I have my reasons, some of which aren’t appropriate to make public…
Please discuss…
Month: November 2007
AlwaysOn Top Dealmakers List
As I explore the path of joining a start up management team or potentially returning to the financing side, I will analyze the Alwayon Dealmakers list with great interest when time permits. You should too.
Limited Partners
Limited partners are the big, quiet kahunas at the front of the technology finance food chain. Venture capital firms are just one thing they invest in, but they’re what provides most of the money VCs have under management.
1 TIAA-CREF
2 CalPERS
3 CalSTRS
4 Harvard Management Co. (HMC)
5 Yale Endowment
6 University of Texas (UTIMCO)
7 Stanford Management Co. (SMC)
8 Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO)
9 MIT (MITIMCO)
10 Ford Foundation
Venture Capital – Early-Stage
You have a business plan and a bunch of code. Now you need to raise a million dollars or two to productize your concept and get an office. Besides providing operating startup capital, early-stage VCs will help you form your board and build your team.
1 Sequoia Capital
2 New Enterprise Associates
3 Benchmark Capital
4 Draper Fisher Jurvetson
5 Bessemer Venture Partners
6 Accel Partners
7 Charles River Ventures
8 Matrix Partners
9 Greylock Partners
10 Doll Capital Management
11 Lightspeed Venture Partners
12 Index Ventures
13 Norwest Venture Partners
14 Madrona Venture Group
15 Hummer Winblad
Venture Capital – Late-Stage
You’re hiring a sales force, building a channel, upgrading your executive team, and bringing products to market. At this point, until you’re fully profitable, get acquired, or raise public equity through an IPO, your operating capital comes from late-stage venture investors. Some VC firms do both early- and late-stage VC, as you’ll see in our picks below.
1 Sequoia Capital
2 New Enterprise Associates
3 Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
4 Greylock Partners
5 Menlo Ventures
6 Mobius Venture Capital
7 Draper Fisher Jurvetson
8 Benchmark Capital
9 Accel Partners
10 Bessemer Venture Partners
11 Oak Investment Partners
12 Redpoint Ventures
13 U.S. Venture Partners
14 Mayfield Fund
15 DCM – Doll Capital Management
Venture Capital – Corporate Investors
Corporate VCs are a little different. They can invest in early- or late-stage deals, but they usually focus on sub-sectors and investments with potential business benefits for their limited partner – the corporate parent.
1 Intel Capital
2 Comcast Interactive Capital
3 Hearst Corporation/Hearst Interative Media
4 Time Warner Investments
5 IDG Ventures
6 Qualcomm Ventures
7 Motorola Ventures
8 Cisco
9 Adobe Ventures
10 SAP Ventures
Corporate Law Firms
First, let’s call the lawyers – at least, that’s a good plan in the world of technology finance. Some of these firms have done well by providing low or deferred-fee incorporation services to brand-new startups, sometimes for shares, and some not only provide counsel but also introductions during mergers, IPOs, or other financing events.
1 Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC
2 Latham & Watkins
3 Fenwick & West
4 Gunderson Dettmer
5 Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP
6 Goodwin Procter LLP
7 Cooley Godward LLP
8 DLA Piper US LLP
9 Cravath Swaine & Moore
10 Manatt Phelps Philips
Investment Banks
When the time is right to take your company public or get bought, you work with investment banks. If it’s an IPO, they underwrite you – helping prepare your prospectus, setting the share price, promoting you to institutional investors, and once you’re public, providing analyst coverage of your stock to keep public investors up to date on your financial performance. If it’s an M&A, they act as advisers to either party, structuring the deal, and providing acquisition capital. There are two types of ibanks: the bulge brackets, that deal with any and every kind of company, and the boutiques, which are smaller and focus on a few sectors.
Investment Banks — Bulge Bracket
1 Morgan Stanley
2 Goldman Sachs
3 Lehman Brothers
4 Credit Suisse
5 JP Morgan Chase
6 Merrill Lynch
7 Citigroup
8 Deutsche Bank
9 UBS Investment Bank
10 Banc of America Securities
Investment Banks — Boutiques
1 Jefferies & Company Inc
2 Evercore Partners
3 Thomas Weisel Partners
4 Needham & Company, LLC
5 Montgomery & Co. LLC
6 Cowen & Company LLC
7 William Blair & Co., LLC
8 Wachovia Securities
9 Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin
10 Greenhill & Co.
Private Equity
Private equity, or leveraged buyout, firms are the ones that take public companies private, or buy their stock with the goal of turning them around and selling them.
1 Carlyle Group, The
2 Texas Pacific
3 Blackstone Group, The
4 Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company
5 Silver Lake Partners
6 General Atlantic
7 Hellman & Friedman LLC
8 Vista Equity Partners
9 Vector Capital
10 Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe
Institutional Public Investors
Asset management firms of all stripes (mutual funds, hedge funds, etc.) fall into this category. Besides investing in technology stocks, they may also become limited partners in private equity firm funds.
1 Fidelity Management & Research
2 T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.
3 Wellington Management Co. LLP
4 Capital Research & Management Co.
5 AllianceBernstein LP
6 Capital Guardian Trust Co.
7 Vanguard Group, Inc.
8 Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co. LLC
9 Goldman Sachs Asset Management LP (US)
10 Wells Capital Management, Inc.
Corporate Buyers – Global Tech
Big companies want to acquire successful startups that have a strategic fit, breakthrough technologies, masses of customers and profit margins.
1 Cisco Systems, Inc.
2 Oracle Corp.
3 Microsoft
4 Motorola, Inc.
5 LSI Logic Corp.
6 International Business Machines Corp.
7 Siemens AG
8 Google, Inc.
9 Seagate Technology, Inc.
10 EMC Corp.
Corporate Buyers – Media
Big companies want to acquire successful startups that have a strategic fit, breakthrough technologies, masses of customers and profit margins.
1 Publicis Groupe
2 CBS Corporation
3 Lagardere SCA
4 Dominion Enterprises
5 Axel Springer AG
6 Walt Disney Company
7 Hearst Corp.
8 MTV Networks
9 Pearson Education, Inc.
10 EMAP plc
Seth Godin Keynoting Search Engine Strategies Chicago and His New Book Meatball Sundae
In advance his upcoming speech at Search Engine Strategies Chicago, Seth Godin held a intimate conference call in regards to the conference and his upcoming book Meatball Sundae.
At first I was thinking this would be a long speech, it was in actuality a short, crisp presentation followed by a spirited, fun and playful question an answer session. It far exceeded my expectations and Kevin Ryan should be commended for having this type of community event.
Now onto a discussion of his new book, Meatball Sundae. The foundation for a new economy is being built. The past several years have laid the foundation for a new industrial revolution.
Told the detailed story of Josiah Wedgewood and his high standards for pottery.
There are 14 main themes occurring right now in the world – though there are many smaller and industry specific trends playing out. These 14 trends are (I typed them fast in a live blog situation so I might not have them exactly right):
– Direct communication with customers is creating massive change
– Individuals can amplifying their voice and become a critic – these are not hassles to be dealt with. The answer is building an organization that thrives and survives on this…
– Having an authentic story is vital
– We don’t have attention spans anymore (why are you still reading this post? 😉 )
– The new marketplace long tail – very few organizations are embracing it
– Create innovation – If you can describe a job it can get done by somebody cheaper
– Google and the shredding of information and bundling
– Noise and infinite channels of communication
– Consumers can talk directly to consumers without the middleman or company
– The changing balance of scarcity and abundance – it’s hard to imagine people being bored
– Big ideas can reach many people quickly
– The shift from how many to who – the idea of being on the today show instead of a blog is higher value is over
– Democratization of the wealthy – the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider but the rich is going up
– Gatekeepers are more important as they distribute information yet less important as you can go around them easier than ever
After the short speech on the trends there was a free for question and answer session…
Is your marketing out of sync?
SG: They should say how change your marketing (what you do) so that it’s in sync with what the market demands.
Why don’t most companies get it yet?
SG: I spent many years selling advertising. People buy TV advertising, it’s fun and it’s not measurable. When the Internet came along and they went running to Yahoo! to buy ads that aren’t measuring. Google and Overture were used by small business people in the ad. The choice is Superbowl ads that don’t work and measurable ads that are harder to make work. It’s naïve to hope that they will shift in a month or a year. They will eventually have to shift. The prices will continue to go up. People still applaud the commercial not the SEM.
(At this point the Gmail javascript froze all of my browsers. I had to reboot and relaunch. OF COURSE THIS WAS THE MOMENT KEVIN RYAN CHOSE TO ASK THE QUESTION I SENT IN – SO I’LL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE AUDIO THERE.)
Where do you find thoughtleaders to lead organizations and instead of hiring people with “experience”?
SG: I wrote a post on a similar topic about the loss of relevancy of credentials today. Basically, there are two types of leaders qualified to do this:
– People who have managed change before
– Idea people who don’t necessarily know better
How do make a corporate blog work?
SG: Blogs don’t reach people, people reach blogs… You need to be quick and candid. It’s all about change and being iterative in nature.
Everyone attending SES Chicago will receive a copy of Seth’s book. I look forward to continuing our conversation and maybe even hearing his answers because Gmail’s javascritpt won’t be interfering with his in person appearance!