03 March 2005

A Note to Financial Services Journalists

In today's Venture Wire Alert is a neat little piece of PR by a JVP company going by the name of Native Networks, who apparently make Ethernet Switches. Not that it matters.

The article states that they were sold for $55mn in cash to Alcatel, the Company's sole source of business, in a move that "paid off handsomely." You sort of believe it because a JVP Partner, Laurel Bowden, is quoted as saying that it did.

And then in that last para which usually you don't read because it reiterates something that has been written previously it states that the Company raised $45mn from "a host of venture capital firms."

A range of possible conclusions;

  • The last round was a recap at such a low valuation done solely by JVP that they made off like Kings
  • The decimal place went missing in the sale price
  • Venture Wire pays its journalists peanuts and they end up with monkey's.
  • The very persistent sales person at VentureWire / Dow Jones should read this to understand why I refuse to pay for shit.
The conclusions are not mutually exclusive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Another possible conclusion: getting money back on a co that is still not profitable and has only one client is not horrible.

The Series B was done in 2000, so it was most likely overpriced. The info related to the Series C indicates that this was a down round (not surprising), not a cram down.

And as to VentureWire, I have been a subscriber since the beginning, and find the service to be a very good value.

03 March 2005

A Note to Financial Services Journalists

In today's Venture Wire Alert is a neat little piece of PR by a JVP company going by the name of Native Networks, who apparently make Ethernet Switches. Not that it matters.

The article states that they were sold for $55mn in cash to Alcatel, the Company's sole source of business, in a move that "paid off handsomely." You sort of believe it because a JVP Partner, Laurel Bowden, is quoted as saying that it did.

And then in that last para which usually you don't read because it reiterates something that has been written previously it states that the Company raised $45mn from "a host of venture capital firms."

A range of possible conclusions;

  • The last round was a recap at such a low valuation done solely by JVP that they made off like Kings
  • The decimal place went missing in the sale price
  • Venture Wire pays its journalists peanuts and they end up with monkey's.
  • The very persistent sales person at VentureWire / Dow Jones should read this to understand why I refuse to pay for shit.
The conclusions are not mutually exclusive.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Another possible conclusion: getting money back on a co that is still not profitable and has only one client is not horrible.

The Series B was done in 2000, so it was most likely overpriced. The info related to the Series C indicates that this was a down round (not surprising), not a cram down.

And as to VentureWire, I have been a subscriber since the beginning, and find the service to be a very good value.