I was reading this news Google Faces A Different World in Italy from the New York Times and it is about Google’s criminal charges related to privacy in Italy. A senior executive in Italy may get to jail because of an outcry over an online video … Read More →
Tag Archives: News
Venture Capital Highlights – 2009 – Week 41
How to choose your co-founders? Stanford and its $ 1 billion sell-off of private equity US investment in VC decreases to new low levels Potential recover for the VC industry
How is the Canadian venture capital industry going compared to the US?
People in the venture capital industry know that the VC industry is not going well in Canada. That is why it is even more important to know the situation in a quatitative point of view. The SME Financing Data Initiative is a government website that publishes … Read More →
Smartphone: the next PC industry
There is a news from the CNET that tells that Smartphones and low-cost handsets will keep dominating the wireless market. The post tells that despite the fact of economic downturn, demand for smartphone remained high and this category grew 27% compared to the same quarter … Read More →
An Unlikely Marriage: Koenigsegg and Saab
I’ve been following many news related to the GM’s sale of Saab to Koenigsegg and I’m very curious about the outcome of this situation. I searched Google to see if there was any news of small companies buying big companies and I couldn’t find any … Read More →
New Funds Target Early Stage Startups
Summary: The number of new funds focused on bankrolling early-stage startups appears to be growing. Data from The Deal and other sources that focus on venture capital concluded that in the last six weeks that about $1.2 billion has been raised by firms for dedicated … Read More →
Super Angels and VCs
The importance of this article is the visibility it gives to the venture capital industry and specially in this economic downturn. I recommend reading it. Read more here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_22/b4133044585602.htm
New Valuation for Facebook
Wow, this is increadible. Facebook is receiving $ 200 million for 1.96%! To calculate the post valuation, we just need to do this: X = post-valuation X = 200 million / 0.0196 = 10 204 million = $ 10 billion roughly. Amazing how this company … Read More →
Article: Do Web Entrepreneurs Still Need Venture Capitalists?
There is a very interesting article about this question: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/do-web-entrepreneurs-still-need-venture-capitalists/ It basically says that given the lower cost to create web companies, the current venture capital model may not be attractive enough for those web entrepreneurs. It gives some examples such as the iPhone Apps developers … Read More →
Sadia and Perdigão became the biggest food company in Brazil
I’m posting this news because it is very impressive this merger of two most important food company in Brazil. It is going to create some market concentration concern. At the same time, it shows the M&A market potential of this country. Sadia and Perdigão are … Read More →
A Quick Trip in Toronto
36 Hours in Toronto - View 36 Hours in Toronto in a larger map Toronto is a very international and diverse city. It is one of the biggest city in Canada with 2.5 million of people (Greater Toronto has 5.6 million). I went there three … Read More →
New York Times interviewed Steven Ballmer about Leadership
Many of you may not like Microsoft, but most people are sure that Microsoft’s CEO, Steven Ballmer, has a strong leadership presence in the company and in the market. There is an interesting short interview from New York Time with Steven. He talks about leadership, … Read More →
Shrinking Venture Capital Market in Canada
The Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association released a report yesterday (May 12th) that the venture capital market continues to fall in the first quarter of 2009, continuing the shrinking trend from 2008. In the Canadian landscape, only $ 275 million … Read More →
Venture Capital Funds Return Still High
National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) reported that venture capital performance showed positive returns across all investment horizons 3 years and longer for the period ending December 31, 2008. As you can see in the table, venture returns across all horizons outperformed public market indices, … Read More →
Venture Capital Looks for Another Exit
Today, I just read an interesting article about a possible new exit event that venture capitalists, startups employees and other investors could do. SecondMarket is a marketplace where people can sell and buy “illiquid assets”. Illiquid assets are anything that people cannot … Read More →
PCCW Case: Difficult Valuation
A lot of people who invested in PCCW during that time are losing significant amount of money now. Moreover, a lot of investors do not understand why the company shares declined during all these years, if the company is still doing well and … Read More →
Institutions Reduce VC Participation
Some pension funds and university endowments, which have been major sources of venture capital, have scaled back VC investments in the wake of market downturns. The $129 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the second-largest pension fund in the US, reduced its allocation for … Read More →
Plan Raises Venture Firms’ Taxes
President Obama’s budget proposal, announced in February 2009, aims to raise taxes on carried interest, which could cause taxes on venture capital profits to more than double. The proposal calls for taxing carried interest as ordinary income, which could result in a significantly higher rate … Read More →
VCs Reject Government Funds
Some venture capitalists oppose proposals that stimulus funds be channeled to their industry. In February 2009, hundreds of VCs across the US came out against a plan to use of bailout funds as a source of venture capital, according to the Wall Street Journal. The … Read More →
More Bad News for Venture Capital industry
It is quite impressive the amount of bad news from Venture capital industry. And at the same time, it is expected that this industry may suffer from the economic downturn. As many of you can recall, the dot-com burst impacted the venture capital industry much … Read More →
HSBC’s Pig Saving Ads Linked to Swine Flu’s News
Look what I found. HSBC’s ad with a pig linked to the Swine Flu News.
Bad News for Venture Capital industry
I was searching for more news about venture capital industry and I found out this bad news from Boston.com. Venture capital sector makes adjustments Highlights from this news: - Last year, our industry raised about $28 billion in new investment capital, but VC industry will raise … Read More →
Canada Game Industry Tops British’s
In the Economist.com’s article “Play up, play up“, it shows the hardship the British game industry is suffering with lack of business and political support, meanwhile, it shows the growing strength of this industry in countries like Canada. In Canada, this industry receives foreign developers enjoy … Read More →
Money Tree Full Report Q4 – 2008
Check out the complete report about VC industry in the US here: https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/MTPublic/ns/moneytree/filesource/exhibits/National_MoneyTree_full_year_Q4_2008_Final.pdf
Fantastic Tool: Google News Timeline – Analysis of VC Industry Crisis
Another great tool from Google: Google News Timeline. It shows all the news that you search in a timeline! You can see the news in a more coherent way. It is much easier to build stories and check for historical patterns. Before moving to my … Read More →
New York Times: Venture Capital Investment Sinks
Some important highlights: - Venture Capital firms invested only $ 3 billion in 549 young companies in the first quarter - Investment was down 47% from Q4 2008 - Investment was down 61% from Q1 2008 - Internet companies raised $ 556 million, down 31% - … Read More →
Brazil is launching new banknotes soon!
The Central Bank in Brazil is launching a new set of banknotes after 15 years with the launch of Real. They are good looking. I can’t wait to have all of them. You can read more about the launch here.