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Private equity firms are snapping up public companies at a frenzied pace amid a washout in equity markets that has sent valuations plummeting.
In the first half of 2022, buyout funds — which specialize in acquiring a controlling interest in a target company — announced or completed roughly $110 billion dollars in take-private deals globally, data from Preqin showed. The figure places this year’s deal value on pace to surpass the record total of $181 billion in 2021. READ MORE
This column is about the excesses of the private equity investment industry. It delves into the minutiae of the tax code, corporate structure and certain abstruse practices of financial engineering. There will be jargon: carried interest, leveraged buyout, joint liability. I am aware that none of this is anyone’s favorite thing to be discussing on a summer’s day. READ MORE
Venture capital-backed startups in the U.S. are raising slightly more debt than they did in 2021—another possible sign that equity fundraising this year is much different than last year.
Although debt numbers are not up dramatically from last year, there has been an uptick in dollar amounts even though the number of deals is relatively even. READ MORE
In the wake of the dot-com crash and the global financial crisis, many corporate venture capital firms ran for the hills with their capital, earning a reputation of being fair-weather VC investors, but this time might be different. READ MORE
At the start of the year, PitchBook analysts mapped their projections for the US venture capital market in 2022. Halfway through the year, trends are beginning to crystallize, and our latest analyst note updates the scorecard. READ MORE
By now, most readers have heard the term “Web3.” It was coined in 2014 and represents the third generation of web technology, one that is built using decentralized blockchains. This new technology has created new investment opportunities – and more notably, new investment methods – for established capital providers to consider. READ MORE
Pitching your startup to a venture capitalist (VC) investor can be intimidating. You're speaking to exceptionally smart, successful individuals in a competitive market. According to Statista, 2021 set a new record for venture capital investments in the U.S. at approximately $330 billion invested — nearly twice as much as the year before. You're competing against a crowd of clever founders and amazing ideas. How can you best prepare for success? READ MORE
There was perhaps no better year for founders to pitch their startup than 2021. The cash was flowing, diligence was scarce and eager investors were just a Zoom call away.
The script is being flipped, and entrepreneurs must adapt to a new world of dealmaking. For the first time since 2020, valuations and deal terms are trending in investors' favor—although the market still benefits from years of founder-friendly momentum. READ MORE
Traditionally, startups have looked to three primary sources for funding: venture capital firms (VCs), angel investors, and family offices. But in recent years, a fourth option has grown increasingly popular: corporate venture capital funds, or CVCs. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of CVCs grew more than six times to over 4,000, and these CVCs inked more than 2,000 deals worth $79 billion in the first half of 2021, surpassing all previous annual tallies. READ MORE
Venture capitalists ( VCs) are mostly gripped by the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and that sentiment peaks during boom periods like in 2021, but it takes only a few months for risk investors to change tack.
Six months into the new year, despite raising a record $4.7 billion of dry powder compared to $2 billion last year, as per Venture Intelligence data, for investing in startups, over a dozen VC firms, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Elevation Capital, and a numb . READ MORE
An outsourcing trend is sweeping through the offices of fund managers and investors, as new technology solutions and providers emerge.
While fund administration and back-office accounting are still the first and most common functions to be outsourced, the trend is starting to hit investor relations and portfolio management too. READ MORE
Over the past four weeks, I’ve talked to hundreds of SaaS founders and there’s one recurring topic: The current funding environment. How do you address this tough situation? Do you cut costs or do you make a risky decision to keep spending and attempt to grow into the original valuation? READ MORE
Venture capital is on track to register its largest fundraising year on record despite the market correction.
So far this year, VC funds in the US have closed on $137.5 billion, just shy of 2021's full-year total of $142.1 billion, according to PitchBook data. READ MORE
The bitcoin and cryptocurrency market was rocked by the collapse of the stablecoin terraUSD and its support coin luna in May—though a looming, radical ethereum upgrade has reignited the market.
The bitcoin price has lost almost 70% of its value since it peaked in November last year, crashing under $20,000 per bitcoin last month. The ethereum price has seen even wilder swings, along with most other major cryptocurrencies, as the market braces for a Federal Reserve earthquake. READ MORE
It may be blockbuster season at the movies, but over in the fintech investment space, the season for mega deals has passed. After yet another year of record-breaking funding—2021 saw $621 billion in global venture capital financing, easily doubling the previous high—the easy money of boom days is gone. READ MORE
The down market in VC dealmaking is proving to be a boom time for venture lenders.
Until earlier this year, it was relatively easy for startup founders to obtain new capital at high valuations for their companies. But in today's bearish conditions, it's now commonplace for investors to assign them lower valuations alongside more stringent deal terms. READ MORE
To help startups put their financing plans in context, we wanted to develop a sense for how long the current downturn in VC funding might last and how far valuations could fall. Nobody can predict the future, of course, but just because we can’t predict the future doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t learn from the past. In this instance, we wanted to see what insights past downturns might have regarding two specific questions: READ MORE
Private equity investors have little to fear from a recession, as the best returns come after these periods. READ MORE
Traditional private equity fund investing is still hugely popular, with a whole new class of individual investors joining the institutional investors who’ve dominated the asset category for decades. Evidence suggests private equity’s control-driven, activist style of investment leads to higher, more predictable returns than passive public market investment, so no surprise there. READ MORE
In his first public remarks as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ), Andrew Forman announced that the DOJ is “thinking a lot about enhancing antitrust enforcement around a variety of issues surrounding private equity” especially in the health care sector. In particular, Forman pointed to four areas of enforcement that the DOJ is “thinking” more about. READ MORE