For the past several years Shareholder Representative Services (SRS) has been publishing aggregate data on trends in M&A. These aren’t just high level observations, but rather are nitty gritty, details around the some of the most important terms contained in purchase agreements. As a self proclaimed M&A geek, I live for this stuff. And if information is power, this study dishes out plenty. And as a result helps level the playing field for companies (who transact very infrequently), their investors (who transact a bit more often) and buyers (who often have dedicated M&A practices who do nothing but execute transactions). I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a number of Foundry related transactions in the past year. Knowing market trends…
Posts By / seth levine
Brad Feld Sings! (sort of)
Remember when I said that Brad can’t sing? Here’s the proof – a recording session in Jason’s studio for our I’m a VC video (Brad is wearing headphones with the music track piped in – all the better for us to clearly hear Brad himself in this outtake). Enjoy!
What monks, chefs, lugers, singers, graffiti artists and actors all have in common
There’s a wealth of experience and expertise around us every day. We probably don’t give most people we pass running around our respective busy cities a second look, but rushing by you are people with interesting expertise and experience. Artists and actors; olympic athletes and monks; sailors and graffiti artists. SideTour looks to unlock this community and enable them to market and generate income off of their unique expertise. These experts – “hosts” in SideTour’s terminology – use the SideTour platform to advertise their experiences. SideTour helps them market these experiences and handles bookings, billing, refunds, etc. on their behalf. SideTour events are designed to be shared in groups – often people who haven’t met each other before the experience…
Is there age bias in VC investing?
I recently waked into a pitch meeting for a social networking related business and was surprised by what I saw. I had interacted with the entrepreneur over email – taking a look at the initial business plan and setting up the meeting – but we hadn’t met in person before. In front of me were three guys in suits, each in their late 40’s or early 50’s, with an older Dell laptop and a paper print-out of some product ideas. And as I sat there listening to their pitch I couldn’t help but think about how differently I might have reacted if this team was in their 20’s or 30’s, dressed in full tech/nerd hipster outfits (or at least jeans…
Too Lijit
This morning Federated Media announced that it has acquired Lijit Networks in a private stock deal. I’m incredibly proud of what the Lijit team has accomplished in the almost 4 years we’ve been investors in the business – charting a course that wasn’t exactly always a straight line, but one that has always placed publishers first. As a result of this never wavering focus on web publishers, Lijit has built a large and ultimately very valuable company. I’ve always thought that Federated was the natural acquirer for Lijit (and we’ve been partners with Federated for some time now). Federated shares Lijit’s focus on publishers (“the best of the independent web”), but unlike Lijit, who helps publishers generate revenue through better…
Efficiency
Like you, I’m a pretty busy guy. I’ve always been high energy and (I hope) high velocity. My job requires me to be in many places at one time (and at any one time have a few dozen different things spinning around in my head). It’s tiring and doesn’t always leave time for the kind of balance I look for in my life. There’s always someone else to talk with, some other conference or “it” even to attend; another great idea to look at investing in. But in the last 6 months or so I’ve really hit a different stride that’s allowed me to both feel more productive and more balanced. Given that every one I know struggles with this…
I’m a VC – Behind the Music
Yesterday we released a video written, produced and directed by my partner Jason, that attempts to capture “the human struggle of four venture capitalists trying to make the world a better place.” From the response on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere on the web it seems to have hit a chord with people; and I hope has been taken for what it was intended – a parody of lives as VCs (certainly no one can accuse the four of us of taking ourselves too seriously!). It was for me a unique experience, not just creating the video but also recording in Jason’s studio and watching the editing and finishing process. For 5:56 of video (including outtakes) we spend hours recording and…
Should the current market environment change your fundraising strategy?
With the performance of the public markets looking like an EKG read-out, I’ve been asked frequently in the past two weeks what effect this will have on the venture financing market. How tied are private company valuations to the public markets? If you’re planning on raising money in a few months would it be better to go out now or better to keep your original plans? Should companies be altering their cash burn projections to become more capital efficient in the face of potential funding challenges? Here are a few thoughts: Generally it takes some time for public market declines to make their way down to the venture market. And while I’m sure you have an opinion about the current…
Doing the right thing
One of my favorite services is unsubscribe.com. It’s a gmail plug-in that with one click lets you rid your inbox of unwanted newsletters. I recently analogized newsletters to tending a garden. You have to stay on top of the weeds or they get out of control. Unsubscribe.com lets you do that. With this as a backdrop, I was pretty surprised to receive the following in my inbox last week: Thank you for being one of our paying customers, your trust and support helped propel us to where we are today. With that being said, I’m excited to tell you that beginning yesterday, August 4th, 2011, we have made our full suite of products (Email Unsubscribe and Social Monitor) completely free, which…
Beware of ASSHOLE VCs
Before Foundry makes an investment we perform extensive due diligence. We meet with various company managers, talk to other people in industry to get their take, call current and prospective customers, exercise our own network of contacts to get background on the idea and team, perform reference checks on key management, etc. While this process varies, we’re always diligent before entering into what we view as a long term partnership with the company. What more and more entrepreneurs are realizing is that they should be doing the same kind of due diligence on their potential funders. We’ve been long time fans of this kind of reverse due diligence and always encourage entrepreneurs to “check us out” before making a decision…