Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 29, 2022

In the old days, every entrepreneur planned on taking their startup public, and making it big. 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.

IPO 245

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 245

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 1, 2015

In the old days, every entrepreneur dreamed of easily taking their startup public, and making it big. Today the rate of startups going public (IPO – Initial Public Offering) is up from the dead zone, but is still less than half the rate of 15 years ago.

IPO 120

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 120

VC Cafe

JANUARY 15, 2024

M&A/ Exits – This situation is compounded by a narrowing window for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and initial public offerings (IPOs). Instead of purely chasing high-growth ventures, many PE firms focused on companies with robust business models and clear paths to profitability.

IPO 88

IPO Valuation Private Equity 88

ReadWriteStart

JULY 20, 2023

While venture-backed startups struggle to find relief amidst a backlog of richly priced ventures, some tech companies are defying expectations and going public with resounding triumphs. Despite the allure of high-margin recurring revenue, many smaller firms that sell software products are struggling to demonstrate sustainable profitability.

IPO 107

IPO Startup Initial Public Offering eCommerce 107

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Rick Perreault of my portfolio company Unbounce recently called my attention to an interesting comparison between two SaaS models: Hubspot & Moz – A Tale of Two (Very Different) SaaS Business Models. However, as Scott Krager points out in his post, the companies have vastly different approaches for generating revenue.

Initial Public Offering 148

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 148

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

Version One Ventures

OCTOBER 7, 2014

Rick Perreault of my portfolio company Unbounce recently called my attention to an interesting comparison between two SaaS models: Hubspot & Moz – A Tale of Two (Very Different) SaaS Business Models. However, as Scott Krager points out in his post, the companies have vastly different approaches for generating revenue.

Initial Public Offering 78

Initial Public Offering IPO SEC Valuation 78

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. At this point, most Angel investors and a few early-stage VCs will be happy to talk, assuming you have the business model validated, and a large opportunity.

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Steve Blank

MARCH 18, 2011

VC’s worked with entrepreneurs to build profitable and scalable businesses, with increasing revenue and consistent profitability – quarter after quarter. The reward for doing so was a liquidity event via an Initial Public Offering. They taught you about customers, markets and profits. The New Exits.

Internet 334

Internet IPO Silicon Valley Agile 334

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

In the old days, every entrepreneur dreamed of someday taking their startup public, and making it a multi-national powerhouse. As best, you should reserve this option for later stage VC discussions, once you have a well-proven business model, large market following, and substantial revenue.

IPO 242

IPO SEC Prospectus Startup 242

Version One Ventures

JUNE 29, 2017

What I missed in most of this commentary was the fact that Matt Salzberg and his team had created a company with over $800m in revenues and a $2b valuation in a short 5 (!) As one can imagine, the media commentary was not pretty, calling the IPO a disappointment , the stock stale out of the box , and lamenting that the stock forgot to pop.

IPO 143

IPO Stock Valuation Business Model 143

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. These companies didn’t blitzscale; they scaled sustainably.”.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Employs a profitable business model with customer traction. A winning business model, like Zappos, often benefits social needs as well as business needs. But business models need to be validated by paying customers (beyond free trials) before they are credible.

Intellectual Property 48

Intellectual Property Initial Public Offering Merger Acquisition 48

Version One Ventures

JULY 20, 2015

Our rule of thumb is that marketplaces at scale are valued at roughly 1x annualized GMV (typically about 6-8x annual revenue). Consensus estimate of approximately $270M for 2015 revenue. Etsy had a market cap of about $2.22B as of July 20, with a revenue multiple of 8.2 Our assumptions for this valuation: Scale: > $1b GMV.

Valuation 60

Valuation Early Stage IPO eCommerce 60

Growthink Blog

MAY 23, 2011

With this capital, the company propels itself to $50 million+ in revenues, and to either a sale to a strategic acquirer or to an initial public offering. This venture capital financing - usually between $3 and $10 million - is the first of a number of rounds of outside investment over a period of three to five years.

Angel Investor 112

Angel Investor Venture Capital Sweat Equity Cram Down 112

Growthink Blog

MAY 10, 2012

Nevertheless, this is when you get the startup money to kickstart your business with the bare essentials needed to begin making and fulfilling your first sales. Necessary machinery, an initial website, your first batch of inventory-things you can't function without.

Equity 88

Equity Mezzanine Later Stage Venture Capital 88

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

If failure is defined as failing to see the projected return on investment—say, a specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow—then more than 95% of start-ups fail, based on Mr. Ghoshs research. start-ups fail, he says. Of the 6,613 U.S.-based Less than 1% are currently in IPO registration.

Venture Capital 107

Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107