Yesterday I emailed a handful of VCs to get their thoughts on 2009, and what might lie ahead in 2010. Same four questions for each. What follows are the replies of five venture capitalists and a VC fund placement agent. If more replies roll in -- hard to know with so few folks working -- we'll be sure to add them. Get it after the jump...
4 min read · 29 December 2009
Venture capitalists entered the decade on a dotcom high, and this week will end it on an exit-starved low. In between, they invested in over 16,000 U.S.-based companies. What follows is a list of the 10 most active VC firms, based on our VentureXpert database (which, coincidentally, is being retired at year-end). The rankings are based on the number of U.S.-based companies in which a firm invested over the past decade -- regardless of number of financing rounds. And, just as a reminder, putting lots of money out the door doesn't necessarily correlate to the amount that comes back in...
3 min read · 28 December 2009
When the final numbers come out next month, it's likely that venture capitalists will have invested less money in 2009 than in any year since 1997. It's currently tracking at just over $16 billion for U.S.-based companies, with the only silver lining -- from a deal volume perspective -- being that Q3 and Q4 figures were improvements over Q1 and Q2. But the investment slowdown didn't affect everyone. peHUB has compiled a list of the 10 companies that got the most VC love over the past year. It includes five cleantech companies (broadly-speaking), some social network-related plays, a biotech startup, a wireless networker and a private aviation company. Two of them have already filed for IPOs, while some of the others are considered prime candidates. Get the full list after the jump...
5 min read · 28 December 2009
Last year at this time, Madison Dearborn Capital Partners was one of the private equity market's most talked-about firms. It and its consortium partners had just bailed on an agreement to buy Canadian telco BCE for C$34.8 billion, after failing to obtain positive solvency opinions. That move led BCE to sue for a C$1.2 billion breakup fee, which MDCP and its partners vowed to fight. The Chicago-based firm also was in the midst of raising $7.5 billion for its sixth fund -- down from an original $10 billion target -- with around $4 billion already secured. In 2009, however, MDCP fell off the front pages (including ours). It participated in very few deals -- including no traditional LBOs we could find -- and did not hold any substantive interim fund closes. In fact, the only time MDCP was the focus of a peHUB post was in June, when firm co-founder David Mosher resigned after a 17 year run (he was in charge of investor relations and other non-deal activities). I spent some time speaking with sources close to the firm, and learned the following nuggets:
2 min read · 28 December 2009
A reader sent over this white paper by Lee Harris, an associate professor at the University of Memphis Law School. It looks at the private equity partnership structure, and finds that the inherent agency problems (GP self-interest at the expense of LP interests) is not adequately counteracted by contractual arrangements. You can download the full paper here, or view it after the jump:
1 min read · 28 December 2009
1 min read · 24 December 2009
Personalized genetics company 23andMe Inc. has closed out its Series B funding round with $27.78 million, according to a regulatory filing. The company had held an $11 million first close back in May, but at the time only planned to raise $24.26 million. This is the company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which had raised around $9 million in Series A funding from Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates and Mohr Davidow Ventures. MDV later sold its small stake back to 23andMe, after investing in rival startup Navigenics. No word on what may, or may not, have happened to the Genentech piece.
1 min read · 24 December 2009
Ever since the Canopy Financial scandal broke last month, there has been lots of speculation about existing investors cashing out during the company's July financing round. peHUB has now learned that $40 million of the $62.5 million deal was used as liquidity for Granite Global Ventures, Canopy board member John Powers (CEO of Stanford Management Co.) and Canopy's three co-founders. Of that, GGV took the lion's share with $27.5 million. It's time for them to give the money back. As Deb reports below, over 1,000 people have had their Health Savings Accounts frozen because of the Canopy fraud. This mean sick people could be unable to access money saved for the purpose of paying medical bills. They may get the cash back eventually -- via bankruptcy proceedings -- but that's cold comfort to someone who is ill or injured right now. I'm told that one large healthcare administrator is making its clients good in the meantime, but it is an exception to to rule. Everyone else is just out of luck, and the FDIC doesn't care because a failed bank isn't involved.
2 min read · 23 December 2009
Discussing the sticky triangle between CalPERS, Pacific Corporate Group and Al Villalobos:
1 min read · 23 December 2009
My weekly small biz video segment with Reuters, this time discussing Paul Kedrosky's prediction of a "Netscape moment" for tech IPOs in 2010:
1 min read · 23 December 2009
