Author Archive
VC and Angel Ebbs and Flows in the Tech Sector
Much has been written of the Kauffman Foundation report, “WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY…AND HE IS US” from May, 2012 about the abysmal returns from venture funds, particularly larger ones, since the late 90’s.
Some of Kauffman’s findings from their experience with 100 VC funds over 20 years are frightening to those of us rooting for a healthy VC industry:
• “VC returns haven’t significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since 1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC.”
• “Only twenty of 100 venture funds generated returns that beat a public-market equivalent by more than 3 percent annually, and half of those began investing prior to 1995.”
• “Only four of thirty venture capital funds with committed capital of more than $400 million delivered returns better than those available from a publicly traded small cap common stock index.”
• “The average VC fund fails to return investor capital after fees.” (more…)
Judging the Gigabit Challenge
Rich Brenner has been named a judge for The Gigabit Challenge, a global business plan competition to find disruptive ideas and bright passionate entrepreneurs. (more…)
2010 Survey of Professional Services Firms in Silicon Valley
2010 Professional Services Survey Names Top Firms
A recent survey of the professional services landscape in Silicon Valley yielded some unique insights into the top names in professional services among VCs and CEOs of VC backed companies. The survey, completed and published by the Silicon Valley Research Group in San Jose and Seattle, was designed to identify trends and the leading brands across six professional services categories in Silicon Valley. (more…)
Focus.com Seminar on Financial Management of SMBs
Focus.com is hosting a teleconference featuring a panel of senior CFOs with extensive tech sector start-up experience on Thursday, January 20 at 11AM PT/2PM ET. The subject is tips and trends in managing finances and cash in early stage companies.
If you are an entrepreneur or CEO of an early stage company, and you are considering additional financing from current or potential investors, then this session should help you stay on top of the finance issues that are most important to growing your business and attracting additional financing. For more information on the event, go to
http://www.focus.com/events/finance/focus-finance-roundtable-financial-planning-and-management-s/
and register.
Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship 2010—A Door Closes but A Window Opens
The recent Chris O’Brien post in SiliconBeat on a shrinking Silicon Valley certainly underscores both the diminished IPO activity as well as the reduced VC funding we’ve seen over the last 18 months. Funding deals and dollars invested are down upwards of 50%. Moreover, the number of VCs who are hurting (feeling the pain from their poor historical rates of return) but still active is now only slightly larger than the number who are either shuttered or qualify as the living dead. See TheFunded for detail on the latter group which by their count totaled 353 firms as of this week. One huge by-product of the VC contraction is that new VC investments are decidedly moving away from seed and early stage opportunities.
So with all this bad news one would naturally conclude that new world realities in Silicon Valley would severely dampen entrepreneurial activity. If both institutional funding at the front end and liquidity at the back end of the venture cycle are severely curtailed, entrepreneurship would naturally lessen. But ironically the reverse is actually true as local new business activity is as strong as ever. So what’s going on? (more…)
Financial Advisory News from The Brenner Group
Welcome to The Brenner Banner, where Silicon Valley finance and accounting experts share their insights on financial advisory issues for small and mid-cap technology companies that are important to the local technology community.
Business Valuation News from The Brenner Group
Welcome to The Brenner Banner, where finance and accounting experts share their insights on business valuation and litigation support news and trends in the technology industry.
Interim Management News from The Brenner Group
Welcome to The Brenner Banner, where Silicon Valley finance and accounting experts share their insights on interim management news and trends in the technology industry.
