Tag: Exits

Leading Unicorn VC Firms and The Long Tail

We often get the question about "Leading Unicorn Venture Capital Firms". And emerging fund managers are sometimes taken aback when we are unfazed about their two unicorns in their portfolio and continue our due diligence. Business Insider just published an article about early-stage investors with billion-dollar outcomes. [DISCLAIMER BELOW] [EDIT 5/28/2019, 08:38 PDT -- I … Continue reading Leading Unicorn VC Firms and The Long Tail →

Volume and Choice drive down Startup SaaS M&A Multiples.

SEG: 1Q19 SaaS M&A Update, via http://softwareequity.com/research/ SaaS multiples of venture-backed SaaS Startups are driven down by volume and choice. Tom Tunguz has written a lot about SaaS multiples, specifically about Where are SaaS Companies Priced After the 2018 Correction. We are getting a lot of inquiries from VCs, entrepreneurs, and LPs alike about pricing. … Continue reading Volume and Choice drive down Startup SaaS M&A Multiples. →

“I’ll get liquidity in the secondary market.”

Please see my Disclaimer. As previously mentioned, venture-backed companies are getting much older before their exit. But the percentage of $100M+ exits grew by 18.7% when comparing the last 365 days with 2013. The increasing share of larger exits is good news for VCs -- if they can get liquidity! Because the percentage of venture-backed … Continue reading “I’ll get liquidity in the secondary market.” →

Meaningful exits in IT now take 11 years from first funding.

For B2B and enterprises IT startups, the median number of years between the first round of venture funding and a meaningful exit greater than $350M is now about 11 years. That's 4.5 years longer than in 2014. I ran a quick Pitchbook search for Venture-backed Information Technology companies, Excluding the B2C segment, With IPOs and … Continue reading Meaningful exits in IT now take 11 years from first funding. →

Go Long. And Go Big or Go Home.

Venture-backed startups are staying private longer (no news here).  But how much longer? As venture capital investors, we are trying to learn from past mistakes and successes. And we need to calibrate for different market environments. A recent observation is that the sideways exits below $100M in deal value are vanishing. Startups keep going until … Continue reading Go Long. And Go Big or Go Home. →

More Than A Decade of Supply for Infosec M&A Transactions

One of my favorite analysts at 451 Research is Brenon Daly. One of his remarks at the recent RSA 2018 Analyst Breakfast caught everyone's attention: We see about 120 to 140 infosec transactions every year in our Tech M&A Database. There are about 2,000 infosec vendors we are tracking, and venture capital is adding more … Continue reading More Than A Decade of Supply for Infosec M&A Transactions →

Dangerous Paths of European Venture Capital.

Europe seems to be on a roll. The European venture industry in 2017 saw €16.9Bn in venture capital deal value, a 13% increase year-over-year [1]. And "2017 proved to be a rebound year for VC-backed IPOs, which raised over €3 billion across 53 offerings." [1] The SuperReturn/SuperVenture conference in Berlin was drinking its own Kool-Aid, and … Continue reading Dangerous Paths of European Venture Capital. →

Most Successful Cybersecurity VCs: The Top Firms. (Part III)

In Part I I've written about perception of great VCs, and in Part II I showed some data on actual meaningful exits with outcomes greater than $500m over the past ten years. Meaningful exits often take 9 to 11 years to materialize (e.g. FireEye was founded in February 2004 with IPO in September 2013; Forescout … Continue reading Most Successful Cybersecurity VCs: The Top Firms. (Part III) →