2020 has been a year like no other and the PE industry has felt the impact. But despite its challenges, the industry has proven resilient and adaptable to the new working environment. As the pandemic hit the market at the end of Q1 and going into Q2, the PE market…...
PE fuels fund administration consolidation; 25 firms hold over 20% of dry powder!
Long seen as ripe for consolidation, the fund administration sector is in the middle of another flurry of private equity-backed M&A. The top fund administration players consolidating the industry — a number of which are backed by buyout houses — expect the large to continue to get larger. Private equity firms are still buying…...
Exposing the Top Three Myths About Successful Startups
Why success doesn't depend on your business idea, the quality of your product or your startup capital. The concept of “startup” has grown so big that its very essence has been mystified by industry norms, stories and the media. About 472 million entrepreneurs and 305 million startups are created each year. Of…...
Tech Startup Financing Hits Records as Giant Funds Dwarf Venture Capitalists
Big money-management firms expanded their dominance in Silicon Valley last quarter, crowding out venture capitalists in a once-niche business and putting 2021 on pace to nearly double last year’s record in startup financing. Investment in U.S. startups for the first half of 2021 hit $150 billion, eclipsing full-year funding every…...
More Opportunity Than Capital: Venture Dollars Spread Throughout the US
Nearly $161.5 billion of venture capital poured into U.S.-based companies last year, as the private markets and tech startup ecosystem had another banner year.While the country as a whole saw new highs reached in venture, so did states such as Washington, North Carolina and Minnesota — not just in the…...
Private Equity Firms Are Cutting Out Banks
More and more, private equity firms looking to finance big leveraged buyouts are cutting out the Wall Street banks, and borrowing money from each other or from direct lenders. These loans often come from the credit arms of private equity firms, or from standalone direct lending funds. The appeal of…...
Pandemic puppy boom fetches deals in Silicon Valley !
It's raining cat and dog deals in startupland. Venture capital investors are pawing at the door of startups in the pet industry, which have benefited from dog-loving millennials and a surge in animal adoptions during the pandemic.VC-backed pet companies have attracted more than $1.1 billion so far this year to surpass…...
Why investors are raising climate tech funds at a torrid pace
Climate tech has significantly evolved since the first cleantech investment craze of the early 2000s. Today a growing group of investors is tackling one overarching global threat: climate change. Today, the investment landscape is powered by a vastly broader base of investors who are marshaling billions of dollars to tackle…...
How ‘solo VCs’ are changing the venture game !
Individual investors have always been a part of the venture capital ecosystem, but they generally have written small checks for the earliest-stage companies. It's an open secret in Silicon Valley that this group of investors is willing to offer founders better terms and higher prices than traditional VCs in exchange…...
Global Venture Funding Hits All-Time High In First Half Of 2021
Global venture capital funding in the first half of 2021 shattered records as more than $288 billion was invested worldwide, Crunchbase numbers show. That’s up by just under $110 billion compared to the previous half-year record that was just set in the second half of 2020. A greater number of those…...
Startups have never had it so good
The venture capital market is racing ahead, foot on the gas, middle finger out the window, hair on fire. That’s our read of the Q2 2021 data released thus far concerning how much money venture capitalists deployed around the world during the second three months of the year.Startups have never had…...
VC Pledged to ‘Do Better’ on Diversity. It’s Barely Changed
IT'S NO SECRET that the venture capital industry, for as long as it's existed, has been overwhelmingly white. Last summer, as the murder of George Floyd focused national attention on racial inequalities in the US, firms seemed committed to changing that. “Black Lives Matter,” the firm Benchmark tweeted last May. “Change starts with…...
Women in PE: Into the Man Cave
Private equity is catching a lot of flak at the moment — from politicians who see the investment class as plutocratic, investors who seek stronger regulatory scrutiny of the industry and insiders who aim to break the glass ceilings keeping women from rising through their ranks.The industry has made some progress…...
Private Equity Recruiting with a Headhunter
Key characteristic that private equity firms look for is that the candidate is able to think like an investor rather than an execution or junior investment banker. Remember, private equity involves making successful “investments” rather than successful transaction closings that are not affected by post-transaction performance. Recruiters, or “headhunters,” play…...
A Look at the Current State of Private Equity Recruiting
The past year has brought a degree of challenge to private equity that surpasses industry events that have confronted the very best fund and portfolio operators over the last several decades. The spreads between winning and losing decisions have increased dramatically and the variance across verticals and industries are both…...
