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December 2009November Is the Proverbial Turkey
Posted in Mike's Commentary
November turned out to be a real turkey with only two (yes, two) companies reporting new financings. This is the lowest level of reported financings that we’ve seen since we began tracking transactions in November 2001. Thankfully, December is looking to be a much better month with a reasonable amount of activity reported during the first three weeks of the month. Despite the dismal level of reported activity, increased activity at some of the firms in town along with
November 2009October 2009 “Have We Hit Bottom?”
Posted in Mike's Commentary
October turned out to be a rather positive month with 12 companies reporting having received $102 million in investment capital with one additional company reporting a transaction for an undisclosed amount. Importantly, the month was the best that we have seen for both amount invested and number of deals since September 2008.
September - hopeful signs of renewed international interest
Posted in Mike's Commentary
While September’s reported investment levels do not point to any sign of a turnaround, there was positive activity from foreign groups renewing their activity in
Not Much News to Report…But Lots of Things to Do
Posted in Mike's Commentary
While I would say that September’s results are disappointing, it is positive to see foreign investment in a number of Canadian companies. Montreal-based Enobia Pharma closed a US$50 million C round, Burnaby BC-based General Fusion raised $22 million and Toronto-based CoveritLive received a strategic investment from California-based Demand MediaTM. To some degree it’s sad that we have to highlight three investments as being positive notes for the month but we’ll take what we can in the current funding environment.
We have also heard on the street that Edgestone, Growthworks and BDC are working on transactions, which is positive news, particularly since
Drip, drip, drip
Posted in Mike's Commentary
Further evidence of the ongoing cyclical downturn in the Canadian Venture Capital market came from this week’s publication of second quarter results by the Canadian Venture Capital Association. The second quarter saw the lowest level of investment in 14 years while the first six month investment levels have not been this low in 13 years. VC activity in the second quarter came in at $179 million, representing a 42% decline from the $309 million invested in Q2/08 and 34% lower than the $272 million invested in the first quarter of this year. Ominously, the average deal size has fallen to $1.9 million from the modest $2.9 million average reported in both the first quarter of 2009 and the second quarter of 2008. Obviously, we’re seeing the impact of
Market Bottom or Trouble Ahead?
Posted in Mike's Commentary
Addressing Morgan Stanley’s decision to publish “How Teenagers Consume Media”, Edward Hill-Wood, executive director of Morgan Stanley’s European media team, was quoted as saying in articles in The Guardian and The Financial Times that 15 year old intern Matthew Robson’s report was “one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen — so we published it.,” I guess Mary Meeker should freshen up her resume!
One just has to laugh (or LOL for the younger folks) when reading the headlines that for the most part ran along the same lines:
- Financial Times – Note by “teenage scribbler” causes sensation
- Crunchgear.com – There’s a fantastic report coming out of Morgan Stanley…
- Timesonline – Twitter is for old people, work experience whiz-kid tells bankers…
- The Guardian – How teenagers consume media: the report that shook the City….
- Regator.com/whatshot – …the Morgan Stanley report that everyone’s buzzing about…
Guess what, the kid wants his music for free, can’t afford a smart phone, doesn’t pay attention to online advertising, likes to play on his Wii rather than the more expensive Playstation, hangs out at the cinema, doesn’t read newspapers and likes Facebook over Twitter. I guess I’m supposed to short RIM, Google and Sony and give a call to Marc Andreessen at Andreessen Horowitz to tell him that his belief in Twitter is misplaced.
Let me ask you:
Some Positive Developments
Posted in Mike's Commentary
May turned out to be more of the same as we continue to see the downward slide in investment activity. During the month only six companies reported raising a total of $20.6 million in new capital.
On the positive news front May (and early June) saw a number of encouraging developments. These include:
April: Getting Warmer?
Posted in Mike's Commentary
Despite the fact that April was another dismal month it was good to find a number of venture firms that we haven’t seen in a while make investments. Edgestone was back with its $14.2 million investment in BreconRidge; Telus Ventures invested in Skypoint Capital; BDC Venture Capital played a part in a $17 million raise for Teradici Corporation; and Jefferson Partners made an $11.6 million investment in Storage Appliance Corporation.
Recently released results from the CVCA only confirm what we have been reporting on a monthly basis. The arrow continues to be pointed in a southeasterly direction and with first quarter commitments of capital to the Canadian venture industry down 74% to $149 million versus $418 million during the comparable period in 2008, the near-term prospects for recovery are bleak. Nonetheless, we are seeing some positives such as...
March 2009Almost There?
Posted in Mike's Commentary
At times like this, it’s easy to understand how Henry Blodgett could step out and make his infamous October 1998 $400 buy recommendation on Amazon. It looked as though share prices had nowhere to go but up and analysts and market pundits were climbing all over each other to be the first on CNBC with the most outrageous positive pronouncements on the market. Certainly if you adhere to the old maxim, “the trend is your friend”, it’s not too difficult to make a call that
New Month, Same Story!
Posted in Mike's Commentary
Sorry folks, more of the same this month. No real news for those of us who live and breathe this sector. Year-end results simply confirm what we have all known for the past 18 months and, despite efforts by the CVCA and other parties to garner the interest of the government, most of the information and requests have fallen on deaf ears.
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