Yesterday, New York scribe Kevin Roose asked the question, “Why can’t Silicon Valley take a joke?” But having watched the show last night, I don't believe it’s something that Silicon Valley needs to laughingly endure. In fact, I think it's a slight positive for the Bay Area startup ecosystem.
3 min read · 06 November 2012
Venture capitalists will tell you that they never try to time the market, but when they invariably do – in unloading newly public shares, for example – they’re probably not going to gain much of an edge if they adapt their strategy based on academic research. So suggests a new study out of the MIT Sloan School of Management.
2 min read · 01 November 2012
Foundation Partners Group, an owner and operator of funeral homes and cemeteries in the U.S., has appointed Brad Rex as president and CEO. Rex was mostly recently CEO of his own hospitality consulting company; previously, he was chief customer officer for Hilton Grand Vacations. Foundation is a portfolio company of the Baltimore-based private equity firm Sterling Partners.
3 min read · 01 November 2012
Bahrain-based investment firm Arcapita has withdrawn a planned London listing of its PointPark Properties (P3) unit, highlighting valuation gaps still exist between sellers and investors despite renewed life in the European IPO market.
3 min read · 01 November 2012
Bill Trenchard has joined the early-stage venture capital firm First Round Capital as a partner. Trenchard, who informally joined First Round in June, was previously investing on behalf of the early-stage, entrepreneur-led venture capital fund Founder Collective. Before becoming an investor, Trenchard was a founder at CallCast (which was later merged to form LiveOps) and Jump Networks (acquired by Microsoft).
3 min read · 01 November 2012
Rock Ventures -- a Detroit-based umbrella entity formed around the portfolio of companies of Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans -- is building 33,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a 1,300-space parking garage in downtown Detroit's central business district. Construction will begin next month.
3 min read · 01 November 2012
The San Francisco-based private equity firm Mainsail Partners has announced three new hires, including Kathyrn Cavanaugh, Amy Corrieo, and Chris Cassidy. Cavanaugh, a former venture capitalist who last worked for Sightline Partners and De Novo Ventures, joins Mainsail as vice president of talent, a recruiting position. Corrieo, previously director of Finance for Professional Healthcare, is now Mainsail's controller. And Cassidy, who joined Mainsail two years ago after working in marketing at Yahoo, has been promoted to operating partner at the firm.
3 min read · 01 November 2012
Sometimes, you just have to take things into your own hands. Such is the thinking of Simrit Parmar, a stem cell transplant physician and assistant professor of medicine who is jumping headlong into the business of turning Houston into a stronger entrepreneurial hub.
3 min read · 31 October 2012
Sausalito, Calif.-based Glassdoor, a five-year-old online career and jobs site, has raised $20 million in venture financing led by DAG Ventures, with participation from existing investors Benchmark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures and Battery Ventures. This new round brings Glassdoor’s total capital raised to $42.2 million.
3 min read · 31 October 2012
The Las Vegas-based footwear maker USA Dawgs has completed a round of growth capital financing round, a transaction on which the Peakstone Group, an investment bank focused on the middle market, served. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
1 min read · 30 October 2012
