Why I hate acquihires (unless I’m doing the selling)
The always insightful Mark Suster recently tackled the subject of acquihires–the practice of large companies buying small startups simply to acquire their people. Mark lays out an excellent argument for why the acquiring companies are actually losing out when they make acquihires: “You have been at Google, Salesforce.com, Yahoo! for years. You have worked faithfully. [...]
If You Sell Your Company, Use a Banker
When I sold my first company, I used a banker, an M&A advisor. When I sold my second, I did not. Not using a banker the second time was a mistake. The benefits are nonobvious, somewhat counterintuitive — and large. You don’t get THAT much from a banker for their seemingly huge fees: They don’t [...]
And So Begins the End of this SaaS M&A Cycle
… and hence the acquisition dies due to excessive capital requirements. It’s almost impossible to blend a profitable entity with a new acquisition that is burning tens of more millions per year, unless it’s a total make-the-company bet like Android.
Quick Thoughts: Dell Acquires Boomi
Boomi (see previous CloudAve coverage here), the Pennsylvania based cloud services integration provider, is acquired by Dell today. Ever since IBM acquired Cast Iron, there were speculations that Boomi could be the next in the block and it has come true today. Dell has been building up the speculation machine on a possible cloud acquisition [...]
