Technology & Cyber Strategy for the Mergers & Acquisitions Industry

No doubt, it is a hot, hot market and apparently somewhat recession proof. Video Games and, by extension, Virtual Entertainment(basically a game but based on a paradigm of experience rather than score/achievement) are a huge market with a worldwide projected value of $47Bn by 2010 under a CAGR of 14%(PwC, 2008). Great potential and a huge area for VCs to invest in. In 2008, funding alone for games & virtual worlds reached almost $1Bn from Venture & Angel sources which went into a approximately 110 firms(VentureBeat, April 26th 2009). With that in mind, it is a good market for any VC to be aware of so here are some thoughts about innovations that might make for good investments: Mobile Gaming / Wireless - not wireless game controllers, but actual wireless/mobile game versions that can be ported over to PDA/Cell device so that people can continue to play while on the subway or training to work or breaking for lunch. Packet or "chapter" technology that can allow for peo...

I was discussing the uses of social media for businesses recently with a VC contact of mine in NYC. A by-product from the disconnect that exists between social and business media, I feel there is a missing piece of the puzzle here that Facebook could crack and establish a more direct stream of revenue. Facebook is a person-centric platform in which a user's profile or "Face" is the brand which is the whole point of social networking. This differs from the MySpace strategy which simply allows homepages to be built around a business presence and allows almost complete customization. Facebook limits the changes but benefits from the user-defined & private network experience while still allowing a person to become a fan. What Facebook does not allow is the creation of actual facebook profile or homepages for a business (eg a company does not have a "face"). To this end, Facebook allows Pages or News Feeds or Events to be created as secondary tiers for a person...

It is a common and fairly dependable maxim within the VC industry to rate the probable success of a new tech firm (or any firm) by the quality of the management in place. This also extends to the quality, experience and knowledge of the technical leads at any firm whose competitive advantage relies on their in-house technology. It is rarely an issue of how many types of code does the lead developer know or how many SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) models does the team use. Rather, it is more of a measurement of the entire team in terms of a number of factors. These factors include relevant experience, experience within the specific industry & experience within the company itself (familiarity with the product in question). These three axes are a decent, back-of-the-envelope rating system to get a firm grip on how a companies technical leads can be assessed. Included is a very simple chart I included for a VC client of mine who wanted a general, objective summary of the techno...

Yes, the Templar's treasure of the technology age: A Mobile Web that works!  This is legendary myth spoken about by Ad-Venture Capitalists hoping to discover the proprietary mobile software platform that can provide this. This the perpetual underlying goal that all the big smartphone/PDAs such at the iPhone, the Blackberry Storm, the G1 Android, etc are trying to give their users. If you build it, they will come - come and sign up for mandatory 3-year contracts, no less. From the technologist perspective their are several hurdles that need to be overcome or addressed in order to make this a reality and give freedom to the Internet Kingdom. I have done some significant technology due diligence in this sector from research to direct company vetting. In order for a firm to be a good VC investment it should include or address some of the following issues: Mobile Web Highlights for VC Investment: Standardization : W3C Web Initiative is wrestling with this but a unification of mobi platf...

I have been asked by multiple VC clients of mine to explain the 3-Tier architecture as it pertains to vetting a software company. Since many SaaS, ASP & web-enabled software companies use an interation of this architecture it helps to have a breakdown of it. Understanding the workings of the standard 3-Tier web architecture greatly improves the VCs understanding of a web-enabled software's inner workings thus allowing for a better investment decision. The following describes the each of the layers and a standard diagram is provided to represent each conceptual tier: Presentation tier – web application layer consisting of web site code hosted on a Internet facing server (Apache or IIS). Interactions with this layer initiate data transaction calls to communicate with a runtime engine or similar in the COM layer. Logic tier – Often called the COM layer, it consists of a runtime engine or other processing central code. This layer accepts transaction calls from the presentation la...

Just like Coke vs Pepsi or Mac vs PC, an information-age old question is what type of source code is best for developing new software. As a technology consultant for venture capitalists, this question arises fairly often. Since my VC clients often have to review business plans for tech start-ups, gambling their competitive advantage on the programming language they use can be risky. A VC friend of mine who has a minimal technology background asked my opinion regarding an SaaS (software as a service) start-up that came his way. The firm's software product was built on Microsoft's .Net Framework and was designed with VB Net.  His question : what did these technical terms really mean to him as a possible VC backer? Once again, another strong case for performing technology due diligence on a potential target tech firm. My answer: while it is difficult and dangerous to rate the market validity & viability of a software package via its language, there are some very important thi...

What's the Scoop: Venture Capital firms are continuing to review and invest in web 2.0 firms but the initial honeymoon is over. According to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree report and VentureSource summaries, VC investments in Web 2.0 fell almost 50% in Q3 of 2008. While investments were still made it is important to keep in mind some fundamentals that social and collaborative technologies need to evince to be considered mature products. What to Look For: Here is a quick and dirty list of qualities a VC should look for in a Web 2.o company while performing technology due diligence and assessment: Sustainable Technological Advantag e - the idea (like sharing RSS feeds) has to be great but the IT implementation has to one that cannot be easily replicated. This is what happened to MySpace, someone came right in and made a good idea great and now has all the marketshare. New innovations will take Web 2.0 to the next level, ideas such as unifying all internet message boards via a ...