To: philipah who wrote (89071 ) 9/29/1999 4:30:00 AM From: Amy J Respond to of 186894
Re: "Isn't it amazing that Intel seems so unrespected by a market infatuated with dot coms and business models that preclude profits for the (un)forseeable future. e-anything gets the attention of talking heads while ...investment incubation at Intel go (apparently)unnoticed. What would think of a spin-off of such assets? Comments from the esteemed thread are invited." TIA P -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Philipah, Intel's VC arm garners some respect... : ) Amy J "One of the more interesting additions to this year's list is Intel, whose Corporate Business Development Group tied (with W.S. Investments) for No. 3, with a return of 633.3 percent from its investment in Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT). ... proved that it has the financial and strategic shrewdness to compete with the nation's top-performing VC firms." redherring.com Top venture firms of 1998 By Cheryl J. Myers Red Herring magazine supplement Going Public 1999 The venture capital business is risky, but it's easy to forget that fact when Internet companies with virtually no earnings are raising record amounts of cash through initial public offerings, and when private technology companies are acquired for similarly impressive amounts. While IPOs saw some rocky times last year, many VC firms still earned impressive returns through their portfolio companies' IPOs. Departing from the method used in last year's issue, this time Going Public ranks 1998's top VC firms by the percentage gain of the stock of its technology portfolio IPOs from the time of the IPO until year-end. We chose this measure rather than market capitalization gain so as not to exclude smaller issues with remarkable percentage gains. One drawback of this method, under current market conditions, is that the stock of companies that went public later in the year had less time to appreciate; the method also disregards mergers and acquisitions -- often a lucrative exit strategy for VCs but one that cannot be compared using the same criteria. Our latest rankings, which were compiled by Venture Economics, are based solely on venture-backed IPOs and exclude companies that conduct most of their business outside the United States, as we have done in the past. Going Public's top-performing VC firms are Benchmark Capital and Maveron -- both invested in eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), which appreciated by more than 1,300 percent. Nine of the top 25 firms invested in Exodus Communications (Nasdaq: EXDS) (including 7 companies whose sole portfolio IPO was Exodus), which appreciated by 287.1 percent. One of the more interesting additions to this year's list is Intel, whose Corporate Business Development Group tied (with W.S. Investments) for No. 3, with a return of 633.3 percent from its investment in Inktomi (Nasdaq: INKT). The group's emphasis is on expanding the market for Intel products, including PCs and workstations, but its 1998 IPO proved that it has the financial and strategic shrewdness to compete with the nation's top-performing VC firms. The investments of Microsoft and Sumitomo had similar successes in 1998, with IPOs that placed them at No. 5 and No. 19, respectively. Although our top 25 firms earned impressive returns from IPOs, the total capital raised in these offerings by venture-backed technology companies increased only 5 percent from 1997, according to the investment-research firm VentureOne. A possible reason is that the number of venture-backed tech IPOs decreased for the second year in a row. The drop hasn't deterred VC firms from investing in new companies, though. In fact, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' MoneyTree survey, 1998 was a record year for technology venture financing: the year's investments totaled $10.8 billion, up 30 percent from 1997 and up 96 percent from 1996. With new investments in tech companies at a record high and with a less predictable market for IPOs, many of these companies (with the blessing of the VC firms backing them) may seek to be acquired rather than go public. But after the headiness of 1998 -- when, as VentureOne observed, VC-backed companies entering the public markets earned record valuations -- many companies may be unable to resist the temptation of an IPO.