2. Proprietary and Confidential
Who is John Kunschner?
Senior Partner & Managing Director
Head of Investment Banking Practice
Focus on Growth Opportunities Across Information
Technology, Hardware, Media Technology Sectors
Geography – US, Canada, Europe & Israel
Prior Firm Experience:
Representative Clients:
4. Proprietary and Confidential
Canadian Funds Investing Less, Domestically & Abroad
4
Smaller scale increases risk from shift to emerging markets
China, India, Brazil
Innovation continued despite US Recession – but Canada
remains investment starved
5. Proprietary and Confidential
Israeli High-Tech Companies Raising Less
5
Poster Child for Nurturing Innovation… But not Immune
Improving activity in Q2 & Q3 of 2010
3092
1985
1138
1011
1465
1137
1622
1759
2076
1122
918
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
YTD
Capital Raised by Israeli High Tech Companies ($Mn)
Capital Raised
6. Proprietary and Confidential
Reality of Decreased Fundraising Across Industry
6
Fund Sizes Getting Smaller / Fewer Firms Raising Funds
VC Investments Outpacing Fundraising
Inevitable Industry Shrinkage in Process
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
8,000
9,000
10,000
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2008 2009 2010
Fundraising By Venture Funds (U.S.)
Number of Funds Venture Capital ($M)
7. Proprietary and Confidential
The VC/PE Community…Uncertainty & New Focus
7
Capital efficiency is critical
Priority on Portfolio “Triage”
Dialing back risk – Invest Early or Late Stage
Acceptance of a Smaller Industry, New Dynamics
Active Strategic Investors – Threat or Opportunity?
New Funding Networks – Super Angels, High Net
Worth, Incubators, Growth PE
8. Proprietary and Confidential
Innovation Continues, but at Expense of
“Let’s Focus on Strategics & High Net Worth”
Earlier Stage / Alternative IPO’s
“We Don’t Want to Go to VCs”
…And Entrepreneurs are Growing Impatient
8
TSX-V, TASE, AIM, etc. – Is it worth it?
VC world too “Clubby”
Terms unattractive
Deal Flow Power Shift?
Job creation
Rapid Expansion
Marketing
Is there Value Add?
9. Proprietary and Confidential
The “Funding Barbell” Dynamic
9
VC’s Managing Current
Portfolio
Family Offices – Lots of Capital
But Fragmented & Disorganized
Look to Strategics EarlierSeed and Early Stage
Incubators
HNW
Super Angels
Late Stage and
Growth Equity
PE moving down
VC moving up
Shorter time to exit
The Mid Stage Funding Gap
10. Proprietary and Confidential
How Has the VC Model Changed?
10
Invest in 10 deals
2 go to zero
2 get 10x
6 get your money back
3-5 years to IPO or M&A exit
Deploy capital and take share
across emerging trends and
value creation
“Big Horizon” deals are very rare
(1 in 300K is a Facebook)
Less $ to Start Companies
(Open Source, SaaS, Web 2.0, Cloud )
Shift from “building the
infrastructure” to “soft-tech” and
customer & delivery platforms
Smaller funds, smaller deals, greater
competition on “marquee deals”
Forcing rationalization and
consolidation
How it Was The New Reality
11. Proprietary and Confidential
The Path Forward
11
Tax Reform - “116” a step
forward
R&D incentives – Israel as
the model, but Canada on
the right track
Angels / Incubators
Ecosystem for
entrepreneurship
Proper incentives for
investment professionals
Collaboration with
professional funds
But how to reach them?
Who monitors the
investments, protects
shareholder interests,
ensures follow thru?
Need to organize channel
to source and manage
investments through the
mid-stage
Create proper
infrastructure / support
Capital efficiency and
M&A
Better returns with
smaller deal sizes and
shorter time frames
Infrastructure for the
small cap IPO
Aligning Bankers,
Public Investors,
Corporate & VCs/PE
Government Programs
Super Angels, HNW,
Strategics
Exit Dynamics
Change Thinking
12. Proprietary and Confidential
Recent Exits – Seeing Signs of Life
12
*Includes all companies with at least 1 US VC investor that trade on US exchanges, regardless of domicile
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3
2008 2009 2010
Venture Backed Liquidity Events
Total M&A Deals Number of IPO's*
Improving activity in Social Networking, Media Delivery
Platforms, Enterprise 2.0, Clean Tech, Healthcare Services
A trend emerging… this is a great time to invest
15. Proprietary and Confidential
Industry Expertise / Focus
15
Networking / Datacenter
IT Application / Outsourcing
Info Security & Risk
Hardware, Semis & Optics
Alternative Energy / Cleantech
Business Operations IT
Media & Marketing
Legal & E-Discovery
Finance/Procurement IT
Supply Chain & Logistics
Medical Devices
Biotechnology
Specialty Pharma
Healthcare IT
IT Enabled Services
TECHNOLOGY HEALTHCARE BUSINESS SERVICES
16. Proprietary and Confidential
In the Middle of the Action or Why Do You Care?
16
VC / PE Investment
Community
Fortune 500/1000
Initiatives
Emerging Technology Companies
Drivers & Initiatives
Strategic Sourcing &
Expansion
Changing Tides
Investment Focus
Innovation & Technology
Market Traction
Focus on Linking US, Canada and Israel
17. Proprietary and Confidential
How Do We Help Growth Stage Companies?
17
Access to Fortune 500/1000 Customers:
Big ticket sales to senior level contacts
Strategic partnerships, Channel partners
Access to Capital:
Strategic investors
Traditional VC and PE
Alternative financing – High Net Worth, Hedge, Family Offices
Mergers and Acquisitions:
Strategic exits
Strategic buy-side – Innovative ideas for Growth
Redefining How Investment Banks
Serve and Interact with Their Clients
18. Proprietary and Confidential
How Do We Help Investors & Corporations?
18
Corporate & Technology “TAPs”
Idea sharing and competitive benchmarking
Trusted channel for innovation led purchasing
VC/PE Deal Flow
Non-mainstream deal flow – Israel, Canada, etc.
Frequent networking forums
Portfolio support
Growth Focused Buy-side
Provide channel into new geographies; new segments; growing
niches
19. Proprietary and Confidential
Key Takeaways
19
We embrace emerging growth companies & segments and
want to help…. and find creative ways to do so
Cradle to grave approach – adding value over the continuum
Special focus on linkage of US, Canada & Israel for innovation
and growth
Good afternoon everyone. I’m really exciting to be here in the midst of some great minds, talent and leadership across the technology, investment, entrepreneurial, government and educational landscape.
I do want to thank Senator Jerry Grafstein for inviting Landmark to participate in this event as well as the staff at MaRs Innovation for all of their help.
It’s a real honor to be asked to share my views on the state of the Venture Capital industry and how we at Landmark are doing our part to help drive growth and value creation for entrepreneurial companies within this changing and challenging environment.
As some background, I am a Senior Partner and Managing Director and lead the Investment Banking Practice at Landmark Ventures. Landmark is a growth focused venture development and investment banking firm within the Technology, Life Sciences and Media sectors
I am based in NY, with offices in CA and Tel Aviv, Israel
I previously was with Jefferies, Broadview and Robertson Stephens, and have been continually focused on growth & technology oriented investment banking and capital raising for the past 15 years.
So where are we as an industry? [Show pictures]
I’d like to see a show of hands to get a sense….How many of you in the audience have made an investment in the past 6 months or are planning to make an investment in the next 6 months? – OK please collect business cards from all of these people
No doubt there is uncertainty, which is even greater within the Canadian market.
Lets dig a bit deeper and look at some of the data that many of you are already very familiar with.
As we all know, Canada investment is down. 2009 was the lowest level of investment in a decade.
Both Domestic and International investment by Canadian VCs has been steadily decreasing, and despite some pockets of optimism and activity in seed and early stage incubators and new funds in 2010, the situation persists.
The scale of the Canadian market makes this trend particularly concerning, especially in the wake of increasing fund creation and deployment into emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil. VC & PE markets require critical mass to operate efficiently and Canada is still in many ways struggling to get there.
From a risk aversion perspective, Canada did miss most of the major issues of the US bank and mortgage led recession. The Canadian engineering and innovation engine has continued….but the market is investment starved and frustrated
Israel, a close partner to this event and in driving joint innovation going forward, is itself also finding the funding environment challenging.
With its 70+/- active VCs (of which about 15 are Int’l VCs with Israel offices), Israel has been a key driver of high-tech innovation, but the drop in 2009 by almost 50% is a bit alarming.
Leading that decline were semiconductor and communications companies, which is a trend I’ll touch on later as well.
While investing activity has picked up in Q2 & Q3, we have seen more and more mid-stage companies in Israel looking towards strategics and possible exits, given the challenges with continued fundraising.
As we all know. Many firms are in the midst of the fund raising process.
There are plenty of successes -- Crosslink, IVP, Venrock, Kleiner Perkins, Third Rock, RedPoint, VantagePoint…but there is certainly a trend that fund sizes are shrinking, with many more $250-350M funds, and a decreasing # of funds in the industry.
Many people see this as a positive step to drive healthier deal activity & behavior, less “follower” activity that can create valuation and hype issues, more efficient pricing and ultimately better returns for the VC industry, which frankly has significantly underperformed over the past decade.
But if this is the case, the result is still a more difficult funding environment for companies and entrepreneurs, and a negative impact to growth and job creation – assuming there are not other sources and programs for capital
So how are VCs handling this environment….?
Get cash flow positive ASAP
No interest to take on new challenges, when there are plenty at home already
This is not a good time to be doing your Series B round
Smaller is not necessarily worse, but different, and investment models must be adapted
Strategics are active and sense a value opportunity to drive innovation and product extensions
Former VCs becoming Super Angels, HNW getting more proactive and organized for roll-ups and coordinated deals, incubators a hot trend to share resources and promote lower cost, more efficient early development of companies, and growth PE still working to solidify its identity (some going bigger, some going smaller, some looking to special situations)
Entrepreneurs are by definition innovators, so like with any other challenge, they are facing the market head on and with some new views on how to proceed
It is a much better environment to be early stage and able to access HNW & angel sources, or later stage, profitable and nearing an exit
The major gap exists for companies within the Series B to Series C range, small revenues, a few good customers and a need for capital to ramp into high volumes and profitability.
Current investors are tapped out or prioritizing their investments, or need the “reassurance” of an outside investor.
Strategics have become a popular avenue for dialogues, as many have reduced R&D budgets through the recession and see strategic investments as a natural extension and a way to quickly ramp new initiatives, while benefiting from the attractive pricing environment for private companies facing limited options.
Many programs are being initiated for incubators and early stage, but in a lot of ways, what is most problematic is this mid-stage funding vacuum, and often a driver of earlier M&A exits, forced consolidation and company shut downs – Scale Ventures, Edison Ventures are examples
Back in the good old days when VC was fun, the model was more simple.…
Now the situation is quite different……
Sectors are changing much more quickly (think of the # of iPod Apps companies that have been launched), business models need to be adapted faster, M&A is dictating investment behavior vs. IPOs
Infrastructure deals (semis, hardware, systems, storage) are losing favor to consumer platforms, social gaming, virtualization management / cloud, internet/mobile monetization plays
In such an environment, it is now harder for VCs to get enough share in the upside across emerging trends
So where should we focus our efforts to drive progress?
Tax reform was a very positive move and based on discussions with US VCs, does make a difference on how they view Canadian deals
R&D subsidies, grants, tax credits are a very useful tool, and a promoter of company formation in Canada. The complaints I have heard relate more to timing than anything else. It is hard to be an aggressive entrepreneur relying on the pace of government reimbursements
Early stage activity is key and programs are rolling out, so the key is consistency and focus
Remove bureaucracy & impediments to GET DEALS DONE
What else:
Promote VC/PE as an increased percentage of class of assets Pensions, Institutions, Corporate,
Government sponsored Fund-of-Funds
Retail Venture Capital, Super Angels & HNW – organize this channel – lots of talent – former CEOs, former VCs all who know how to build companies, but need proper infrastructure to manage their investments appropriately.
Strategics – they are coming back as a source of capital, as many are sitting on lots of cash, have pulled back on R&D and want to pursue M&A or investments. Our model needs to support this.
Small Cap IPO – This is not the “IPO instead of VC” model that we saw in the early 2000s, that was certainly unhealthy. This is creating an infrastructure for returns and liquidity outside of the largest banks, where most VC backed deals are not as well suited, do not get the right following or support and either get pulled or end up as orphan public cos. We can do more as bankers, investors, companies to promote this effort.
Recent exits of note:
PMC Sierra / Wintegra - $240M – access processors
Walt Disney / Playdom - $560M – social gaming
Google / Slide - $230M – Social apps developer
Cisco / ExtendMedia - $80M (4-5X revs) – IP content mgmt, distribution and monetization
DeNA / ngmoco - $300M +$100M earnout (10-13x revs, $41M funding) – Social gaming
Amazon / BuyVIP - $95M (0.7x revs, $30M funding) – Europe online shopping & lifestyle
Transaction Network Services / Cequint - $110M ($9M funding) – caller ID services for mobile subscribers
VMWare / Integrien - $100M (20x revenues, $31M funding) – real time performance analytics
So how does Landmark fit?
We blend a combination of resources to 1) help companies grow and add large customers (Advisory) and 2) access capital, strategic partners and drive shareholder value creation (Banking)
The 3rd element is to blend capital investment into this model, where we bring all of our resources to bear for a set of growth focused portfolio companies.
Our vertical focus and structure of our teams includes Technology, Healthcare and Media / Business Services