An Insider’s Guide to Convertible Debt vs. Equity
In the annals of Blog Posts About Things I Don’t Care About, Convertible Debt versus Equity is high on the Top 10 List. It’s not higher than How to Have a Great Bored [sic] Meeting, but it’s high up there. I mean, whatever, right? All that matters is investing in great companies at a fair, […]
Service Innovations over time…
I was in an exchange with Jim Spohrer (of IBM) the other day about Service innovations and he gave me the following lists dealing with service innovations: Top Ten Service Innovations in all of History 1. Division of Labor – an entity gets to do more of what they do best, and less of what […]
Doesn’t appear there is really a way out of short-term business thinking
In a book excerpt released by McKinsey , they provide a perspective about what it will take to shift markets away from a short-term way of thinking. They pulled together a range of heavy weights to talk about their opinions on this topic. Nitin Nohria – focused on the CEO and their “crush of immediate concerns”. This […]
Today, Material Change of Control Clauses Really Matter
With all of the M&A activity flaring up in the software space, some customers are scouring their license contracts to see what rights they’ll have (or not). Did you do a material change of control clause?
Ariba, Stock Run Ups and Equity Research
I continue to be surprised at the run-up in certain tech stocks, driven in part by many analyst reports. This suggest to me that at least some of the so-called experts covering various markets really don’t have much knowledge of t…
SEC Defines Venture Capital
The SEC fulfilled their obligation under the Frank-Dodd financial reform bill and defined what venture capital is. Represents itself to investors as being a venture capital fund. Only invests in equity securities of private operating companies to provide primarily operating or business expansion capital (not to buy out other investors), U.S. Treasury securities with a […]
The 2010 Trident Capital Investment Strategy Session
couple of weeks ago, our partnership met to discuss our investment strategy for the next 12 months. We hold this session every year. But this year’s meeting was particularly important because we discussed the overall investment strategy for our new fund (Fund 7). We also reviewed the market conditions in the sectors where we invest, […]
Location, Location, Location
A few days ago I was walking down an otherwise uninteresting street and I see this sign soliciting investment. Nothing out of the ordinary but the “don’t ask me…” warning was a little odd, as well as the NDA before the person will tell you anything about it… but no, the most interesting aspect of […]
The Public Markets and Venture Capital
Last week I wrote about the “VC shakeup” in response to a piece in HBR by the same name, in my response to a comment left by my friend Jason Lemkin I wrote: A big problem here is that the state of public markets makes IPOs extremely difficult and with M&A among already public companies […]
The VC Shakeout
This piece in HBR is must read, it details why there will be a lot fewer VC funds in the future. The sky is falling on the venture capital rainmakers. Over the past 10 years their quarterly internal rate of return (IRR)—the primary measure of VC success—was dismal, hovering in the single percentage points and […]
