The Importance of an All-Star Management Team
The most cited answer among investors – and perhaps the most underrated factor among first time entrepreneurs – is the startup team. There may be a need for your product or service, the market may be enormous, your business model may be attractive, there may be few competitors in the space, and you may even […]
Ban Overturned on Publicly Advertising You Are Raising Capital
Raising Capital? Shout It From the Rooftops! The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted to overturn the ban on “general solicitation” or publicly advertising that your company is raising money. As a result, the SEC has deemed it legal for private companies to tell anyone that they are raising money, which was previously illegal. How […]
Energetic VCs on the Rise
Active Venture Capitalists The number of VC firms completing four or more deals per year has increased annually since 2009. There is a lot of chit-chat about capital crunch and how venture firms in particular are in the decline. However, this cannot be further from the truth. First, there is an increase in the number […]
Legal Tech VC Funding Beginning to Stagger
Although the legal industry is massive ($300B), it is seeing a drop in funding by 16% year-over-year as investments are concentrated at the seed stage and exit activity is lukewarm. Funding to legal tech startups barely topped $100M across 30+ deals, with the largest deal representing 45% of total investments. Deal Flow Oddly enough, […]
Angel Investor Stewardship
Angel Investor Stewardship – An Underrated Skill One of the most underrated skills that a startup CEO needs to know is how to keep his/her investors updated, excited and engaged. It is through the lens of the CEO that investors know what’s going on, and in some ways, engage with the businesses. Furthermore, if you […]
Funding for Social Media Monitoring All Dried Up
Decline in Funding for Social Media Monitoring The Statistics Don’t Lie Late-stage financing for social media monitoring and analytics companies has all but dried up. With exits sagging, clearly this fad has reached its conclusion. Over the past year, $128M has been invested in such companies across 25 deals. This represents a decline of both […]
The “Series A Crunch” Myth
Despite the concerns about a crunch, the reality is that the level of Series A activity is holding steady. At the same time, the number of seed deals have exploded. As a result, the Series A Crunch is nothing more than excessive demand for a limited supply of Series A financing. While the number of […]
Big Data Report – $4.9 Billion Invested Across 523 Deals Since 2008
Big Data investment has been gaining momentum seeing nearly $5 billion of funding over the last five years. 2012 was the biggest year of deals and saw YoY growth of 19.5% over 2011. The graph below highlights the five-year financing trend to Big Data companies. In addition to the acceleration in financing activity, big data […]
Investor Activity – 2012 Summary
Private equity fundraising improved in 2012, with the amount of aggregate capital raised by closed funds increasing from $312bn in 2011 to $327bn in 2012, an encouraging sign for the industry. However, the number of funds closed fell from 911 funds in 2011 to 761, indicating limited partnerships (LPs) are now often placing more capital with fewer […]
VC Update: Q1 2013 Activity Report – $6.9B Invested Across 841 Deals
Q3 2012 saw 835 deals take place, the highest number since the dot com boom. Q4 held relatively flat (834 deals) and Q1’13 saw a slight uptick leading to a new multi-year high on deals. Funding also climbed on a sequential basis. Relative to Q1’12, funding was up 17%. Overall, Q1 2013 saw $6.9 billion […]
