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Archive for the ‘Investments’ Category

Emphasys Medical Up For Sale

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Distressed Intellectual Property, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Life Science, Market research, Strategy, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

emphasys-logoEmphasys Medical Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based medical device company focused on emphysema, has retained Gerbsman Partners to find a strategic buyer, according to VentureWire. The company canceled an IPO last spring, and before that had raised around $80 million in VC funding. Shareholders include Advanced Technology Ventures (17.8%), Morgenthaler Ventures (13.8%), St. Paul Venture Capital (11.5%) OrbiMed Advisors (13.7%), ABS Ventures (10%), Morgan Stanley Venture Partners (7.4%), Cargill Ventures (6.1%) and Neww Enterprise Associates. www.emphasysmedical.com

Links: peHUB, Biospace, DOW Jones,

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More Tech Start-Ups Call It Quits

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Strategy, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

mk-au416_shutdo_ns_20090211185403WSJ reports: As Funding Dries Up, Fledgling Silicon Valley Firms Are Shutting Down; Fears of Chill on Innovation

“Many start-ups survived last year by slashing costs and deferring development projects. But as demand for their products continues to deteriorate and funding dries up, these young firms are now running out of lifelines. Many are calling it quits, recalling the dot-com bust earlier this decade.

…

Venture capitalists pulled back sharply in the fourth quarter as credit markets seized and stock markets collapsed. Venture capitalists invested $5.54 billion in U.S. start-ups in the fourth quarter, 27% less than the third quarter, according to data compiled by VentureSource.”

Another excellent take on the same theme is Stacey Higginbotham´s analysis at GigaOm:

“The crisis in the financial market is coming home to roost for startups of all kinds. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article detailing the death or firesale of several startups in the last few weeks. It’s grim, but this is only the beginning for many venture-backed companies, as we reported back in October. Over the next few months, we’ll see continuing news of businesses giving up the ghost as their venture backers take a hard look at upcoming cash needs and decide to prune.

…

Venture capital is a cyclical business that follows the fate of the stock market, so it depends on where a startup is as the cycle turns from boom to bust. Unfortunately, many of these unlucky startups are getting crushed under the wheel as it rolls through the downturn. Right now is a good time to work on an idea, but a bad time to be selling things.

However, innovation won’t just stop.VCs are still making selective investments in early stage startups at newly reasonable valuations, hoping those deals are ripe by the time the economy reaches the next boom.”

Gerbsman Partners focuses on maximizing enterprise value for stakeholders and shareholders in under-performing, under-capitalized and under-valued companies and their Intellectual Property. In the past 60 months, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in maximizing value for 51 Technology, Life Science and Medical Device companies and their Intellectual Property and has restructured/terminated over $770 million of real estate executory contracts and equipment lease/sub-debt obligations. Since inception, Gerbsman Partners has been involved in over $2.2 billion of financings, restructurings and M&A transactions.

Gerbsman Partners has offices and strategic alliances in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Europe and Israel.

For more information on Gerbsman Partners, please visit our website at www.gerbsmanpartners.com

By way of Stacey Higginbotham article at GigaOM. For the full WSJ article, please click here

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John Doerr: 10 ways for companies to stay afloat in rough times

Posted in Investments, Technology, Venture Capital on November 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr came prepared with a list of the top things that start-up CEOs should do. He surveyed 18 of Kleiner’s companies, and here’s what they suggest [update: Doerr has since added an eleventh point]:

  1. Act now. Act with speed. Raise money. Get a loan, secure financing. Focus, cut or sell.
  2. Protect the vital core of the business. But use a scalpel not an ax. Be surgical. Protect the vital core of the company. Cut once, deeper than you think.
  3. Make sure you have at least 18 months of cash. Or more — on a conservative revenue forecast.
  4. Defer facility expansions. Don’t spend money on tech infrastructure, such as new software or computers. Doerr noted that Andy Bechtolsheim’s new startup, Arista uses Google Docs (free web office software).
  5. Reevaluate your R&D priorities.
  6. Renegotiate any contracts that you can. Everything is negotiable.
  7. Remember, everyone in the organization should be selling, from the receptionist to the engineers.
  8. Offer people equity instead of cash e.g. in place of bonuses. (You can do this with outside vendors as well).
  9. Secure your cash. Treasuries, or treasury backed securities, are more secure than money market funds.
  10. For your revenue plan, develop and obsess on leading indicators — e.g. bookings, unique visitors, conversions.
  11. Over-communicate with everyone – employees, investors, partners and particularly customers. Don’t sugar coat things, communicate your resolve.

More here.

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US faces worst recession in 26 years

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, tagged , , , , , on October 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The US economy appears to be plunging into what many experts believe will be its worst recession since 1982.

Senior officials at the Treasury and Federal Reserve are confident that the rescue plan for US banks will succeed in preventing a financial system meltdown and ensure there will not be a repeat of the Great Depression. But they know that a sharp economic downturn is already baked in the cake. They do not,however, know how deep or protracted it will be.

Click here for full article, subscription required.

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Venture Capital Investment Down 7% in Third Quarter

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Market research, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 23, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Venture capital investment was down slightly in the third quarter, according to the MoneyTree Report released Saturday from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. Venture capitalists put $7.7 billion into 1,033 deals, a decrease of 7 percent from the second quarter.

The third quarter of the year is generally slower for venture investing, and the analysts who produced the report said that the economic crisis is not yet affecting venture numbers. In future quarters, though, the industry will probably see a dip in investing, said Tracy T. Lefteroff, global managing partner of the venture capital practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

For now, “the venture industry is very much open for business,” said John S. Taylor, vice president of research at the National Venture Capital Association.

Click here for the full article

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