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Facebook shares rise 42% in 4 months

by Matt Bowman, November 20, 2009 | Comments

Common stock is trading at $21/ share on SecondMarket, giving the company a $9.5 billion valuation.

Facebook’s valuation has been all over the map. In 2007, a $240 million investment from Microsoft pegged the company at a whopping $15 billion. After Wall Street imploded, the company plummeted to $3.7 billion in its own estimation, according to court documents discovered by the AP in February of this year. By May it climbed back to $10 billion with ...

The 100 top performing VCs

by Matt Bowman, November 19, 2009 | Comments

These 100 cutting-edge venture investors are keeping the global innnovation engine humming

When I'm not writing for VatorNews or working with Bambi on the next mixer, I'm doing research for AlwaysOn. Over there, we just released the VC 100--our pick of the top venture capitalists based on exit performance in the last four years. One thing we learned in the process was how many top dealmakers don't make it into the limelight. ...

4200 startup job openings in California

by Matt Bowman, November 17, 2009 | Comments

New data from the NVCA show available startup positions in all 50 states.

California has both the fourth highest unemployment rate in the country and, by far, the most job openings at startups. Go figure. Too many nice beaches, I guess. According to the NVCA, 39% of the 11,000 job openings tracked by StartUpHire.com are in the Golden State. Not surprising. Yesterday alone, California-based companies announced over $100 million in funding: Rockyou raised ...

Azure Capital targets late-stage orphans

by Matt Bowman, November 16, 2009 | Comments

Mike Kwatinetz says a VC recovery is possible, sees opportunity in mature startups

Mike Kwatinetz knows about recession investing. In 2001, just after the bubble burst, he led Azure’s investment in Bill Me Later, which later became the target of the second-largest tech acquisition of 2008. The company sold to eBay for $1 billion in the worst exit environment in decades. Azure was the biggest shareholder and Kwatinetz had been on the board ...

In search of underhyped VCs

by Matt Bowman, November 13, 2009 | Comments

If you want to know who’s been doing the deals in the last few years, you might need to dig a bit.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on recent liquidity events and the thing that keeps jumping out at me is the difference between recent success and media hype. Take Kevin McQuillan. Have you heard of him? That name’s probably not as familiar as Vinod Khosla or John Doerr, but Kevin has had four portfolio companies IPO and seven get ...

Highland Capital closes $400M Fund

by Matt Bowman, November 12, 2009 | Comments

The Boston-based VC firm may shift from high-cost pharma to IT and Internet plays.

Highland Capital has closed its eighth fund, worth $400 million. The firm plans to use Highland Capital Partners VIII Limited Partnership to fuel investments in early through growth stage companies in healthcare, internet & digital media and technology companies. This fund is half the size of its $800 million Fund VII, raised in 2006, a reflection of leaner times, but ...

Todd Chaffee: how Congress can stimulate VC

by Matt Bowman, November 11, 2009 | Comments

IVP rockstar says a revenue threshold for SarbOx relief would accelerate the industry.

In light of the recent SarbOx relief for small businesses, I checked in with IVP's Todd Chaffee on the state of federal regulation vis-à-vis the venture world. Todd is one of the most successful (and under-hyped) VCs in the last decade. In the last four years alone, his portfolio has seen two IPOs--ArcSight had an $380M opening market cap and ...

Google Buys AdMob for $750M

by Matt Bowman, November 9, 2009 | Comments

Grab gives Google advertising foothold on Apple's iPhone, monetization tool for Android.

Google Admob. Google announced today it would acquire mobile display ad serving platform Admob for $750M in stock. The 3-year-old San Mateo-based startup serves ads on mobile websites and applications. Google hopes the acquisition will help them monetize the mobile web, as it penetrates the market with Android-based phones. One wonders if this could mark the beginning of a mobile ...

LPs to VCs: Show me the money

by Matt Bowman, November 8, 2009 | Comments

Limited partners are demanding more facetime from VCs. How much do LPs really care about returns?

Everybody’s taking a hard look at the P & L these days, and that includes the limited partners who fund VC firms, according to a panel of general partners and consultants at the Dow Jones Limited Partner Summit West event last week. The panelists said LPs--the pension funds, endowments, and other investment firms that keep money flowing to venture capital ...

Get ready for lots of small IPOs

by Matt Bowman, November 6, 2009 | Comments (2)

Sarbox relief and Open Table's mini offering may set the model for post-crash public launch

On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a small-business exemption to the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules, permanently waiving the audit requirements for all companies with market caps under $75 million. Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have long bemoaned the newly repealed requirements, which were intended to prevent Enron-style scandals in big companies, but have also contributed to the IPO drought among ...

Ancestry.com: oldest VC-backed IPO in '09

by Matt Bowman, November 5, 2009 | Comments (1)

Web-based geneology site priced in range, confirms need for longer runway.

Ancestry.com, the Spectrum Equity Investors-backed website that allows people to trace their family roots by scouring online records, priced its IPO of 7.4 million shares at $13.50 per share on Wednesday, within the expected range, bringing in about $100 million. The company was founded in 1983 as a publisher of family history books and moved online in 1997. This brings ...

Who's looking after Main street?

by Matt Bowman, November 4, 2009 | Comments (1)

As Wall Street goes global and DC ignores the deficit, a new roll for (soon to be ex) VCs emerges.

The economy expanded at a 3.5 percent rate in the third quarter even though the unemployment rate is high, incomes aren't going anywhere, and consumers are shaky. Why is the stock market improving while the domestic economy stalls? Dan Gross at Slate says it’s because our public companies buy and sell a huge and growing portion of their goods overseas; ...

Congress considering Sarbox relief for SMBs

by Matt Bowman, November 2, 2009 | Comments (2)

House Legislators propose two cost-benefit studies before enforcing SMB compliance

Small public companies got a break earlier this month when the SEC issued its third compliance deadline delay for small businesses. The delay, another recognition of the overbearing regulations it imposes on small companies, was granted with a stern warning from SEC Chair Mary Schapiro, "[T]here will be no further Commission extensions." With little hope for pushing the deadline further, ...

VC's needs to leave the Internet

by Matt Bowman, October 30, 2009 | Comments (2)

It's time to definitively move on to sectors in greater need of large capital infusions.

The good news is we've built the arc. The Internet will keep the startup world afloat as venture capital enters an even longer and more drawn out recession than the rest of the economy. Even as shrinking commitments from endowments and worsening 10-year returns ensure a long-term capital pullback from the global Silicon Valley, the number of funding deals has ...

Non-U.S. venture capital on the rebound

by Matt Bowman, October 28, 2009 | Comments

The international VC market bounced back in Q3, as U.S. investment faltered.

Non-U.S. VC investment rose 23% in the third quarter, even as U.S. investment dropped 6% from Q2, according to new global data from industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource. The data suggests U.S. dominance could be waning. Following an international slowdown second quarter, VC investment outside the U.S. rose back to levels seen in the first quarter of the year. VCs ...

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