One of the areas that is consistently identified here in Southern California as a way to further increase our technology base, is to increase the number of large, indigenous technology firms. Although we do have a healthy beginning there (in particular, in San Diego, with Qualcomm and the like and Orange County, with Broadcom, etc.), [...]
This morning, we published the results of an extensive study of the impact of venture capital companies on Southern California in terms of exit values, finding that exits from VC-backed firms between 1995 and 2009 generated an astounding $48 billion (billion with a capital B) in value. The study, which was conducted by Jon Funk [...]
While most of the world’s eyes are on the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, it appears that there’s a merger and acquisition frenzy happening in Orange County this week. Just this morning, two of Orange County’s biggest high tech employers — Broadcom and Emulex – were in the news, as Broadcom launched a hostile bid [...]
Self promotion alert: I’ll be speaking on an M&A and financing panel in Westlake Village tonight for the Gold Coast Business Forum, in case anyone is interested in hearing some views on how you might (cross your fingers) get your financing or M&A deal done this year.
Congrats to Rafat Ali of paidContent, which has just been acquired by the Guardian Media Group. Rafat has more on the acquisition. paidContent is a publisher of online news based in Santa Monica.
There’s been a lot of hand wringing over the dearth of technology IPOs lately, which got me to thinking about two broad categories of companies I see here in Southern California: companies that are built to be sold, and companies that are built to grow. It seem to me that one hidden strength we have [...]
I’ve been having the same discussions with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, service providers, and others recently about the successful companies in Southern California. Namely, folks always talk about how there has been a lot of recent venture activity, but they’re curious as to what the next wave of successes from startups will be. I was mulling [...]
At a recent Orange County Venture Group event, focused on the experience of Entropic on the IPO market, one of the panelists, investment banker Ernie Ruehl of Credit Suisse, made the comment that when you file a registration statement, “you’re putting a ‘for-sale’ sign on the company.” In fact–in my own discussions with CFOs, investment [...]
Storm clouds are gathering on the venture industry, as M&A and IPO exits are declining — at least according to the Dow Jones report on VC-backed liquidity released today. Dow Jones reported just $8.2B in exits, and only a handful of IPOs in Q1. It remains to be seen whether slowing liquidity opportunities will scare [...]
I’ve noticed some speculation lately across the web about how the proposed acquisition of Yahoo might have an affect on possible exit opportunities for startups, how startups might want to raise more to live longer because of a perceived reduction in exit opportunities, and so on. Those sentiments echo the comments I have been hearing [...]
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
