Venture Capital Post

Venture Capital Circa 1990: The Jurassic Period?
September 05, 2006, 9:25 PM
In February I moved. In August I put up my bookshelves. Sound familiar? If you´re a book lover then you´ll probably also identify with the satisfying feeling of unpacking your books, dusting them off and carefully shelving them in a new abode-if you can get them from the box to the shelf. If you do it right-it takes a while, at least one bottle of wine and a good reading chair. One title which caught my eye during this round of unpacking was "Venture Capital at the Crossroads" by William D. Bygrave and Jeffry A. Timmons (Harvard Business School Press, ...

Getting Your Financial House in Order
August 30, 2006, 11:09 AM
John Gillespie has been working as a "floating" CFO or "CEO on demand" for almost 10 years. Through his company, Beyond the Bottom Line , he´s helped many start-ups manage their cash flow, put together financials to apply for credit lines, helped with projections and polished financials in anticipation of raising capital. I spoke to him recently about what advice he would give companies about getting their books in order prior to seeking venture money. "One of the most important things," he said, "is that you´re internal financial statements are GAAP compliant." Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) are standards and ...

Data from the MoneyTree Report, a Savvy Entrepreneur´s Guide to Where to Look for Funding
August 21, 2006, 12:51 PM
As a journalist, I´ve been covering data from the MoneyTree Report since it was created in 1995. Wiith each quarterly report, the information gets richer and richer, not only as a bellwether of the state of venture investing, but as a good source of "due diligence" for the entrepreneur trying to find the appropriate venture capital firms to approach for funding. One key place to look in the PWC report is the list of most active investors, which doesn't necessarily mean they have invested the most money, but still fertile ground for investment opportunities (you´ll have to register to ...

Practical Managment Info From the Ivory Tower (Really!)
August 17, 2006, 11:32 AM
Academia in not generally a place one finds entrepreneurs or even much practical research for entrepreneurs faced with daily hurdles such as product development, increasing sales, cash flow and the almighty payroll. Nor is it a venue where investors have much time to linger while managing their portfolio companies, answering to their investors and looking for future deals. But recently I came across the work of Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Noam Wasserman, whose research provides a valuable resource for emerging growth companies and venture capitalist forever struggling with decisions in regard to management appointments and compensation. Wasserman focuses on ...

Venture Investing Reaches Highest Level Since 2002, According to MoneyTree Report
August 14, 2006, 12:27 PM
The second quarter of 2006 proved fertile for U.S. companies seeking venture funding, according to the MoneyTree Report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and based on data by Thomson Financial, growing to $6.3 billion in 856 deals, representing a 2 percent increase in dollars and a 5 percent increase in deals from the prior quarter. The increase was driven by investments in the biotechnology, industrial/energy and networking and equipment sectors, all showing slight gains in the quarter. Other major industry categories that experienced increases in investment amounts in Q2 were electronics and instrumentation/semiconductors, both of which ...

Venture-Backed Nano Companies to Watch
August 08, 2006, 8:28 PM
(Final installment in 4-part series) Here´s a sampling of companies using nanotechnology as a basis for their products who have received capital from venture capital firms such as Harris & Harris, Rockport Capital, Arch Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, Venrock Associates and Lux Capital. Innovalight Santa Clara, CA Innovalight is developing solar cells based on nanotechnology "printing" processes. The company has a solvent-based process for making what it calls "silicon ink," which is made of silicon nanocrystals suspended in a liquid ink solution, said CEO Conrad Burke. Nanogram San Jose, CA NanoGram Corporation develops and licenses technology enabling the manufacture ...

Harris & Harris Group Leads the Pack on Nano Investing
August 03, 2006, 9:30 AM
(Third posting in a series on venture investing in nanotechnology.) In early 2002 New York-based venture capital firm Harris & Harris Group announced it would concentrate its investments solely on "tiny tech," including nanotechnology, microsystems and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. This was a brave move as tiny tech companies require a great deal of capital and take a long time to mature. It was not a snap decision. "In 1994, Arch Venture Partners asked us to invest with them in Nanophase Technologies Corp., which was a spin-off of Argonne National Laboratory," Charles Harris, Chairman and CEO said. "The company ...

More on Nano-Investing, as Promised
July 24, 2006, 8:24 PM
To get a pulse on what is going on in the diverse, often misunderstood "nano" market, I turned to my good friend Ed Moran, of the Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group at Deloitte Services LLP. Ed has been following the "nano" industry for the past five or six years, working closely with the Nanobusiness Alliance (which focuses on public policy issues for the industry), testifying on Capitol Hill and working with companies working in the field. He reports that the hottest area in nanotech right now is "cleantech," a set of emerging technologies that promise to protect the environment, remediate ...

NY Loves Nanotech
July 07, 2006, 12:08 PM
If you´ve got nanotechnology on your mind, NY wants you. The state, area associations and investors have been plugging away for the last four to five years to make the Albany area a center for nanotechnology companies and they´ve made some admirable headway. Earlier this year New York beat out 10 other states in landing the Institute for Nanoelectronic Discovery and Exploration (INDEX), a $435 million nanotechnology research center to be built at the University of Albany. The Institute is a joint effort by Semiconductor Industry Association and the Semiconductor Research Corp. A similar center will be located in Silicon ...

IPOs Inch Forward as Exit for VCs
July 05, 2006, 5:22 PM
Thomson Financial and National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) released a Exit Poll survey July 5, indicating venture-backed IPOs inched forward in the second quarter of 2006 and acquisitions remained stable. That said, the NVCA warned that it remains wary about the health of the U.S. public markets. According to the report 19 venture-backed companies raised $2.0 billion through initial public offerings on U.S. exchanges in the second quarter. This volume represents a 90 percent increase from the first quarter of 2006 when ten venture-backed companies went public, according to the report. It is also near double the volume ...