits.

Lean 136

Lean Startup IPO Early Stage 136

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 8, 2011

Between the two of them they have co-founded IGN.com (IPO in 2000, acquired by NewsCorp in 2005), MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo in ’07) and Gnip (which I’m an investor in). Todd and Eric have been friends of mine for a long time. Needless to say, I’m excited to see what happens as they join the BigDoor team.

San Francisco 115

San Francisco Acquisition Cofounder IPO 115

Feld Thoughts

JUNE 20, 2011

However, now that the IPO window for tech companies has opened back up there are some companies that I want to track. I considered titling this post “why RSS isn’t dead&# but decided that was too easy. I don’t pay much attention to public markets.

SEC 112

SEC RSS IPO Stock 112

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

IPO issues: Possibly the biggest problem for German venture-backed companies is the very low number of IPOs in Germany. The boom years of 1998 (79 IPOs), 1999 (175 IPOs), and 2000 (142 IPOs) are long gone. In 2022, just as in 2009, there was only one IPO; typically, there are between three and 16 per year.

Germany 165

Germany Liquidation Preference Option Pool Advisory Board 165

Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2010

I no longer have to contemplate doing this as Jeff Bussgang has nailed it with his book Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on YOUR Terms. Over the years, I’ve occasionally thought about writing a book about how venture capital actually works.

Venture Capital 121

Venture Capital IPO Entrepreneur 121

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2014

In it, he talks about how he handles public company stocks that he ends up with either via an IPO or a sale of a company he’s involved in to a public company. .” When I got back to my room last night, I noticed Fred Wilson’s post from yesterday Averaging In And Averaging Out.

Valuation 143

Valuation Stock Angel Investor IPO 143

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 17, 2015

Or a segmentation analysis that shows that $7 billion of it is actually a substitution effect for what would have otherwise been public money going into IPOs, so really it’s only $6.4 Now, I haven’t read the PWC Report so they might have a deep analysis on the exit math, and then input / output dynamics that justify $13.4

Venture Capital 70

Venture Capital Silicon Valley New York IPO 70

Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Some will demonstrate strategically justifiable metrics and have fantastic ‘up round’ exits; others may see liquidation preferences kick in which will negatively impact founders and employees; others may fulfill the adage “IPO is the new down round” , which has been the case for more than half of the public companies on our list.

Liquidation Preference 70

Liquidation Preference Burn Rate Balance Sheet .Net 70

Feld Thoughts

JULY 28, 2014

The booming IPO market proved the model of investing in new companies, as some SBICs cash out at attractive levels. If you want to see a fun quote on it, read A History of Silicon Valley which quotes: “ …many venture capital pioneers think the SBIC program did little to advance the art and practice of venture investing.

SBIC 142

SBIC Venture Capital Colorado SBA 142

Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 10, 2013

From nothing to IPO in less than 18 months, a market cap of > $20 billion, followed by a 99% decline in the stock price post-bubble. In this case, however, the only VC who truly had conviction to get behind Akamai was Todd Dagres – then of Battery Ventures, now of Spark Capital. Akamai was an amazing pre-Internet bubble story.

Denver 129

Denver IPO Cofounder 129