Pages tagged: 'Investment'
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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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Social Innovation
Innovation has helped us ameliorate the pandemic but the social distancing response may be our downfall. As the world struggles to emerge from the pandemic, arguments rage about whether we can beat it or just learn to live with it. Whatever happens with COVID-19 one thing we can be sure of is that it will not be the last pandemic.
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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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Scale Up or Cover Up?
Investing in fast growing scale up businesses that generate over 100X is the stuff analysts dream of. Yet it can so easily all go wrong, no matter how deep your pockets are. Cast your mind back to 2012 and imagine that you’d been offered the opportunity to invest in a technology business that was changing the way people and businesses work.
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Execution Trumps Inspiration
Many factors influence startup business success but is there one overriding factor? Evidence seems to point that way.
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Will Europe overtake the US for Tech?
Earlier this year Forbes updated it’s list of the most successful tech companies. Europe is larger, more populous and arguably more creative than the US. Yet why do we still not match the US for tech?
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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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Biggest may not be Best
The brightest stars get most attention but are unicorn company returns quite so fabulous? Tech market analysts CB Insights keep a track of the world’s unicorn companies – those private companies valued at more than $1billion. CB Insights reckons that there are now 183 such companies worldwide, with a combined value of $657bn.
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ARMing for Innovation
Within weeks of the UK’s Brexit vote, Japan’s Softbank announced that it had agreed to acquire the darling of the UK tech scene – ARM Holdings - for £24bn. At a stroke, not only is this the largest purchase of British innovation but also removes the independence of the last of the UK’s “super unicorn” (i.e. >$10bn value) company. With the acquisition has the outlook improved – or worsened – for UK innovation?
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The Innovation Champions League
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has just released it’s latest report on entrepreneurial behaviour and attitudes. It’s an impressive piece of work – almost a quarter of a million interviews across 100+ countries with countless institutions and academic establishments contributing. And they’ve been doing it for 17 years so it’s a well established and objective process. It shows how well the UK is doing – and why innovation is key.
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Bulls, bears and unicorns
Is the market turmoil making it harder for innovative companies to IPO – or providing opportunity? In March 2014 King Digital, the makers of the hugely popular Candy Crush game, launched it’s IPO. All the signs were good and the market was in stable bull territory. However, in the first day prices tumbled from the IPO guide at $22 to less than $18. For a $7bn company, it was the largest IPO failure for a tech business for some years. The stock further declined to $12 over the next few months. Yet today, those early investors may be thinking how smart (or lucky) they were when others are losing their heads. So what is going on?
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The More the Merrier?
Crowdfunding is coming of age but choosing the right route can be an issue. How can you be sure that the crowd does know best? You know when a sense of maturity is approaching a market when suddenly a number of review sites spring up. So it is with crowdfunding.
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Technology Takeover
This month Apple reported a net profit $18bn, topping ExxonMobil’s previous quarterly record of $15.9bn in 2012. And if this wasn’t enough, the record profit was a huge 37 per cent up on the previous year. Apple has now shipped more than 1billion iPhones, iPads and iPods. With Apple posting the largest ever corporate profit, is technology ready to become the lead sector across the globe?
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Perils of Investing in Our Own Image
Every investment note on the planet contains a profile of the management team because the received wisdom is that execution matters more than inspiration. Meeting the management team of a startup or growth company is de rigeur for almost every investor – yet it may be their biggest mistake.
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Why Technology Investments Shine
Every index has its ups and down but on 11th April this year the technology focussed Nasdaq fell 3.1 per cent, the worst one-day percentage loss since 2011. Why?
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The Internet of Things Casts Shadows
With 6 billion new internet devices being rolled out in 2014 alone The Internet of Things is upon us, but how aware are we of the risks? The number of devices connected to the internet is growing about as rapidly as the total amount of data the worlds holds. To date, we have learnt to live with the security risks associated with desktop operating systems, even managed to treat our phones the same way but always felt that proprietary systems (such as electricity systems) are just more robust.
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