Keeping Limited Partners Happy
It can be tricky when venture returns and exits are way down. Limited Partners who bet on ScaleVP are no doubt happier than some because they're going to get a distribution check from Adobe's $1.8 billion acquisition of Omniture -- a Scale portfolio company -- which is expected to close this quarter. But the firm isn't taking any LP happiness for granted, according to Scale's Kate Mitchell, and its annual meeting for LPs, held last week in Silicon Valley, was tweaked again. Last year, after the federal government let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt, Scale polled its LPs to see how they were feeling and decided to have the CEOs of its portfolio companies speak frankly at the annual meeting -- "more than just the typical song-and-dance, marketing oriented, where people are sitting in the back checking their blackberries," Mitchell said. This year, the firm went a step further and took the CEOs off the podium and into the audience, where they were immediately available for questions after their speeches.
