DISQUS

VentureBeat: Dry times in venture-land: IPOs drop to zero in Q2

  • Don Jones - VentureDeal · 1 year ago
    In my opinion, this is the continuing fallout from the extreme dot com boom/bust cycle of 1999 - 2003. The investment world (and regulatory system) has never really recovered from its skepticism about new, "IPO-ready" technology companies as a whole, regardless of individual success stories, so when other factors (credit crisis, economic uncertainty) increase the risk premium, the memory of being burned and scarred by tech companies is still vivid, and investors flee to quality, or sit on their hands.
  • ARevisitWarranted · 1 year ago
    A year or so ago VentureBeat (then SiliconBeat) covered a few venture firms that were already on the death-bed: Crescendo, Worldview, Vantage, Vanguard. Not surprisingly, some of those firms (esp Worldview, Crescendo) claimed they still had companies that were poised to go public and prove they were right after all. Examples of companies touted then were Force 10 Networks, OnStor, Azul, 3ParData (all Worldview). 3Par went (or was pushed to go) public and guess where it's stock is now? Force10 and OnStor and others gobbled up a lot more money but haven't gone public and in this climate, are unlikely to go public any time soon. So what lies in their future? It'd be interesting to have Matt and his team meet up again with the Spreng, Orsak and Wei "champion investors" and ask what they have to say now after years of gobbling up LP money.
  • VC Watcher · 1 year ago
    It's pretty obvious what's going on. In a weak financial climate, there's more scrutiny on fundamentals in an IPO. As a private company, you can spin up and lie all you want. As soon as you do your filings, you're under a big financial microscope. Where's the customers? What's the revenue stream? What about patents and IPR? Let's face it, when you lie long enough you start believing your own lies, and the disdain of fundamentals has been an addiction for funds here in SV. Watch them hold their breath, put more money into vapid companies, and wait out the downturn - assuming, of course, it's just a short downturn and not a longer-term trend. But don't expect them to react sensibly and focus on substance, even if it kills the M&A scene, in the pursuit of a home run IPO fantasy. They don't want to be VCs because it's too risky. They just want to be IVBs, but you can't get 10x this way. Any way you look at it you lose.
  • edhardy622 · 1 month ago
    British law student sues Abercrombie-Fitch for disability discrimination.
    http://www.abercrombiefitchstore.co.uk