Neil Movold's List: Finance and Investment

Everything you need to know about mergers & acquisitions, including which companies are making deals, downsizing, and outsourcing IT, and how you can bring together corporate cultures for smoother transition.

Released today, the preliminary report, which is part of a larger innovation research project, finds Ontario technology startups with larger social networks are associated with more startsup funding, at an average rate of $1.7 million more per relationship.  Findings of the report also revealed that nearly half of network connections in the best funded companies come from San Francisco, Boston or New York.

If you're new to negotiating or find it difficult, here are some missteps to avoid.

One of the most important things to look at is CONTROL. Who controls your company? If it’s the investors, that’s bad. If it’s you, that’s good. There are other control issues you want to understand around your investors' rights to invest in follow on rounds, block acquisitions, etc. So I’d focus mostly on control and less on valuation or $$ raised.

fter taking a back seat in recent years to consumer Internet companies like social websites and mobile-apps makers, technology start-ups that sell to businesses are hot again with Silicon Valley investors, helped by the growing popularity of online software.

In a shift away from the frenzy surrounding consumer-focused companies such as social-games maker Zynga Inc., venture capitalists are pouring more money into business-to-business start-ups.

After months of hand-wringing over the severe drought plaguing Canada’s venture capital sector, John Ruffolo proposed a plan Monday to get the money flowing again. The chief executive of OMERS Ventures, a new $200-million fund launched by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System last month, shared with business leaders in a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade five opportunities he hopes will fix Canada’s broken startup financing ecosystem.

There are lots of trends people have been talking about in tech financing--"superangels"; delayed IPOs; secondary market sales; and more.
But so far, few people have been putting the dots together: the entire financing landscape for companies is changing. 
And, excitingly, it's increasingly not just technology companies.
There are many new financing options for growing companies that weren't available a decade ago.
Here's how we break them down (we'll visit each one in turn):
Crowdfunding
Accelerators
Super-angels
Late-stage private equity
The long-delayed IPO

Martin Zwilling writes on Startup Professionals Musings that once you have a potential investor excited about your start-up team, your product, and your company, the investor will inevitably ask, "What is your company's valuation?" Many entrepreneurs stumble at this point, losing the deal or most of their ownership, by having no answer, saying "make me an offer," or quoting an exorbitant number.

Let’s face it, fundraising can be a real pain in the ass for the entrepreneur.

It takes up a ton of time that can be otherwise spent managing the business.

Sure, it’s a necessary evil, but it’s also typically a big distraction.

It’s also a lot like dating. You have to go on a lot of first dates before you can move on the to the second, third, fourth, and then hopefully marriage. The worst thing you can do is slut around. It wastes a ton of time, can damage your reputation, and doesn’t get you far.