SDForum Venture Finance: Raising Venture Funding vs. Early Acquisition July 19, 2010

Venture Finance SIG: Raising Venture Funding vs. Early Acquisition

With the decrease in venture exits and liquidity, startup founders are faced with a decision early whether to raise traditional venture funding or seek an early acquisition. Large companies have been making a significantly more smaller acquisitions that result in great returns for founders and angel/seed investors alike. Join us with two insiders who help guide entrepreneurs daily. Topics will include:
- How difficult is it to raise venture financing? What are the expectations once I raise money?
- Who are making acquisitions? What types of startups are they seeking?
- What's the timeline?
- What are the requirements for each? How do they differ?

Panelists:
Neeraj Arora, Google Corporate Development
Kent Goldman, First Round Capital

Moderator:
Rohit Gupta, Opus Capital

Kent Goldman, First Round Capital
Most recently, he was a member of the Corporate Development team at Yahoo, where he focused on M&A to support the company's user-facing properties. In 2007, he led the company's $350M acquisition of Zimbra. Earlier, Kent led business strategy efforts for Yahoo's Front Page, Communications and Community products which included Yahoo.com, My Yahoo and Yahoo Mail.

Before joining Yahoo in 2004, Kent was an institutional investor focusing on early-stage consumer technology. Among the firm's investments with which he worked most closely was Oddpost, one of the first web-based services to demonstrate the functionality of a desktop application. In 2004, Yahoo acquired the company. Oddpost's technology now serves as the basis for the Yahoo Mail interface.

Neeraj Arora, Google
Neeraj Arora works in Google's M&A team focusing on acquisitions in internet and mobile space. Prior to joining Google in 2007, Neeraj worked as Chief Manager at Indiatimes.com focussing on new product development and strategic investments.

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