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By Kenzi Wang The past five years have seen a seismic shift on strategic investment deal flow. Arguably, we’ve gone through two large, definitive periods of modern-day venture capital tech fundraising. We’ll call the first period the Pets.com era, and the second the Facebook era. The Pets.com era was filled with extravagance, greed, speed and […]

By Kirsten Morin, Aberdeen Asset Management A decade has now passed since the first iPhone and Amazon Web Services were launched, effectively marking the advent of the mobile and cloud computing revolutions. Innovation has always come in waves. Before mobile and cloud, it was the Internet, and before that, the PC. The cycle of innovation […]

By Jason Pressman, Shasta Ventures First, let me be clear that Shasta Ventures is deeply committed to consumer businesses. We have a deep track record of backing amazing companies that target consumers. These include financial technology companies like Mint and Tally, social networks like Nextdoor and Smule, branded e-commerce companies such as Dollar Shave Club, Poppin […]

By Clint Korver, Ulu Ventures When AppDynamics was acquired by Cisco just before its planned IPO, reports credited early investor Greylock Partners with a return of 100x on its investment in the San Francisco-based enterprise software company. That report was soon amended to reflect that Greylock’s return was closer to 25x, returning an excellent $590 […]

By Brian Botch, Tricent Capital Investors like to think of ourselves as logical people. But we’re as susceptible to emotional biases as anyone else. To separate our impulses from our investment decisions, my company has spent the past few years developing deal-screening models. One night, while reviewing their outputs, I spotted an apparent anomaly. On […]

By Peter Freire, CEO, ILPA It has been more than two decades since the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) was founded as an informal networking club of 15 to 20 LPs who gathered twice a year to share information on their experiences. Since that time, the organization has evolved considerably, with great progress but little […]

By Joe Riley, Psilos Group Digital health is on a roll — and that’s the best sign that U.S. healthcare is changing for the better. The marriage of healthcare and digital technology improves patient outcomes, lowers costs and broadens consumers’ access to care. Strengthening this trend is venture financing of digital health, which remained robust […]

By Joe Riley, Psilos Group Digital health is on a roll — and that’s the best sign that U.S. healthcare is changing for the better. The marriage of healthcare and digital technology improves patient outcomes, lowers costs and broadens consumers’ access to care. Strengthening this trend is venture financing of digital health, which remained robust […]

By Elena Lytkina Botelho and Sapna Sadarangani Werner, Guest Columnists The IRR clock starts ticking from day one, and the first months of a deal are critical to establishing its pace and trajectory and the relationship between the PE firm and portfolio company. Our firm has advised more than 200 PE funds since 1995, and […]

Jérôme Nycz, executive vice-president of BDC Capital, has met many Canadian founders with the ingredients to build the next unicorn. But Canada’s innovative startups also face headwinds, he notes. In a feature article for PE Hub Canada, Nycz asks if the capital will be there to support home-grown tech companies and ensure they can compete on a global scale.