Accel Partners Adds Paul Wahl as CEO-in-Residence Venture firm Accel Partners has named ex-SAP and Siebel executive Paul Wahl CEO-in-residence, Reuters reported. Wahl will identify, invest in and mentor start-ups working on ways to reduce the complexity of enterprise IT infrastructure, Reuters said. Previously, Wahl was chief operating officer of Siebel, which was later bought by Oracle. Wahl ran the American business of German software company SAP in the 1990s. (Reuters) – Technology venture capital firm Accel Partners, whose investments include Facebook and Macromedia, has hired ex-SAP and Siebel executive Paul Wahl to strengthen its enterprise IT business. As CEO-in-residence, Wahl will identify, invest in and mentor start-ups that help organisations to reduce the complexity of their IT infrastructure, Accel said on Monday. “We can’t keep building software that can only be maintained by armies of IT specialists. (Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
Deal Journal Dish Network Corp.’s surprise $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel Corp. may leave the No. 4 carrier T-Mobile with a tougher hand to play in a consolidating wireless market. Associated Press Sprint’s deal with satellite-TV provider Dish would likely include Sprint’s planned acquisition of Clearwire Corp., bringing together a massive amount of spectrum under a company with a large pile of debt. That combination of debt and spectrum could make it more difficult, and less necessary, for Sprint or Dish to pursue T-Mobile down the road. As a result, the deal announced Monday could remove two companies long rumored to be potential acquirers of T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG. “The prospect of a deal with Dish has been diminished by today’s news,” said New Street analyst Jonathan Chaplin. T-Mobile has been bleeding customers for years and is attempting to strengthen its position through acquiring, and merging into, MetroPCS Communications Inc.
Solar startups turn to big companies for capital Dealbreaker: A Wall Street Tabloid – Business News Headlines and Financial Gossip Andreessen Horowitz Creates $200M Co-Investment Fund, Capital Under Management Now $1.2B Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz today announced that it has created a $200 million that will co-invest alongside its second fund. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm now has $1.2 billion under management. The new capital will be invested in at growth-stage investments. The firm has made a number of growth-stage investments in hot Internet companies, such as Facebook, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga. AH General Partner John O’Farrell wrote about the new fund on Partner Ben Horowitz’s blog. “Creating the co-investment fund was an easy decision,” O’Farrell said in a press release. Andreessen Horowitz Creates $200 Million Co-Investment Fund Aimed at Growth Companies Brings Total Funds Under Management to $1.2 Billion MENLO PARK, Calif. — Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz ( today announced that it has created a co-investment fund for its Fund II, bringing total assets under management to $1.2 billion. About Andreessen Horowitz
Private Equity Beat Associated Press Despite challenging investment environments in many emerging markets these days, limited partners are still bullish about Africa, with 85% of global LPs polled in a survey by the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association saying they expect to increase their exposure to African private equity over the next two years. AVCA, which polled 48 LPs collectively representing more than $150 billion in global private equity assets under management, said 70% expect returns from Africa to outperform other emerging markets, with nearly a quarter believing African private investments to have 5% or more return premium.
What Down Fundraising Market? Insight Partners Bags $2B Insight Venture Partners revealed Monday it has set up two funds with about $2 billion to manage, marking the latest in a rapid series of announcements from VCs of billion-dollar fundraising totals as the industry as a whole seemingly faces a dearth of willing investors. Insight Venture Partners Fund VII reeled in $1.5 million in commitments, and $70 million more from affiliates and friend commitments, the firm announced Monday, and Insight Venture Partners Coinvestment Fund II, which tags along on bigger deals, received $450 million in commitments. Staying in line with Insight’s existing strategy, Fund VII will seek out global software and Internet services deals. Venture capitalists have struck some major funding commitments with LPs lately, coinciding with a meteoric rise in secondary markets at which many VCs’ assets are listed. Investors have been supportive of top-tier VCs this year.
Going Private It’s No Joke. IPOs Are Back, Baby: Tech News and Analysis « Fourteen venture-backed companies went public in the first quarter of 2011, raising $1.4 billion in the process, according to the National Venture Capital Association. That’s the highest number to go public in a quarter since 2007. While only seven of these companies were in the Internet and technology fields (the rest were in medical and biotechnology), the more interesting data was on mergers and acquisition amounts, which were awesome for Internet-related businesses and pretty grim for hardware and semiconductors (see chart below). In other words, it’s still all about the software. The NVCA reports that during the first quarter there were 74 M&A deals with a disclosed total dollar value of $3.3 billion. Computer software and services and Internet-specific companies accounted for the bulk of the targets, with 63 deals and the lion’s share of the disclosed value, leaving a measly three semiconductor deals and four hardware deals.
Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds - DealBook European Venture Fundraising On Track For A Boost In 2011; 89 Funds In Market A total of 89 European-focused venture capital funds are raising capital this year, well more than double the number of funds that closed on new money last year, according to a study. The news suggests an uptick of investment interest and perhaps confidence. It also foreshadows an improvement in fund formation. The 89 funds hope to raise $13.8 billion, according to the research firm Preqin. Almost half of the funds raising money have had at least one interim close, with commitments so far totaling $6.5 billion, according to the study. The largest fund seeking money is AF Eigenkapitalfonds Für Deutschen Mittelstand, which is targeting $705 million and expects to provide capital to 15 to 20 companies in Germany. The second largest fund is Englefield Capital Fund III. The largest fund to raise money last year was the $1.7 billion 3i Growth Capital Fund, which makes investments across Europe as well as in Asia and North America.
The Leveraged Sell-Out