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No Sweat
Emerging growth companies are always taking heat, but this summer it’s not just closing financing, making payroll and increasing revenue---it’s actually the heat.
That said, while a drought continues to plague the Southeast, executive hiring up-and-down the east coast seems to be continuing at a steady pace. Companies which have been featured here often in the last few issues and have more recent hiring announcements include Reston, Va.-based Approva Corporation, New York City-based TACODA; Bethesda, Md.-based GetWellNetwork, Melville, N.Y.-based CosmoCom and New York City-based TheLadders.com, which again announces multiple hires.
Like last month’s news of Nina Sossamon leaving a television news anchor job to join Charleston, S.C.-based Benefitfocus, Boston-based 80108 Media was able to lure long-time publishing exec Sid Holt away from the media giant The Nielsen Company (formerly VNU). Could this be more anecdotal evidence that execs from Fortune 1000 companies are once again weighing the both personal and potentially financial advantages of helping grow venture-backed companies?
If you haven't already, check out this month's VC Profile of Boston-based M/C Venture Partners James Wade, whose firm is making a fortune off of Americans' love of gab. Wade deserves to be taking the summer off and sipping some Mount Gay rum on the Cape, as his firm was an investor in the hugely successful IPO of MetroPCS. Instead, he's juggling downtime with his wife and four kids and ramping up his next deal(s).
The staff at the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) must be drinking Red Bull on the rocks by the gallon as the org has sent out a flurry of reports in recent weeks. Like Shakespeare, one has to ask: Could there be more than one Emily Mendell, Vice President of Strategic Affairs? The number of emails I have from her with reports attached seems to indicated so. I can't cover all of NVCA's work here, but, of note, two excerpts:
Venture-backed IPOs Increase While Acquisition Activity Declines in Q2 2007: Twenty-six venture backed companies raised $4.27 billion through initial public offerings (IPOs) on U.S. exchanges in the second quarter of 2007, according to the Exit Poll report by Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). This dollar volume represents a
112 percent increase from the second quarter of 2006 when nineteen venture-backed companies went public raising $2 billion. Venture-backed merger and acquisition activity declined with 67 transactions completed this quarter compared to 95 in the second quarter of 2006. The survey found that Boston and San Jose-based companies generated the most IPO activity. The overall IPO earnings number was bolstered by the April 19th issue of MetroPCS Communications, the third largest venture-backed offering of all time [Just in case you missed it above: see interview with M/C Venture Partner’s James Wade, one of the MetroPCS’ investors.]
It Turns Out VCs Are Not Rapidly Investing Globally: Results from a recent survey done by Deloitte & Touche LLP and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) indicated that U.S. venture capital funds are not investing rapidly in the global market, despite widespread globalization as a whole. The areas firms are investing in include China, India, Israel and Canada, but even so, the firms are doing so cautiously. Instead, firms are looking at investing in U.S. companies which have operations and sell services globally. The survey was conducted in the second quarter of 2007 and measured attitudes and intentions of more than 500 venture capitalists worldwide.
Says Mark Jensen, national managing partner of Deloitte's Venture Capital Services, of the trend: “U.S.-based VCs are essentially dabbling in global markets, with the majority of
U.S. VC respondents indicating that less than 5 percent of their capital is invested overseas, generally in less than three deals per fund. VCs are making the majority of their foreign investments in areas with higher quality deal flow, entrepreneurial environments, and access to foreign markets, as well as places where they have experience and thus greater comfort levels.”
For me, it's ice coffee and hours of computer and phone time, as I try to create THE source of information for executives in the emerging growth market-space. Watch out for some of Talent Pool News' own announcements as we gear up to launch Talent Pool News Executive Network, some much-needed events and recruiting services.
In the meantime, be sure to send any hiring announcements you have this way: Janet Stites. Or just write to say hello. And remember to stop and smell the roses, get out the surfboard, fire up the grill--whatever it takes to enjoy the summer.
P.S. Come back soon to read the Executive Close-Up column of Benefitfocus' CEO Shawn Jenkins.
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About Janet Stites' Talent Pool News [east]
Talent Pool News [east] is an online journal covering Executive-level talent at emerging growth companies up and down the east coast. The publication systematically tracks the comings and goings of executives—CEOs, COOs, CFOs etc.—at start-ups and venture backed firms, as they help create the next generation of Fortune 1000 companies. What’s more, it facilitates a community among what has historically been an under-the-radar group of men and women. Primary coverage includes start-up firms in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.
Columns include Executive Hires, Boardroom Appointments, Executive Close-up, VC Profile, Funding, and Boardroom Briefs. Talent Pool News [east] is the brainchild of Janet Stites, long-time science, technology and business journalist, and co-founder of New York-based AlleyCat News magazine.
About Janet Stites
Janet Stites has worked as a science, technology and business writer and publisher for twenty years. Best known in the New York City-area for her work as founder and publisher of tech/finance magazine AlleyCat News, Stites has most recently worked as a freelance writer for publications such as Fortune Small Business and the Bulletin of the Santa Fe Institute and researcher and consultant in business development, sales, marketing and communications, for clients such as Business Development Institute, Deloitte & Touche, North Fork Bank, and Geller & Company.
In the late eighties, she was founding publisher, editor and part-owner of the telecommunications trade magazine, PHONE+. Later she worked as a science writer for OMNI Magazine and the Santa Fe Institute. In 1994, she served as editorial director for Jupiter Communications managing newsletter, research reports and conferences. In 1995, she launched one of the first consumer online newsletters NetGuide Now!, a weekly electronic newsletter published by CMP’s NetGuide Magazine.
She has written for the Pricewaterhouse Technology Forecast and has been a frequent guest on CNNfn. She has been profiled in Fortune, Folio, CyberTimes (owned by The New York Times), Worth and more. She served on Mayor Guiliani's New Media Task Force, was a founding member of the New York-based Women in New Media, and has twice been a judge for Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year" award's program.
Talent Pools News [east] is owned by The Carter Stites Group, LLC.
Copyright 2007, Janet Stites, The Carter Stites Group, LLC
Who’s Who at Talent Pool News [east]
Publisher & Editor: Janet Stites
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Art Director: Tuan Yeun
Business Strategy Consultant: Cynthia Hollen, Hollen Inc.
Editorial Consultant: Joe D’Agnese
Comic Relief: Sam Stites
Photo credit for picture of Janet Stites: Davide Butson-Fiori
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