Will I get venture capital funding?
February 1st, 2008 | Finance & Tax
Venture Capital funding is the wish of many entrepreneurs. We recall the heyday of the Internet Startup with loosely banded groups of programmers gravitate to a business minded former executive of something and rent fancy offices in Silicon Valley and pump out code and create new businesses overnight. With easy access to cash to fuel overnight growth some great idea were born. As were many lousy ones. In time, the fertile valley was ravaged by hyper-demand of decent housing and quality programmers causing both housing prices and salaries to skyrocket.
Some say that we are experiencing another tech bubble. As this video suggests.
While there are certainly similarities between 2008 and 1998 one thing is for sure – startups are different. For one access to ready equity investors is not as easy to come by. According to a recent article published in NewsFactor, the VC market is shaky:
Venture funding for all industries has fallen by more than half since 1999, dropping from $54.1 billion then to $26.5 billion in 2006, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Funding for Internet startups is running at roughly $1 billion a quarter in 2007, down from a high of $14.27 billion in the first quarter of 2000.
So for many entrepreneurs the VC dream may just be a pipedream. While there are still billions of dollars to be had for the lucky few, many more startups will be self funded as I described in this post.
No Comments