It’s not very often one comes across an article, a cover
story at that, in Newsweek
on the start-up scene & VCs – So there was no which way I could have let-up
an opportunity to read through, read in between the lines, postulate,
extrapolate and generally make my own merry conclusions on stuff the article
never intended to dwell on - Call me extreme, that’s okay – like the partners
at Greylock, I don’t back down easily either :-)
It isn’t perhaps
about trying to find/ fund the next Facebook at Greylock
While the title has enough oomph to grab eye-balls, it could
be fundamentally misleading. A quick look at the recent investments (mentioned
within the article) of Greylock partners shows it is bullish on startups that are
waltzing back into the realm of real-life albeit through cyber gateways – i.e. ones
that have built revenue models on O2O commerce platforms; think Airbnb;
Coupons; OneKingsLane; Shopkick (all Reid Hoffman investments..); Sprig; (Simon Rothman) – Though
it’s just one subset of investments primarily by one partner, the sheer
millions pumped in indicate there’s a lot of enthusiasm at Greylock on O2O
commerce.
Just may be David Sze should display a real apple (besides
Apple Newton & Apple iPhone) in his timeline collection of technologies – a
sweet reminder that any technology’s ultimate potential lies offline
Incubate a potential acquisition? –
Sounds like a nice strategy or is it?
It is perhaps a strategy/ wish to utilize the (insider) knowledge
of a current investee companies that are avid deal-hunters themselves by way of
incubating a few custom designed startups & facilitating (evetually) their acquisitions by the aforesaid companies – Consider the investments in Nextdoor,
Path, Jelly, Medium, Pandora
(all David Sze investments..) & the likelihood of these companies getting
acquired by either Facebook or Linkedin at some point of time.
Startup scene in USA
is raining Asoks* – and
they’ve been raking in some moolah, finally
The article starts with Gagan Biyani (Sprig), dwells on
Aneel Bhusri (Greylock) and mentions the likes of Nirav Tolia (Nextdoor) – not
an inconsequential acknowledgement of the increasing presence of Indians in the
American entrepreneurial scene.
*’Asok’ is used in the context of any
techie of Indian origin rather than just the IITians.
A final dig I can’t help – The article by Katrina Brooker is
far superior to anything related I’ve come across in HBR magazine till date.
