With the capital market turmoil raging, many argue that 2008 is going to be a tough year for start-ups to raise money, particularly follow-on capital in the form of a Series B financing (not surprisingly to any veteran viewers of Sesame Street, Series “B” follows Series “A” rounds of financing). Series B financing processes are […]
A revitalized emphasis on long-term, strategic-oriented partnerships is precisely what’s called for when a tight credit market rears its head.
Microsoft’s unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo is an exciting, bold move for the Redmond, WA software giant who is desparately trying to compete with Google for the $800 billion in global advertising dollars, of which only $24 billion will be spent online in 2008 (a rate that is growing at over 20% per year). […]
Ever notice how you can be thinking of someone you hadn’t seen in years and the phone rings and it’s them? Or you seem to see signs for something over and over? Several years ago, my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer and I was flying from LaGuardia to Detroit for his consultation with a […]
The Internet video revolution will hasten the adoption of green and clean technologies. Established public Internet companies are rapidly discovering compelling business and economic reasons to adopt clean and sustainable technologies. As their consumption of electricity grows, Internet companies look more like traditional manufacturing companies. To address the growing power consumption of its server farms and the […]
More than $5 trillion has disappeared from the value of public companies in the first three weeks of January. Many markets are 20% or more below their highs — the informal definition of a bear market. It’s a frightening moment, particularly for the banks, but it’s also inlaid with investing opportunities for savvy distressed buyers. Here are […]
This originally appeared at Rob’s Greentech Media blog International markets are melting down, the Fed is stepping in with a big emergency rate cut, and everyone is talking about the R-word. So what would a recession mean to cleantech venture investors and startups? There are four potential scenarios being discussed by investors: 1. There are […]
My first year in venture was 2002. The great bull run of the 1990s was over, the dot com movement had come to a crashing halt, and Silicon Valley settled into a year of retrenchment and reckoning. I remember long and painful board meetings where companies decided on reductions in force, recapitalizations and investor wash […]
With yesterday’s 0.75% rate cut by the Federal Reserve, the press has been rightly focused on the ripple effects that the soft economy will have on the US and the world. Amidst the high-level analytical fervor, the mainstream press has not probed on the implications to the venture capital/start-up economy, which fuels so much innovation, […]
The New Year for life sciences investors does not begin on January 1. Instead, it commences on Monday of the following week in San Francisco, with the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference – or as old guys like me stubbornly continue to call it, the H&Q Conference. It’s a four-day marathon of early-morning breakfasts, back-to-back meetings […]