Pages tagged: 'Funding'
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On the Bounce
2021 has seen a bounce-back in venture equity investment. Some of this is post 2020 COVID related but is there something else going on?
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Investing in Stealth Mode
Down rounds appear to be more frequent in recent months. But surely down rounds regularly occur, even in “normal” times? Half a year on from the pandemic starting to hurt the economies, evidence has emerged that the number of down rounds is definitely increasing.
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Unfortunate Unicorns
Unicorns remain the ultimate achievement for entrepreneurs and investors alike. But away from the kudos of joining this exclusive club, are such goals the best target to aim for?
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Should Interest Rates Interest Tech Investors?
So the BoE has finally signalled its intent to return to normalised monetary policy and raised interest rates. It’s accepted that it will not have much effect on the incoming spike in inflation - caused mainly by exchange rates – but may well have a detrimental effect on already fragile economic growth. Adding this to the headwinds of Brexit, does this signal danger for the tech investor or opportunity?
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Post Brexit – Tech Blues or Blue Sky?
UK tech is the best in Europe, but does Brexit pose a threat or opportunity? In recent years the team at London’s Tech City has produced a healthcheck of technology across the country, called the Tech Nation report. Even if you take some of the findings with a pinch of political salt (Theresa May wrote the Foreward), there does seem to be good news for the UK tech investors.
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Why Every CIO/CTO is a Venture Capitalist
Crystal ball gazing in the search for disruptive technologies is a favourite pastime of investors, analysts and futurologists. Predictions range from the obvious to the science fiction. However, a recent report by Deloitte came up with a disruptor that was not a technology at all. They said that every CIO and IT manager should stop focussing on keeping the lights on and minimising risk and instead should think like a venture capitalist. Isn’t this is a recipe for disaster?
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Better Than Average
Are you better than average at spotting which are the best tech investments to make? Almost every tech investor believes that they have a particular insight or edge than make them better than the norm. In reality, believing you’re better than average is all psychology and not based in reality at all. However, more data from what really makes successful investors is starting to pop the self belief bubble.
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Connectivity and Contentment
Indonesia is the latest country to announce an ambitious Fibre To The Premises rollout, promising 10Gb down and 2.5Gb upload speeds. Even with a budget of $100bn, it’s a daunting task, particularly that Indonesia is targeting 20 million homes spread over 900 inhabited islands. Indonesia is also in the news as it has topped another poll for apparently being the happiest country to live in, according to a survey from Ipsos. Connectivity beings many benefits, but is contentment one of them?
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Making Seeds Grow
This week the UK Chancellor announced that the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) is going to be made permanent. You might be wondering why there’s been so much interest in simply continuing with something that’s already set up. The reason is that whilst the big brother Enterprise Investment Scheme had been going for a while, the Seed version was a bit of an experiment. So has it worked and what can be learnt for other aspiring tech sectors?
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Rise of the Anti-Business
In 2007 two men and a dog in Aberdeen set out to brew a new kind of beer and take on the leviathans that dominate the sector. Roll on seven years and the self proclaimed anti-business business Brewdog has more than trebled every year, boasts 6,500 shareholders and even global drinks giant Diageo was forced into a humiliating public apology over it’s clumsy efforts to stifle them. If this disruption can happen in an industry that’s over 4,000 years old, what does that tell us for the tech sector?
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Giving it Away for Free Lands S1bn
If you want to find out what people think, of you, your product, or even where you should go for the Christmas meal, the chances are you’ll use Survey Monkey. It’s simple, easy to deploy, almost user foolproof – and the basic version is free. So how come the company has joined the “unicorn” brigade of $1bn plus?
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