Zappos sells to Amazon: did the VC’s force their hand

Here‘s a very interesting inside look on the Zappos’ acquisition by Amazon. What is interesting is that Sequoia entered at a very high valuation, but in exchange went for 3 – 3.5X liquidation preference. That is huge – It would mean the investors would be snarling at the company’s back to sell it. I would’nt [...]

Currency for advisors:stock options

Brad Feld, VC extraordinaire, has this excellent post about the compensation that early stage advisors should get. What is more interesting is that Brad actually talks numbers!!! For example, 1% vested over four years is in the top range of the compensation bracket. What Brad usually prefers is 0.25% <=x <=1%.   However, one of [...]

Venture Capital funding in semiconductors going up…

I was reading through the 2006 Venture Capital Industry Report and found a very interestin, and very heartening, news. (Pg. 10) The number of companies and amount of capital invested in semiconductors and electronics has grown significantly, reflecting increasing activity in storage, mobile, and consumer devices. The median amount invested in semiconductors is standing at [...]

When VC’s turn evil

Bill Burnham blogs about the VC investment process in Datapower and the happy ending. It was very interesting that sometimes VC’s can gang up together and force an entrepreneur to accept funding at their terms or valuations. Even the comments section of Bill’s post has one about someone who had to seek funding from out-of-area, [...]