Flipping to the bank

The laregly moribund US IPO market might flip around(pun intended) with the Burger King IPO next week.

As the article mentions -- Burger King faces intense competition from the likes of MDonalds, Wendys and Jack in the Box. However, its heartening to see some life in the U.S IPO market. Between, Burger King, Vonage and MasterCard we will hopefully see one huge 'home run' in 2006.

Namaste

Facebook rides social networking wave

Another hot social networking startup, Facebook, recently announced it had been funded by Greylock Partners.

I'm surprised, and impressed, by the actual funding amount. Most Internet companies normally do not need tons of funding to expand -- since costs of hardware, broadband etc are in a perpetual downward trend. The only things that keeps rising in the Silicon Valley is the price of smart engineers.

Of course, the other side of the story is that Facebook is commanding an extremely high valuation and atleast a couple of VC's were in competition for the deal. The resulting auction might have played a large part in the funding amount.

Chances are Facebook will pump most of the money towards hiring people and adding cool features to it's site. They might advertise extensively to attract more users, to reach the all important critical mass so critical to explosive growth.


Cheers

An unusual marriage

A most unusual partnership deal involvng two VC firms - Sequoia and Westbridge partners was consummated recently.

This is the first time ever I've heard two VC companies merging. I don't understand how they reconcile the interests of their limited partners or how the proceeds of exits of their portfolio companies are divided.

At any rate, it does highlight the dramatically growth of private equity in India. When a heavy-hitter like Sequoia chooses to enter a market by acquisition it would probably mean that they do no want to waste time setting up shop, hiring people etc. In other words they are keen to get on the ground quickly, and start raking in the dough.

Interesting times in the world economy..