Two startups with competing, equally compelling technologies at the same stage of development are pitching venture
capital investors for Series A funding. One startup is led by a serial entrepreneur founder, the other by a novice. Assume each will get funded. In all likelihood, the deal will happen quicker and the amount funded and pre-money
2021 was a spectacular year for the American venture capital ecosystem, with VC
investments, fundraising and exits all setting new highs. That according to the latest PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor, the self-described definitive review of the U.S. venture capital ecosystem. Nevertheless, it is difficult to predict how 2022 will turn out for the VC industry,
This past June, autonomous vehicle technology startup Zoox agreed to be acquired by
Amazon for a whopping $1.3 billion. Time for the common stockholders to pop the champagne, right? Not exactly, according to a complaint filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery by two common stockholders. Although many details have been redacted from the public
The corporate spectacle better known as The We Company IPO officially and mercifully came
to an end September 30 when The We Company (“We Co.”), the corporate parent of WeWork, requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission consent to the withdrawal of We Co.’s registration statement because it “no longer wishes to conduct a public
Every founder of a growth startup dreams of a big, successful exit — a sale of the company for millions of dollars. But that dream could be shattered if the investors are able to cause the company to be sold prematurely with proceeds only equal to or barely exceeding the investors’ liquidation preferences, leaving little
The just completed IPO of Snap Inc. has received enormous buzz and plenty of press coverage, mostly about its eye-popping valuation and offering proceeds, the big winners among the founders and early investors and the millennials who bought shares. But not nearly as much attention has been given to Snap’s tri-class capital structure
2016 turned out to be a terrible year for IPOs, both in terms of number of deals and aggregate proceeds.
According to Renaissance Capital’s U.S. IPO Market 2016 Annual Review, only 105 companies went public on U.S. exchanges in 2016, raising only $19 billion in aggregate proceeds. The deal count of 105 IPOs was
Seed stage investment deals, i.e., those in a range of approximately $100,000 on the low end and around $1.3 million on the high end, are structured either as straight equity or as convertible loans. If straight equity, the company typically issues to the investor shares of preferred stock usually designated as Series Seed which includes
Buried in the recently enacted Highway Bill, officially the Fixing America’s 
Surface Transportation Act or FAST Act, is a new exemption for the resale of securities. The new resale exemption appears in the form of a new Section 4(a)(7) of the Securities Act of 1933 and essentially codifies the so-
called 4(a)(1-1/2) exemption. New
The market for venture backed IPOs in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2015 was the weakest in two years, both in terms of number of deals and aggregate proceeds, according to pre-IPO institutional research firm Renaissance Capital, as well as a separate exit poll report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture