Here’s How To Get Your Entrepreneurial Venture Started

Let's face it; the world is not a meritocracy. Those who come from money, go to elite schools and have connections start with a leg up. "These identities can get you into doors," said Kathryn Finney, author of Build the Damn Thing: How to Start a Successful Business If You're Not a Rich White Guy. Everyone else—BIPOC, women, and people from lower socio-economic classes—hasn't got the same access. READ MORE

Positioning Your Company For Venture Capital Financing

Market rumblings indicate the current economic landscape is creating challenges for start­ups looking to raise money. By some accounts, early-stage startups have not (yet) seen much of an impact of the tightening market, primar­ily because they have been shielded by corrections in the late-stage and public markets. They have nonetheless seen a decrease in valuations, re-cutting of deals, and in some cases, delayed closings. According to PitchBook-NV-CA’s Q2 2022 Venture Monitor, “...the pace of venture capital (VC) activity across all stages is likely to slow in H2 2022 as the threshold for closing deals rises, and pricing uncertainty extends to early stages of the investment cycle.” READ MORE

How to Attract Venture Capital to Your Startup

Tech startups and venture capitalists are inseparably linked. Industry giants such as Facebook, Twitter, or virtually any other now-giant tech company that you can think of, likely would never have been able to get off the ground without first securing venture capital support.

Venture capital firms provide the financial fuel that energizes promising tech firms. Yet finding and obtaining venture capital can be a daunting quest, particularly for novice entrepreneurs. Where do you start? How do you begin? READ MORE

Startups Are Borrowing More as the Easy Venture Capital Money Vanishes

Venture capitalists have spent years aggressively buying stakes in cash-burning technology startups, valuing more than 1,000 of them at at least $1 billion apiece, even though many remained far from turning a profit. Now the cratering share prices of mature tech companies have dimmed the prospects for startups that were working toward their own initial public offerings. This has led venture investors to slow their pace of writing checks—and led startups to take on increasing amounts of debt. READ MORE

Pharmaceuticals Are Getting A Blockchain Makeover

In late August, centuries-old pharmaceutical company Pfizer did something new: embraced the blockchain.

In a request to join VitaDAO, a blockchain-based biotech collective that requires cryptocurrency buy-in, Pfizer expressed interest in VitaDAO’s pursuit of drugs that could extend one’s lifespan and wanted to work with the collective as a stakeholder (Pfizer declined to comment for this article). READ MORE

Investors Want to Add New Managers to Their Private Equity Rosters

More than 80 percent of private market investors are actively looking to establish relationships with managers — both emerging and established — with whom they’ve never worked, according to the latest report by Silicon Valley Bank. And even if an established manager has a longer track record and more experience dealing with market downturns, that doesn’t mean they have an obvious upper hand in the fundraising competition. Only 16 percent of these investors are looking exclusively for established managers, while 81 percent are open to working with both established managers and newer faces in the industry. READ MORE

Venture capital exits under pressure

Venture capital exit values have plummeted to less than $60 billion this year through Aug. 19. This figure was more than $505 billion for the first eight months of last year. While exits via acquisitions and buyouts fell this year, initial public offerings had the biggest decline, dropping to $28.3 billion vs. $431.3 billion for the same period last year. READ MORE

Second Half Looks Better for Private Equity Deal Flow

A slowdown in institutional real estate deals (those of $25 million or more) due to inflation and interest-rate volatility has private-equity investors poised to have “rosier expectations” for the second half of the year, according to Green Street, a commercial real estate analytics firm.

Its Mid-Year Broker Rankings report issued this month reported that the first half of the year featured record-breaking sales of smaller properties totaling $44 billion, a 49% year-over-year increase. READ MORE

Higher Interest Rates: Good or Bad for Private Equity?

As interest rates continue to rise, private equity investors are starting to feel the heat.

With competition for deals heating up, investors are having to bid more aggressively for opportunities, and are seeing their returns diminish as a result. While there is no doubt that rising interest rates present challenges for the private equity industry, there are also opportunities to be seized. In this article, we will explore both the pros and cons of rising interest rates for private equity investing. READ MORE

Who Is The Greatest Fool In A Broken Unicorn-VC Chain?

One of the most successful venture capital investors, Masayoshi Son, has noted that the “startup winter” will be here for a while.

What is interesting is that he thinks so, not because there is a shortage of VC, but because entrepreneurs will not accept lower valuations for potential unicorns. According to Son, one of the ventures he has financed, Klarna, accepted a new round of financing at a valuation of $6.7 billion compared with $45.6 billion in a previous round. Leading fintech venture Stripe has also accepted a lower valuation. READ MORE