In the latest episode of “Cashing Out: Exits and Valuations with Reena Jadhav,” Reena talks to Randy Hawks, a venture capitalist at Claremont Creek Ventures, a VC firm based in the East Bay with $3 million under management and focusing on clean tech, healthcare and security. (See previous interview with Claremont partner
In this segment, Randy says he’s less bullish on the IPO market than earlier reports had suggested. Many investment bankers/VCs had predicted that there would be 50 to 100 VC-backed IPOs this year. Randy says the number will likely be half that. Randy also touches on the milestones companies need to go public, with financial-driven companies needing four to five quarters of profitable growth and $100 million in revenue and 20% growth rate going forward vs a story-driven company, which needs less revenue but rather more market domination. Randy predicts that Twitter will go public in 2011 and that Facebook, Zynga, Yelp and LinkedIn are positioned well to go public.
His parting advice to entrepreneurs who want to build a company to an exit is,” Have satisfying customers and build strong market momentum because investors have to believe the story continues.”
