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Archive for the ‘Venture Capital’ Category

U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Economy, Gerbsman Partners, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on February 16, 2009| Leave a Comment »

(Bloomberg) — The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.

Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed.

“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”

For more information on this topic, please visit: Bloomberg, TARP, Howard Lindzon blog, Brookings, Money Morning.

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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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Secrets for Success in Good and Turbulent Times

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Community, Gerbsman Partners, Intellectual capital, Investments, Technology, Venture Capital on October 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Over the past 40 years, I have learned and hopefully executed the characteristics for success, outlined below, in good and turbulent times.

1.  Have Ethics and Integrity – Be Dependable and Responsible

2.  Attitude – Always, Always be Positive

3.  Desire – Have the desire to do the Best You Can 

4.  Consistency – Be consistent in good times and challenging times

5.  Ability – Keep on learning- develop new skills – continue your education – listen and most important, it is OK to say “I don’t know” and “I need help”.

6. Take Action and Risks – Don’t be afraid to make mistakes- that is how you learn, that is how you grow

7. Communicate – Communicate – Communicate – People will tell you when to stop communicating and more important, keep interested parties in the loop and you will be respected by all.

8. Listen – one of the hardest things to do, however we all learn something and grow when we listen

9. Always focus on #1 above, nothing else matters.  Have ETHICS and INTEGRITY. Be DEPENDABLE and take RESPONSIBILITY for your actions.

In today’s Turbulent Times, hopefully the guidance above will provide a road to success, performance and happiness.

Best

Steve Gerbsman

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Date Certain M&A of Teleflip, Inc.- its Assets & Intellectual Property

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Gerbsman Partners, Investments, Technology, Venture Capital, Wireless, tagged , , , , on August 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »

SALE OF TELEFLIP INC

Gerbsman Partners has been retained by Hercules Technology Growth Capital , the senior secured lender to Teleflip Inc. , to solicit interest for the acquisition of substantially all of Teleflip’ assets, including its Intellectual Property , Patents, processes and other intangibles in whole or in part (collectively, the “Teleflip Assets”).

As of August 11, 2008 Teleflip shut down its operations. Hercules, the senior lender, is presently working with the Teleflip on a “Friendly Foreclosure of Assets”, and Teleflip will selling the Assets of Teleflip.

TeleFlip has two award-winning, nationally recognized mobile messaging services that uniquely bridge the internet & cell phone networks to deliver push emails to mobile phones via the SMS data channel, leveraging the existing text messaging inbox found on every mobile phone throughout the world.

• “FlipMail” enables mobile phone users to receive their current personal and business emails from virtually every POP, webmail, and Microsoft Exchange email accounts, without any new or special software downloads or a mobile internet connections to use the service. Users signup for FlipMail by simply providing their email address, email password, and mobile phone number. Emails are then converted to text messages and parsed, sequenced, and concatenated to be easily displayed and read on the phone.

• “Flipout” allows people to send emails from their existing email accounts, either client-based or webmail-based emails, directly to a mobile phone user with the email converted delivered to the mobile phone as a text message. No software is needed by the PC-sender of an email, nor by mobile phone-receiver. Senders simply send an email to the mobile phone user by addressing the email to “their cell phone number @teleflip.com”, eg, 3105551212@teleflip.com <mailto:3105551212@teleflip.com> , and the email then shows up as text message on mobile phone without having to know the recepient’s mobile phone operator.

• “Mobile Ad Platform” is a proprietary advertising insertion technology that easily allows for any length of advertisement to be placed within a Flipmail or Flipout text message delivered to the cell phone.

FlipMail and Flipout are operated as hosted, ASP-based services. Teleflip’s technology infrastructure consists of a Unique Network Unification™ Process which maps and routes and converts messages from the email messaging network and pushes them to the mobile handset through the SMS data channel.

The company has co-lo facilities and server networks which are carrier grade, redundant, and load balanced on the East and West Coasts, and was designed for easy scalability.

For more information, please contact Steven R. Gerbsman at steve@gerbsmanpartners.com

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