Sound Bites
Quotes of the Quarter “New founders in [the] last 10 years have ONLY been in [an] environment where money is always easy to raise at higher valuations. THAT WILL NOT LAST. When the market turns, and it will turn, we will find out who has been swimming without trunks on: many high burn rates co’s will VAPORIZE.”
What’s been buzzing in PE & VC in the last quarter? Here are some sound bites that had people talking in Quarter 3. “I think that Silicon Valley as a Note that the opinions do not necessarily represent that of CVCA, but are included in Private Capital in an effort to represent varied industry voices and opinions.
– Marc Andreessen
via Twitter, September 2014
“I don’t specifically identify my business as woman-owned. There is no benefit, perceived or otherwise.” – Woman Entrepreneur, The Diana Project Executive Summary 2014 Diana Report, Women Entrepreneurs 2014: Bridging the Gender Gap in Venture Capital, September 2014. Professors Candida G. Brush, Patricia G. Greene, Lakshmi Balachandra, and Amy E. Davis.
“For the love of god, don’t shoot for eighth place. Aim big. We [in Canada] have all the raw materials; we just need to adjust our orientation.” – Jonathan Ehrlich, Partner at Foundation Capital, to a group of Canadian entrepreneurs
The Globe and Mail. Leah Eichler, “Learning the language of Silicon Valley.” Published Friday, Jun. 20, 2014 at 7:00 p.m. EDT.
whole, or that the venture-capital community or startup community, is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now – unprecedented since ’99. In some ways less silly than ’99 and in other ways more silly than in ’99 … no one’s fearful, everyone’s greedy, and it will eventually end.” – Bill Gurley, Benchmark Capital
Wall Street Journal. Toree Koh and Rolfe Winkler, “Venture Capitalist Sounds Alarm on Starup Investing – Silicon Valley Hast Taken on Too Much Risk, Gurley Says.” Updated Sept. 15, 2014 3:17 a.m. ET.
“According to the recently released report based upon information collected from 128 institutional LPs and 101 active private equity GPs, 91 per cent of GPs said LPs took part in meetings to get their hands on ‘sensitive information’ to benchmark other funds they were looking at. And 84 per cent think LPs have lied to them as to why they didn’t invest in their funds. Nearly all, or 99 per cent, of those questioned in a recent survey suspected LPs have met with them even though they had no intention of investing in their fund.” Reputational Risk in Private Equity Report (RRiPE) 2014
“But if the capital from that new fund is burning a hole in your pocket, what’s a firm to do? How about finding some proprietary deal flow where the competition isn’t so hot. Right...then you can go searching for unicorns and leprechauns … I don’t believe in proprietary deal flow.” – John P. McNulty, Publisher, Private Equity Professional Digest October 17, 2014
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Private Capital § Quarter 4 § 2014