Bitcoins, Broker-Dealers, Investment Bankers and New Business Models: The Race is On

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Bitcoin and the topic of “virtual currency” continues to gain traction, as evidenced by the increasing number of technology-savvy corporate executives focused on the world of transactions. Within the world of broker-dealers and investment bankers, bitcoins are increasingly intriguing when considering the global ramifications of a new tool that will be part of the toolset for trading securities and financial instruments; and certainly a tool for which start-up companies seeking capital can build a business plan around.

Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz explains his outlook here:

More Than Half of VC-Backed Start-ups Valued at $1Bil+ are B2B

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Logo-for-the-Wall-Street-Journal-CIO-JournalBrokerDealer.com blog update is courtesy of this a.m.’s WSJ CIO Journal and reporter Rachel King: For companies who aspire to the same success as the biggest and best, selecting the right investment banker and broker-dealer can mean the difference between greatness and simply a great idea (that never made it..) The brokerdealer.com database can help entrepreneurs source and locate bankers, licensed investment brokers and qualified investors across the globe.

 

Twenty of 35 VC-backed startups valued at $1 billion or more are business-to-business companies, including Dropbox Inc., Palantir Technologies Inc. and Cloudera Inc. That’s a higher percentage of B2B startups than during the dot-com bubble years of 1999 and 2000. For some of these startups, the high valuations can help inspire confidence with prospective corporate customers. For others, the overall rise in valuations is reminiscent of previous instances of collective — and misplaced — euphoria. “I’m not worried,” Karim Faris, general partner at Google Ventures, tells CIO Journal. “There’s a lot more meat to the bone this time around than there was in 1999.” The WSJ CIO Journal full list of $1B+ startups is in this article.)

 

Top Secret Palantir Technologies Valued at $9Bil Considers Alternative to IPO

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Extracts published at Brokerdealer.com are courtesy of NY Times May 31 story by Quentin Hardy

Palantir Technologies will not help you share, message, pin, post or chat. It does not exist to make you more social or connected, or even to help advertisers get to you. Its technology is deeply geeky, its work secretive. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most valuable private tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Palantir Technologies, which has 1,500 employees, has government and private clients worldwide. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Palantir Technologies, which has 1,500 employees, has government and private clients worldwide. Credit Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

This year, Palantir, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., is expected to bring in about $1 billion in revenue, mostly from private companies interested in adaptations of its intelligence software. Though it is not yet profitable, investors have given Palantir almost $900 million in total. The most recent round, last December, sold shares in the company to investors at an implied valuation for the company of $9 billion.

All of this has its investors, including some of the world’s most successful hedge funds, salivating for a big payday from an initial public offering. “The company has been incredibly successful, and every investor likes when companies go public,” Justin Fishner-Wolfson, a managing partner at 137 Ventures, which is one of those investors, said in an email.

Instead of selling stock to the public, founder and co-CEO Alex Karp and other executives are toying with the idea of creating new kinds of financial instruments, like a bond that pays off on future earnings, to unlock a bit of Palantir’s value.

For the full story from the NY Times, please click here