Congrats to 2012 PACT Enterprise Awards Finalists and Winners
Last week, PACT – the Philadelphia Alliance for Capital and Technologies – held the 2012 Enterprise Awards, their annual black-tie awards gala. Each year top technology companies and life science companies are nominated for categories corresponding to different stages of business maturity. The event highlights three finalists in each category and then announces the winners. […]
Full ArticleIgnoring Key Economic Terms Beyond the Pre Money Valuation
In many term sheet negotiations, there is a huge focus on the pre money valuation, but many other deal terms can have a very big impact on the economics of the deal yet do not receive the focus they deserve. For example, important terms include: Option pool – what is the increase in the size […]
Full ArticleToo Much of a Good Thing? Sizing your B Round.
Many have raised alarms about the significant shortage of early stage capital in the venture industry and, as Nate wrote recently, the Federal government is riding to the rescue with a proposed $2B funding mechanism. Whatever one might think of the risks and benefits of the Federal bond program, it is an apparent recognition of […]
Full ArticleHIMSS 2011 Conference – early data on Regional Extension Centers
I attended the HIMSS (Health Information and Management Systems Society) Conference a couple weeks ago in Orlando. It is the main healthcare IT conference of the year, and this year’s event had over 31,000 attendees (breaking the previous attendance record) and over 1,000 exhibiting companies and societies. It was held at the Orange County Convention […]
Full ArticleWhat’s your exit?
Entrepreneurs have usually developed stock answers for most standard VC questions by the time they meet with us. We typically wait until the end of a pitch to pose one deceptively tough one – “What is your goal on exit?” As I have said before, everyone on our side of the table has read everything […]
Full ArticleBoard to Tears
I have been on enough Boards now to appreciate how unique each board experience is and how critical board composition and chemistry is to a company’s success. My experience at this point has run the gamut. I have been on boards that brought on “smart” money, some times to the regret of all and other […]
Full ArticleNot Cool – or, Why We Don’t Invest in Web 2.0
My kids, age 16, 19 and 23, are appalled that I am blogging, and even more appalled that I think that these entries constitute blogs in the first place. They laugh at my formal sentence structure. They mock my correct spelling. They seem to believe I have car-jacked a Lamborghini to deliver my laundry. Definitely […]
Full ArticleMistaken at the Top of One’s Voice
Let’s face it. It takes a fair amount of hubris to play venture capitalist. We have the confidence to choose perhaps one out of every fifty companies that we consider in any depth, we pride ourselves on our judgment of entrepreneurial character, and we freely offer advice in and out of the boardroom to our […]
Full ArticleWhy Do We Fly For Business
Having just walked from the front of economy of a crowded plane to the back and then forward again, it is ever clear to me that most people do not work on airplanes. It’s 1:35 in the afternoon on Monday January 10, this plane has Wi-Fi and it has been a smooth flight. Most people […]
Full ArticleDemocracies Cannot Operate in Fear
The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson is reprehensible and disturbing. For a congresswoman to be stuck down on a street corner in her district, just because of her political positions, cannot be tolerated. Yet as reprehensible and disturbing as the violent act in Arizona is, it is not shocking. That in itself may […]
Full Article