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Did Fidelity's Workday investment grow at 1600%?

by Lorenzo Carver, September 26, 2012 | Comments

Brief analysis of valuation in Fidelity's SEC Filings versus Workday S-1 valuations: Part 1

This article, along with a brief video, attempts to explain how Fidelity’s October 2011 investment in Workday grew at a 1600% CAGR while Workday’s common stock appreciated at a compounded annual rate of just 93% during the same period. While both 93% CAGR and a 1600% CAGR are profound returns, the big issue here is the magnitude of the differences ...

What do the new SEC general solicitation rules mean?

by Lorenzo Carver, August 29, 2012 | Comments

SEC draft rules concerning advertising private securities to accredited investors "Reasonable"

The SEC Wednesday held an open meeting to consider proposed rules to “eliminate the prohibition against general solicitation and advertising in Rule 506 and Rule 144A Offerings.” Why should every entrepreneurs, VC, investor and employee care about this meeting? One reason might be that lifting the ban on advertising private securities is, potentially, as significant today as lifting the prohibition ...

Salesforce blown away by Future Simple's Uzi?

by Lorenzo Carver, November 9, 2011 | Comments

In-depth interview with Future Simple CEO and founder Uzi Shmilovici

Do a search of SAAS, software as a service, today and you will get over 42 million results. But in 2000 when Marc Beniof’s Salesforce went public, you wouldn't be able to find that exact expression “SAAS” in their registration statement. What you will find, however, is the vision of shifting the platform from the user’s desktops, in the case ...

From 0 – 140 million in 21 days

by Lorenzo Carver, July 26, 2011 | Comments

	One Startup ( LoudTalks ) Story Getting to a million users is a big milestone, even today. But getting hundreds of thousands of those users to engage with your application for more than two hours a day with no financing, no advertisements and no PR agency getting the word out for you is a major coup. LoudTalks, a bootstrapped team of developers out of ...
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Zynga Series A returns are massive

by Lorenzo Carver, July 1, 2011 | Comments

Secondary sales give 114X cash on cash - IPO much more for Reid Hoffman

Zynga's Series A return may be one of the biggest for a venture backed IPO since Google. By selling their early Series A shares Foundry Group (Boulder, Colorado) and Union Square Ventures (New York City) already generated cash on cash returns of 114X, well over an 11,000% total return, on their Series A investments in Zynga. Of the original Series A investors it appears that only LinkedIn ...

Why Zyogenix’ IPO Value Will Stick

by Lorenzo Carver, November 9, 2010 | Comments (1)

20 Years and 20 VCs Later a Technology That Will Change Your Life

Zyogenix's IPO, is expected to price at around $13 per share. Based on estimates from Liquid Scenarios Search2Model VCs in the deal such as Domain Associates, Clarus and Scale Venture Partners will actually get slightly lower cash on cash returns than Life Science Angels and that may very well be a compelling reason to consider looking at this stock. The ...

Demand Media S-1/A implies lower pricing

by Lorenzo Carver, November 1, 2010 | Comments

1-For-2 reverse split means higher price per share, but slightly lower cap most likely

Early this week, before Demand Media released its amended S-1 registration statement (S-1/A), I wrote a piece describing what a $1.5 billion IPO would look like compared to a $1.5 billion acquisition. However, that was based on nearly twice as many shares being assumed outstanding, since the amended registration statement (filed today) notes a “1-for-2 reverse split of common stock.” ...

Why an IPO is 3X better for Lance Armstrong

by Lorenzo Carver, October 27, 2010 | Comments (1)

A $1.5B IPO for Demand Media at $12 a share vs an acquisition at the same price

What difference should it make to founders whether their company does an IPO or gets acquired for the same price? In general, it should matter, because in most cases anyone that holds common stock or options on common stock will see a significantly greater realized value under an IPO scenario than they will see if the company is acquired at ...

Many banks only insuring $250k again

by Lorenzo Carver, December 7, 2009 | Comments (2)

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Why enterpreneurs (and investors) should care

The FDIC extended the protection of non-interest bearing accounts beyond the $250,000 limit for another six months (now ending June 2010 instead of January 1). However, with new fees (from 50% to 150% higher depending on the riskiness of the bank taking the insurance for its customer deposits), banks were given until early last month to "opt-out" of the extended protection. ...

Sarbanes Oxley small business "Relief" a joke

by Lorenzo Carver, November 13, 2009 | Comments (1)

Liquid Scenarios / Microsoft IPO event transcript

I got very excited for startups, VCs and angel investors last week when I heard "small companies wouldn't be subject to Sarbanes Oxley." Then I read the fine print. It's disappointing on multiple levels. Perhaps the biggest source of disappointment was that the news was released as being some kind of special relief for small companies. It's not. This isn't ...

Mint acquisition still good for Series C lead

by Lorenzo Carver, September 14, 2009 | Comments (1)

Someone asked me why the Series C lead investor would be happy with a $170MM acqusition of Mint.com

This is my two minute answer to why the lead investor in Mint.com's Series C round, DAG Ventures, would be happy with a $170MM acquisition just a month or so after investing in the company. I was asked the question because, according to an article by Michael Arrington on Crunchbase, the post-money value of Mint.com was $140 million when DAG led the ...

FriendFeed & iLike founders take even money?

by Lorenzo Carver, August 27, 2009 | Comments (6)

When founders ante up in Series A rounds

Why did both the founders of iLike and FriendFeed decide to sell for low cash values? Many people would simply say "look at a chart of the stock market from October 2008 to March of 2009 and you've got your answer." Notwithstanding the credit crisis, these companies are very unique compared to most venture-backed startups. In both cases the founders had ...

Down Rounds + Cramdowns = 2009 top VC exits?

by Lorenzo Carver, August 13, 2009 | Comments (12)

OpenTable had a cramdown in 2003 and SpringSource may have had a Down Round in June 2008 (pre-crash)

When a founder hears the words "Down Round" and "Cramdown" in the context of their company, the first reaction is usually defensive. That makes perfect sense if you consider a "Down Round" or "Cramdown" an adverse event in general. Ironically, it appears that two of the most significant venture backed exits of the year, SpringSource's acquisition by VMWare this week ...

Lorenzo Carver
CEO
Liquid Scenarios (bpCentral, Inc.) (Owner)

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