Bleeding Edge

Let’s Discuss and Learn from the Author of the book: “What Colour is your Exit?” –Dr Pano Kroko about what is that makes a Successful StartUp Exit.

It’s a Talk about Strategic Acquisitions, Mergers and Acquisitions and Fold-Ins.

What about the following useful Liquidity Events in the Life of a StartUp?

Private exit?

Acquihire?

Merger?

In today’s fast evolving StartUp world, it is important to remember that Strategic, Private, Acquihire, and M & A Exits — outnumber the public market IPOS by upwards of One Hundred to One… There is a Reason for this and Reality is a Good Starting point to address. So it is good to learn the dynamics Merger & Acquisition Discussions for Tech StartUps and for all other growth sectors of the economy. This is an opportunity for CEOs of both StartUps and well established companies to interact, find common ground, and practice their combined interaction, syndication, and M&A communication skills. We’ll take an Investment Banking perspective to find your sweet spot for an Exit or for an M & A opportunity, with yourself and your company assets and growth plans, as collateral for Change… Practical and Actionable Intelligence along with Interactive Simulation of our M&A Activities ensues and helps identify the Tell-Tale signs of a good fit between prospective partners in any M&A activity.

This is an interactive and participatory exchange mapped out in a game board that teaches and impacts all of the participants through an M & A real life scenario. It’s like running a Harvard Business School M&A case simulation in an hour, but without the HBR fees and the famous East Coast lack of humour…

Join us to grasp and digest Opportunities…

The Strategic Acquisition Environment for Seattle Startups in 2015 is hopefully rosy.

After a banner year in 2014 with $1.5 billion in new funding for startups, Seattle also posted a great year of exits with 47 acquisitions and 7 IPO’s. 2015 has already begun to show good results in acquisitions, such as Zomato’s  for $55 million purchase of Urbanspoon.

Given the number of acquisitions that have taken place, and the continued growth of Seattle startups during the current M&A wave, it is worth noting the role of strategic acquirers in the Seattle region. As the competition and rivalry among tech firms continues to heat up, acquisitions enable companies with sufficient resources to buy vs. build. Top 2014 US Acquirers like Yahoo!, Google, Apple, and Cisco have led the tech acquisition space as they consolidate adjacent technologies necessary for building a base for their future organic growth.

Seattle startups attract national attention

While only two of the top 15 are in the Seattle region, it’s clear the Pacific Northwest has attracted national attention. Over, 2000Seattle-based startups have been acquired, representing nearly $31 billion of exits. While the strategics located within Seattle have been active, 90 percent of the companies acquired went to acquirers outside Seattle, including Google, EMC, Yahoo!, and Cisco, a company known for its acquisition growth strategy.

Software a key sector for acquirers of Seattle startups

The biggest acquisition space for Seattle has been in software, particularly within enterprise software. SAP’s 2014 acquisition of Concur for $12.1 billion is by far the most demonstrative of an enterprise software roll-up into a Strategic acquirer from Seattle. Other focal areas include mobile, curated web, and e-commerce, which enabled acqui-hire solutions for strategic talent.

Additional sectors poised for strategic exit

Seattle’s continued early stage investments in cloud, mobile and analytics will be a draw for future strategic acquisitions.  Specifically, Seattle has seen a shift in the number of investment rounds in analytics, networking, and EdTech. Key companies funded were Socrata, Deep Domain, Context Relevant, and API Metrics, Koru, Code.org, while some of the traditional industries as general software and games lost share of rounds. However, big winners in 2014 dollars were in healthcare, including Juno Therapeutics with $310 million in funding, which recently raised a $212 million IPO.

Early stage investments made in 2014 and B2B/enterprise solutions with emphasis in cloud, mobile, and analytics pave the way to great acquisitions for strategics. Specifically, strategics looking to add to product portfolio, add new customer segments, or looking for add to their talent base relative will continue find value in Seattle startups. Such exits are critical for refueling the economic development engine, so stay tuned for updates on exits, IPOs and acquisitions.