A lot of traditional VCs (particularly those based in the West Coast) woke up this morning and tossed some chairs around and broke some really expensive shit because of this article in the Wall Street Journal, lauding Peter Thiel and his partners over at Founders’ Fund, which include Sean Parker, Luke Nosek, Ken Howery. The fund’s investments include:
- Iron Port Systems: email security software (recently sold to Cisco for $830M).
- Slide: the #1 or 2 widgets maker on Facebook.
- Facebook: apparently, a popular social networking site.
- Powerset: the natural search language company launched on the heels of a XEROX patent. continue reading...
To estimate how much a company is worth, you can look at:
1- comparables amongst publicly traded companies
2- recent merger and acquisition deals
3- estimate its future earning power, discounted to today
4- forecast what an asset would fetch in an auction or sale, be it in an M&A or an IPO. continue reading...
