Private Equity
1 min read · 26 August 2009
People start blogs about the Silicon Valley tech scene every day, but the Forbes Velocity Blog is particularly notable because it’s written by one of the best journalists in Silicon Valley. Brian Caulfield is a relentless reporter and skillful writer and the blog effort he spearheads is an important strategic addition to the Forbes family of publications. Outside of the Midas List and Brian’s coverage of the computer and gaming industry, Forbes has been surprisingly weak in its coverage of such a key part of the global wealth generation equation.
2 min read · 26 August 2009
Dan said earlier today that there's a "giant glut of private companies looking to go public," and it's my sense that he's right. There has to be, right? So many venture dollars have been poured into private companies that there's bound to be portfolios with companies just chomping at the bit to file a slew of S-1s. But how many companies are out there that could go reasonably go public today if you assume that a public company has to have $50 million in revenue and has to have reached break even?
2 min read · 19 August 2009
So you’ve raised tens of millions of VC dollars and you’re starting to look around for what’s next. Will you work to raise more money from private equity shops and project financiers, look to nuzzle up to strategic acquirers or jump into the public market? Traditionally, executives and venture capitalists have turned to investment bankers to help them think through these questions and offer advice. And there have been plenty of bankers willing to help out, many with serious experience in technology. But how do you evaluate a cleantech investment banker? Do you look for someone with a long history of done deals in the cleantech space or do you rely totally on their pitch? Do you go with a big-name firm or a
1 min read · 12 August 2009
4 min read · 29 July 2009
Zappos is the first big win for Sequoia Capital’s eleventh fund, and it won’t likely be the last. The firm’s $425 million, 2003 vintage fund caught startups in a weird time -- after the dotcom bust but before Web 2.0 kicked into high gear. It invested in dotcom survivors like Zappos and eHarmony, as well as companies that presaged Web 2.0, like LinkedIn and Kayak.com. The firm used the dotcom downturn to its advantage, picking up enviable stakes in attractive companies. Though six years into the fund’s life, however, Sequoia has yet to reap many of the rewards of its investing. So far, Sequoia has sold eight of the 36 companies in its 11th fund, according to data from Thomson Reuters (plus some supplemental work by peHUB).
4 min read · 27 July 2009
Zappos this evening issued a public statement that it wants to quash rumors that Sequoia Capital "forced" the company to sell itself to Amazon. The implication is that peHUB claimed that Sequoia "forced" the sale. To be clear, we made no such claim. We wrote, in part: “Two sources who do not hold board seats, but are directly involved with Zappos, indicated that Moritz and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh came into conflict about the company’s future. Moritz, the sources say, wanted Zappos to sell while Hsieh wanted to remain independent.” We stand by our reporting. A venture capitalist and CEO disagreeing about the future of a company happens all the time. The two groups may disagree on how best to serve shareholders, fight hard for
2 min read · 23 July 2009
2 min read · 23 July 2009
Solar panels in space? It sounds more like science fiction than a business, but one early-stage company has raised money from investors to launch solar panels into space, and to then use high-powered radio waves to beam back energy back to Earth. Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based Solaren raised $600,000 from investors for its business of delivering power from space, according to a recent regulatory filing. The company says it will deliver power to California's Pacific Gas & Electric Co. by 2016, according to a statement on the utility's website. In fact, PG&E has already signed an agreement to purchase 200 megawatts of electric energy from the startup, company CEO Gary Spirnak said
4 min read · 21 July 2009
Venture capitalists invested $2.94 billion into 360 U.S.-based companies during the second quarter, according to preliminary, unaudited data from Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). That’s down significantly from the $7.57 billion investors put into 1,042 companies during the same period in 2008, although is beginning to approach the $3.1 billion invested in Q1 2009 (and will probably top it, once all the surveys are counted). The official MoneyTree report from the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers, based on Thomson Reuters data, is expected to come out later this month. Biotechnology and health care investments buoyed the investment totals in Q2, accounting for nearly 45% of the dollars put to work during the three-month period. Four of the 10 largest deals done the quarter were health care deals. Investors put $145 million into anti-cancer company Clovis Oncology; $108 million into orthopedics company Small Bone Innovations; $50 million into light-therapy company PhotoThera; and $46 million into anti-infective medicine developer Cempra Pharmaceuticals.
3 min read · 08 July 2009
