SRS Wishes Everyone a Kooky Good Exit in 2012. Shareholder Representative Services sent out its annual holiday card today.
This year’s theme was “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” as viewers take a walk through a creepy house searching for the “best exit.” Is NYC the East Coast’s New VC Capital? Everybody knows it.
Tom Brady knows it (when he was racking up Lombardi Trophies in Boston, he was getting his mail here). Mark Zuckerberg may have said he’d rather start Facebook in Boston, but the reality of it is, he launched offices in New York City. Accel Launches Big Data Fund. Accel Partners has announced the creation of a $100 million Big Data Fund.
The Big Data Fund, which will be managed by Accel Partners globally, is dedicated to fostering early stage and growth companies throughout the Big Data ecosystem. Here's Who Was At The Super Exclusive Kleiner Perkins Party Last Night. Exclusive to Business Insider A very nice affair.
Top Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins held its annual holiday party last night at the fancy Menlo Circus Club, and a lot of high-profile people were there. With an ex-vice president in the house, even spouses weren't allowed in. The spots were reserved for investors and their portfolio founders. Here are some partners and their friends who we saw schmoozing well into the night: Former VP of the U.S. Kate Mitchell On The Senate’s New IPO Bill And Smoothing The Path To Public Offerings. Sens.
Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) and Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) last week introduced a bill seeking to make it easier for small companies to go public. The proposed legislation grew out of recommendations from a task force of venture capitalists, public market investors, entrepreneurs, academics, investment bankers and attorneys. One member of the task force was Kate Mitchell, managing director at Scale Venture Partners and former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. Venture capital: Case of deep pockets and alligator arms? Tim O'Loughlin, director, Eastward Capital Moneytree statistics posted on the National Venture Capital Association website paint a potentially troublesome picture for the venture industry.
In recent years, VC investment into portfolio companies has far outpaced the inflow of limited partner investments into venture funds. On a year-to-date basis through Sept. 30. 2011, VC investments in portfolio companies totaled $21.2 billion compared to VC fundraising of just $12.2 billion. Anyone with a working knowledge of arithmetic can see that this situation isn’t sustainable. Based on my discussions with university endowments and pension funds over the last couple of years, the story behind the numbers raises additional concerns. Lower fundraising by venture funds doesn’t directly affect today’s venture backed startups because most venture funds don’t cross over from one fund to the next. Senators Introduce Bill to Ease Path to IPOs. (Reuters) – Two senators introduced legislation on Thursday that would reduce the costs of going public for small and medium-sized companies by exempting them from certain regulatory requirements.
Democrat Charles Schumer and Republican Pat Toomey said the exemptions would end either after five years, when the company reached annual revenues of a $1 billion, or had acquired $700 million in publicly traded shares. Eligible companies could delay hiring an outside auditor to verify the company’s internal controls under the bill and could postpone stockholder votes on executive compensation. Another provision would require audited financial statements for only two years prior to an initial public offering, instead of the current three years. “During difficult economic times, it is critical that we give growing innovators the breathing room that they need to access public markets,” Schumer said in a statement. A similar bill has already passed in the House.
Founders Fund Seals $625M for Fourth Fund. Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund has raised $625 million for its fourth fund.
The firm, which has been an early backer of companies including Facebook and Spotify, will invest in a mix of early-stage deals and follow-on investments across the aerospace, artificial intelligence, analytical software, emerging biotechnologies, robotics, education and consumer internet sectors. PRESS RELEASE Founders Fund announced that it has raised its fourth suite of funds, with $625 million accepted in total and a single, substantially oversubscribed close with the firm’s investors. Founders Fund, which was an early backer of companies including Facebook, Palantir Technologies, Spotify, SpaceX, Discovery Engine, and ZocDoc, will invest the new capital in a mix of early-stage technology start-ups and follow-ons, with an emphasis on technologies with the potential for transformative change. ABOUT FOUNDERS FUND Founders Fund provides capital to transformational businesses run by world-class entrepreneurs. Kleiner Perkins Hires Former Twitter VP Mike Abbott As Partner.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said it hired Mike Abbott, a former vice president of engineering at Twitter, as a partner on its digital team.
Mike Abbott is just the third senior partner added in three years, following Bing Gordon and Mary Meeker. He has a deep background in social and mobile applications and infrastructure and also an expertise in enterprise infrastructure, cloud computing and “big data” businesses, having founded Composite Software and advised Cloudera and Jawbone. Michael Abbott Joins Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as Partner Engineering Leader to Help Social, Mobile and Cloud Entrepreneurs Build Teams and Ventures. MergerTech Advisors Launches $50M Fund. MergerTech Advisors has launched a new $50 million venture fund focused on investment and development of healthcare IT product and services firms.
The fund, MergerTech Capital, will invest in companies that enable personalized medicine through the use of technology. The firm is based in San Ramon, Calif. PRESS RELEASE MergerTech Advisors is excited to announce the launch of ‘MergerTech Capital’ ( www.mergertechcapital.com ), a new $50 million venture capital fund. The fund will focus on the investment and development of healthcare IT product and services firms, building on the sectors’ substantial potential for extraordinary growth and creativity.
Steve Case Secures $450M for New Venture Fund. Www.pharmatimes.com/Article/11-11-29/AZ_bolsters_VC_arm_with_100_million_buys_into_Australian_firm.aspx. Fmr. Color Co-Founder Hops on with Science Inc. GRP Partners Fund IV Wraps First Close En Route to $250M Vehicle.