Stanford, Harvard, MIT Still Top The List Of Schools Producing Funded Founders

After two years of pandemic disruptions, in-person graduations are back again. And over the next couple weeks, millions of students will be dressing up for the speeches and celebrations that come with another major milestone’s completion.

For the entrepreneurial minded, among others, it’s also time to reflect on one of higher education’s great questions: Was it all worth it? And does a prestigious degree really give you a leg up on the competition? READ MORE

VC Investments for Tech Startups Drop 26% in Q1 2022

Startups that had previously been seen as darlings have had to lay employees off and cut spending, canceling projects and generally scaling back ambitions, due to a seriously changed economy, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) wrote Monday (May 16).

This is all part of what WSJ characterizes as a changed playing field for companies, even those that had seen sunny skies on the horizon months prior. READ MORE

Venture Capital Investment Market Report 2022-2027

According to IMARC Group’s latest report, titled “Venture Capital Investment Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2022-2027”, the global venture capital investment market reached a value of US$ 211.3 Billion in 2021. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 584.4 Billion by 2027, exhibiting at a CAGR of 20.1% during 2022-2027. READ MORE

Quantum Technology Gains Momentum As Computing Gets Closer To Reality

The promise of quantum computing has swirled for decades. But as it gets closer to reality, more investors, the government and several industries seem to be taking note.

This month alone has provided some big news for quantum technology and computing—a level of computation much faster and at a level superior to modern computers in that, unlike classical computers, it can perform many calculations at the same time. READ MORE

The World That Venture Capital Made

Speculative bubbles have a way of leaving in their wake dozens of discredited economic writers, whose careers after the crash are forever haunted by the enthusiastic pronouncements they made while prices still rose. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in his history of the Wall Street crash, academics in the run-up to disaster praised the stockbrokers of their day for shaking off the “heavy armor of tradition” and adopting “vision for the future and boundless hope and optimism.” In June 1929, financier Bernard Baruch explained the rapid rise in stock prices by insisting it reflected a sober appraisal of economic fortunes: “The economic condition of the world seems on the verge of a great forward movement.” As the NYSE soared, one Princeton economist saw fit to comment that stocks were “not at present overvalued.” And in mid-October 1929, Irving Fisher of Yale made one of the most infamous predictions in the history of forecasting: “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” READ MORE

Tech Layoffs And Hiring Freezes Appear To Accelerate

While earlier in the year, much of the talk in the tech sector focused on falling valuations, dropping stock prices and slower funding rounds, a lot of chatter the past two months has been around something that hits much closer to home for many people.

Many tech companies are slowing or outright freezing hiring, while others are going a step further and laying employees off—and the pace seems to be accelerating. READ MORE

These Are Congress’ Biggest Private Equity Investors

Among the 22 members of the House and Senate who reported investing in private equity last year, 10 were Republicans and 12 were Democrats. They ranked among the wealthiest members of Congress, an already elite club composed mostly of millionaires that has done little to get rid of the carried interest loophole, the quirk in federal tax law that allows a certain very select group of people—hedge fund and private equity managers—to collect their pay at a much lower tax rate than many Americans. According to money-in-politics watchdog OpenSecrets, the private equity industry spent $16.5 million lobbying Congress last year; all told, 415 of 435 members of the House and nearly every senator took money from the industry in the runup to the last election—including Congress’ five biggest private equity investors: READ MORE

The Smash-and-Grab Economy

After 16 years at the helm of Houdaille Industries, CEO Jerry Saltarelli want­ed out. Since 1941, he’d poured his heart and soul into the company, starting out as a young lawyer and moving up the executive ranks. As CEO, he’d helped the company transform from a manufacturer of bumpers and shock absorbers into a nationwide construction and machine tools conglomerate. READ MORE

SEC’s Hard-Line Approach to Private Funds Would Harm Investors and Markets

The mission of the Securities and Exchange Commission is to protect investors, but a recent raft of proposals would likely do the opposite. Strong-arm regulations that target the private-funds industry are solutions in search of a problem that would weaken America’s financial markets, increase costs, and raise fees. The SEC’s actions would limit investment opportunities for institutions that rely on private funds to meet their return targets for their beneficiaries. These needless proposals would do more harm than good and should not be implemented. READ MORE

What More Supplier Diversity Commitments Could Mean For Diverse Businesses And The Private Equity Industry

According to an EY report prepared for the American Investment Council, there were approximately 16,000 U.S. private equity-backed companies and 4,500 PE firms in 2020. In 2020, the sector directly employed 11.7 million workers earning $900 billion in wages and benefits and generating $1.4 trillion of GDP. Suppliers to the U.S. private equity sector employed an additional 7.5 million workers earning $500 billion in wages and benefits and generating $900 billion of GDP. READ MORE

Biden and Trump Both Trashed Private Equity’s Favorite Tax Dodge. Surprise! It’s Still Here.

If you were to sit down with a focus group and a whiteboard, you would have a hard time coming up with a policy with less populist appeal than the nearly three-decades-old loophole that cuts private equity billionaires’ tax rate almost in half.

The carried-interest loophole, Barack Obama said, upset “the balance between work and wealth.” Donald Trump claimed the fund managers who availed themselves of this tax break were “getting away with murder.” Joe Biden, like both of his predecessors, ran for president on a pledge to end it. READ MORE

Lessons From 'Once a Bootstrapped Startup, Now a VC-Funded Machine'

In business, adapting to different situations is a constant. In a world with no guarantees, one of the few constants for managers is that you always have to adapt yourself to changes all around you. Many entrepreneurs begin as a bootstrapped startup, when they have to advance themselves without any outside help, and if they succeed, they move into a VC-funded operation. Both phases present managers with challenges and hardships. READ MORE