Occam's Razor

Heat wave

Valuation seems to be rising in the US, does not seems to be the case in Europe so far.

Valuations of U.S. venture-backed companies have hit a four-year high in the second quarter. Fueled by merger and acquisition activity and continuing VC interest in late-stage technology investing, the median pre-money valuation rose to $15.6 million, up $2.1 million from the same quarter a year ago when it was $13.5 million, according to industry tracker VentureOne. The last time the median pre-money valuation was this high was in the second quarter of 2001, when it was $17.3 million.

Source : VentureWire

Conference Watch: investing in the security market

I’ll be speaking next Wednesday at the Leonard Finance forum on investing (and creating returns from) the security market. Let me know if you plan to be there so we can meet before/after.

8h00 à 8h15 : « Quelles opportunités dans la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information, exemples de réussites et d’échecs » par Hervé SCHAUER, Fondateur et Dirigeant du Cabinet Hervé Schauer

8h15 à 8h30 « Sécurité: Perspectives de marché/Les startup à surveiller» par Eric OCHS, Directeur Général, IDG Communications France/IT Media Partners

8H30 – 10H00 : TABLE RONDE sur le thème « Investir dans les marchés de la sécurité» animée par Jean Rognetta, Journaliste, Les Échos / Capital Finance

10H00 - 10H30 : Pause / Networking Break

10H30 – 11H00 « Security and Other Hot Investment Sectors in the European M&A and Investment Market », un point sur le marché des fusions et acquisitions dans les secteurs technologiques en Europe, par Peter Rowell, CEO & Chairman, REGENT ASSOCIATES

Blogger Dinner Paris part-2

Rodrigo broke the news first, Jeff, Rodrigo and myself will host our second BDP (Blogger Dinner Paris) on July 21.

Register by using comments on Rodrigo post.

I will cook if the group is small (less than 10), or post logistics to the restaurant otherwise.

Looking forward to see you there.

Marc.

Tales from the long tail

Great posting on what the long tail is not.

Invoking the Long Tail is not a magic wand to explain away the apparent lack of demand for what you've got. 

The Long Tail is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for poor-selling product. Or weak sectors. Or bad ideas.

• For Long Tail effects to work, you need both a head of relatively few hits and a tail of many niches, so that recommendations and other filters can lead consumers from one to the other.
• A tail without a head is too noisy and apparently random to get consumer traction; people need to start with the familiar and then move, via trusted recommendations, to the unfamiliar.
• Likewise a head without a tail is too limited in choice; the odds of finding a niche you want are too low to bother exploring much beyond what you already know.

Thus the two big Long Tail opportunities are:

• Aggregating hits and niches into a one big curve, from head to tail.
• Creating content and products that can plug into someone else's aggregated curve.

IBM buys Meiosys

International Business Machines Corp. has acquired today application relocation software provider Meiosys to provide more capabilities for its UNIX and Linux e-server platforms and to help advance its information on-demand strategy and virtualization capabilities.

Founded in 2000, Meiosys is privately held with venture financing provided by Alven Capital, BayTech Venture Capital, Cisco Systems, Credit Lyonnais Private Equity, Partech International, Siparex, Wellington Partners, and others. 16M$ was invested in the company, unclear yet what the transaction value was.

Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the Company has 30 full-time employees between its offices in Palo Alto, California and Toulouse, France, and had assembled a team experienced in mission-critical application development in the aerospace, telecom and defense industries.

Meiosys provides transparent application virtualization and stateful application relocation technology to platform vendors that offer enterprise-grade Utility Computing and On-demand computing solutions through its MetaCluster Product line.

More on the transaction on Jeff's Blog.

Preparing for my VC panel @ Innovate 05

I'm preparing for my VC panel for Innovate 05 which is only 48 hours away, the key question as usual is to make sure that the panel will be informative and lively (vs dull and boring...) . The topic is pretty clear :

How are institutional investors developing better practices to embrace and manage risk? And what do these investors need from entrepreneurs, early adopters, policy makers and others in order to best play their role in the Innovation Ecosystem?

=> What are the key issues or questions that you believe that we should cover during the discussion.

=> I'm also intrigued by a recent post by Fred Wilson on Less is more and how it might apply to the VC business, and plan to bring this issue during the panel.

Build to create some returns...

Good post, but even better, a great quote from Ross Mayfield

My grandpa taught me the difference between an entrepreneur and a businessman is the entrepreneur is in it for the quick flip, while a businessman makes a lasting contribution to the community.

I have had that conversation many time inside Occam Capital or with some Entrepreneurs, and Ross sums it all: it's all about building to create some returns for yourself and your investors... ...so you can build again focusing on the next thing!

New feed of the week

Just added alarm:clock the my RSS reader (FeedDemon). Good agregation of VC related  content.

Is the bubble back ?

Median pre-money valuations of U.S. venture-backed companies in the first quarter reached $15 million - the highest since 2001 - driven by an increase in first-round valuations. New numbers from VentureOne show that Q1 median valuation rose 23% from the same period last year, when median valuation was $12.2 million.

"The area with the most increase was the early stage round," said Matthew Garlick, research manager at VentureOne. The increase in first-round valuations might be partly due to the fact that companies raising first rounds are farther along in their stage of development compared to a year ago, as the median valuation for companies in product development stage dropped almost 22% to $8.3 million from $10.6 million a year ago.

Source : VentureOne

Conference Watch : E-unlimited London May 23

I'll attend, and will moderate a panel on software innovation at the European Tech Investment Forum next monday in London. The following companies will present :

• Matis Informatics
• G19 Software AG
• Decision Made Easy
• Beach Solution

If you are at the conference that day, drop me a note if you want to meet...