We are holding a discussion event for a very small number of ‘super-angels’, to consider how angels can collaborate more effectively – both together and with the venture community. If you would like to suggest a participant, please contact me directly.
Tom Curley may have smoked too much McKinsey crack. The Associated Press needs more than a sporting analogy. Protect, Point and Pay. Mmmm. Read the article by clicking on the link. I was tempted to paste the whole thing just while I still could…
What we really want for Christmas is simple.
We want a CRM system for less than 30,000 records, that integrates other functions – event management, invoicing, accounting, email, letter writing, newsletter and campaign management. Tea making optional.
It would be great to be able to create tags that enable us to search simply for, for example, ‘CFOs in companies in the north of England from mobile marketing businesses’.
We are happy to use a SaaS solution but need to be able to use it when offline – I find that I get a lot of use out of CRM systems on the train from London to Cambridge and the tunnels, pathetically patchy and poor signal mean that Dongles, Smartphones etc are effectively useless.
Does anyone have any bright ideas – is this such a big ask? Hundreds upon thousands, if not millions, of customers must need something similar.
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Insightful, well organised & high quality. BLN always deliver events of high value.
If you missed the drama you missed the drama but Jim Alderden, Larimer County Sheriff may be credited with the prize for insight of the week. Despite fears that Falcone Heene had been carried aloft by a home made weather balloon, he was found safe and well in his attic. Jim told the press after a nationally televised tracking of the balloon that he had, “been there the whole time”. Did they think Derren Brown was involved?
Playfish, the London-based social games developer is rumoured to have been bought by EA for $250 million. Not bad going for a company that was founded in late 2007 and now has $75 million revenue. Index Ventures and Accel are the principle investors in Playfish.
Bruce Wasserstein, legendary dealmaker most recently head of Lazard, died today of a suspected heart attack.
Adoption of SaaS and cloud across mainstream organisations takes step forward as Rentokil adopts Google Apps for reasons of simplicity and cost.
A curious analysis, the EVCA Numbers 1st Half 2009, arrives on my desk. It runs a pretty exhaustive, (or exhausting), analysis of venture and private equity activity in Europe for fund raising and funding. Chart after chart shows what a terrible state the industry is in although for some reason the analysis chooses to compare whole year 2007, whole year 2008 and half year 2009.
Scary EVCA VC and PE investment chart
Now we know that 2009 has been hard, and given the lack of exit opportunities for funds and the general fund raising situation, investors are likely to have to be careful with their funds. We can also see that investors are starting to invest again and the 3rd quarter venture capital investment has been the highest for 6 quarters in both US and Europe.
It seems slightly strange to me that venture capital and private equity should be treated as a single asset class – they are very different. It also seems slightly strange that an industry body should be producing such a potentially confusing and negative picture unless there is another reasons for it. Could it be anything to do with the potential reforms mooted in Brussels? If so, it would surely be better to focus on the absurdity of these ideas rather than paint a picture that is unnecessarily bleak?