Startup Investing

Israeli M&A on fire: mid-2013 update

Israeli M&A on fire: mid-2013 update

Jun 13, 2013 | , ,

The Google acquisition of Israeli social navigation app Waze for $1.03 billion is one of the largest high-tech acquisitions in Israeli history (The all time record goes to Cisco for buying NDS in 2012 for the price of $5 billion). The interest of international tech giants in Israeli startups is nothing new. With more startup companies per capita than any other country, Israel is widely hailed as the Startup Nation. As we know, Israel is more than happy to sell its startups to large entities knocking on its door. According to the IVC Research Center, 2012 was one of Israel’s most successful years for high-tech M&A in the past decade, yielding $9.95 billion in exits – 88% above 2011 levels. When all is said and done, it’s not every day that you hear about titans like Google and Facebook going head to head in a race to buy out a company at these valuation levels. In the end, Google won the war for Waze by letting the company stay in Israel. It was reported that the Facebook tie-up fell apart over Facebook’s insistence on Waze moving its...

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US venture capitalists bullish on equity crowdfunding

US venture capitalists bullish on equity crowdfunding

May 26, 2013 | , ,

By all accounts, crowdfunding is still in its infancy. For the unfamiliar, crowdfunding is where individuals join together to raise capital online. Crowdfunding, as we know it now, comes in two flavors: donation-based crowdfunding: Individuals band together to fund projects, events, and social causes. In return, individuals donating via crowdfunding receive the pleasure of doing good and frequently, there’s some type of prize associated with giving levels (not unlike general charitable giving campaigns). equity-based crowdfunding: In this type of crowdfunding, individuals don’t donate money —  they invest it. Typically, funding is restricted to accredited investors (who meet certain net-worth and/or income levels) who receive an equity share in a company in return for their money.  The JOBS Act in 2012 set the stage to open equity crowdfunding to the non-accredited investor audience (read, everyone else), though in reality, guidelines have not yet been set. How traditional VCs view crowdfunding Clearly, equity based crowdfunding (and crowdfunding, in general) has the potential to really change the way we invest in private companies. I think there will always be room (and money)...

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9 Tools Angel Investors Use to Track Potential Investments Online

9 Tools Angel Investors Use to Track Potential Investments Online

May 6, 2013 | , ,

Identifying potential investments isn’t easy. Startup investors — from angels to venture capitalists — spend lots of time developing systems to bubble up potential investment opportunities. This is frequently a junior analyst’s job: to screen, track, and identify ideas that are worth spending more time researching. Identifying a potential investment isn’t all about finding the right company — it’s also about timing. It happens frequently that companies may be too early for an investor. So, how do you continue to track a company until it’s fully baked? Here are a few of the tools angel investors use to identify and track potential investment opportunities. Startup Platforms OurCrowd: We know angels don’t have a lot of time to source their deals. We’re seeing at least 3 deals per day cross our desks and have a team of analyst scrubbing through them before we decide to make an investment. All that work is put into our due diligence before an opportunity appears on our website. On startup platforms like OurCrowd, investors get a smattering of different types of deals at different...

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What we’re hearing: Angel investing in Boston — with Richard Lucash

What we’re hearing: Angel investing in Boston — with Richard Lucash

Mar 18, 2013 | ,

We recently posted about incredible opportunities we’re seeing to invest in Israeli startups, and it got us wondering what angel groups in other parts of the world have been seeing. To get some more color on the Boston tech scene, we went directly to the source. We had the chance to talk to Richard Lucash, a Boston-based attorney for emerging tech companies, about deal flow in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Richard co-founded the LaunchPad angel group and, with Jeff Stoler, recently launched a new angel group called SideCar Angels What’s deal flow like in Boston? In Boston, most angel group deals are syndicated.  The area is the national leader in doing angel syndications.  As part of this syndication effort, members of multiple groups may take part in due diligence.  SideCar is focusing on facilitating deals by filling out syndicated rounds. How do you generate deal flow? A large percentage of our deal flow comes from Boston area angel groups and micro VCs, however, often the companies approach us directly. What types of deals have you been seeing? We see...

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What Israeli entrepreneurs are working on now

What Israeli entrepreneurs are working on now

Feb 28, 2013 | ,

After opening our doors last fall, we’ve gotten to know so many of you: thousands of investors, entrepreneurs, and partners. Particularly, we’re seeing an incredible number of really high-quality startups. A huge percentage of these are companies founded by serial entrepreneurs with differentiated technologies and real tractions (with serious users, customers, revenues, etc.). An incredibly high number fit our investment methodology and criteria. I thought it would be interesting to break down what our deal flow looks like (thanks to our resident geniuses, David S, David C, and Jeremy for pulling this data). What Israeli entrepreneurs are working on now So far, OurCrowd has seen: Total deals 175 deals since Jan 1, 2013 (100+ deals per month)  350 deals (received actual materials) since Nov 1, 2012 Maturity of deal flow deal flow has ranged from seed investments to Series C, with sweetspot in the Series A range Internationality of deals while the vast majority of our deal flow comes from Israel, we have looked at deals from 9 countries Sector breakdown of deals  We’re seeing the most activity in...

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