PEI Staff

The Wall Street Journal has a story out today that says “Web Startups Hit Cash Crunch.” There has been a fair bit of reaction in the tech blogs and I thought I’d toss into the discussion some things we are seeing: 1) There are so many startups out there raising money. I don’t think this […]

Here we go again. Repeatedly, Sprint has tried to bet the farm (and failed) in its quest to remain relevant. They bet the farm on Nextel, then Wi-Max and Clearwire, then all-you-can-eat plans, and all along on wholesale/MVNO. Frankly, it’s amazing they have any farm left to bet – having lost 80% of their market […]

Last month, one Psilos Group-backed portfolio company was all set to file an S-1 to go public. We did have one IPO in France in July before the world markets got strange. But then there was the debt ceiling crisis in Washington, more bad news on the economic front, and a steep sell-off in the […]

The owners of the New York Mets, whose deal to sell a minority stake in the team to hedge fund investor David Einhorn recently collapsed, may well lose money on a 2006 real estate fund investment they co-sponsored, according to a column to be published in the Sept. 5 edition of sister magazine Buyouts. According to a […]

As we await President Obama’s post-Labor Day jobs speech, one can only hope his plan puts adequate and effective emphasis on growing the innovation economy. We have all heard small businesses create a disproportionate share of new jobs. Yet, not enough has been done on a federal level to catalyze growth in this sector. As […]

Over the first half of 2011, increased levels of M&A activity occurred within the industrials sector, which we define as companies manufacturing or distributing capital goods, construction, defense, electrical equipment, heavy machinery, and other physical asset categories. In fact, industrials was the most active sector within the AxialMarket network, accounting for 33 percent of activity. […]

After decades of on-again, off-again forays into corporate venture capital, companies have turned their engines on again. Last year, technology-oriented corporations invested $1.9 billion in venture capital deals, up from $1.35 billion in 2009, and this brisk 40 growth rate is on track for a repeat performance this year. The corporate world realizes it has […]

NASDAQ had its all-time peak on March 10, 2000, when it closed at just under 5,050. The market had been on an absolute tear for several months, having risen from 2,732 the prior October. The world had made it through Y2K, the dotcoms were winning everyone’s hearts and minds, and the last hold-out investors were […]

The venture capital industry has changed over the past 5 years in ways that I believe will be lasting rather than temporal change. We are in the process of our own creative destruction with new market entrants and new models of innovation at the precise moment that our industry itself is contracting. When the dust […]

In 1998, I received a request from the CEO of Putnam Investments to lead an Internet strategy project. Amazon.com had gone public in 1997, and there was a concern within most companies that the Internet would disintermediate their distribution channels similar to what was happening in the book retail industry. From a financial services perspective, […]