WSJ: “VCs Predict What Will Happen in 2012”
VCs Gaze Into Crystal Ball, Predict What Will Happen In 2012
When the NVCA and Dow Jones teamed up to survey hundreds of venture capital investors and CEOs in the sixth annual VentureView report, they asked participants to give their predictions for 2012.
Venture capital investors have never been known as timid about expressing their opinions. So we thought we’d share some of the more interesting predictions from investors here, broken down by category (and including a few anonymous quotes at the bottom).
Let us know in the comments what you think will happen in the venture world in 2012.
THE GOOD: “Venture capital gets back to the basics—well-built companies will continue to attract capital and provide strong returns.” — Terry McGuire, co-founder and general partner, Polaris Venture Partners
“VC’s will distribute more than what they call in 2012.” — Sanjay Subhedar, managing director, Storm Ventures
“VC activity to rise in 2012.” — Roman Kikta, managing partner, Mobility Ventures
“Venture will continue to support innovation and be seen as a driving force especially in Silicon Valley.” — Nola Masterso, managing director, Science Futures
THE BAD: “The VC industry will remain largely misunderstood by the masses, including most in government, and get lumped in with PE.” — Matt Fates, partner, Ascent Venture Partners
THE UGLY: “The venture industry is in trouble…lack of new capital, lack of exits….poor IRR’s for the sector…need for business model innovation.” — Rick Anderon, managing director, PTV Sciences
SEED FUNDING: “Beginning of the end of the Great Seed Experiment – too many companies.” — Michael Greeley, general partner, Flybridge Capital Partners
VCs AND LPs: “LPs are looking at the rear view mirror which is not pretty but VC’s are seeing a positive future through the windshield.” — Venky Ganesan, managing director, Globespan Capital Partners
GOING PUBLIC: “More VC-backed companies will go public in 2012 than any year since 1999. All good companies. Six months later they will all trade down.” — John Backus, managing partner, New Atlantic Ventures
“Last year I predicted the year of the IPO. This year I predict the year of the IPO. Next year, not so much.” — David Hornik, general partner, August Capital
“Liquidity will no longer be out of fashion.” — Gerry Langeler, managing director, OVP Venture Partners
“Facebook IPO pumps late-stage venture valuations.” — Michael Bego, partner, Willowridge Partners
“Vertical e-commerce will have several IPOs.” — Rick Heitzmann, managing director, FirstMark Capital
“Venture returns continue to improve while market volatility keeps many institutional investors on the sidelines.”– Bob Ackerman, founder, Allegis Capital
“Venture Capital will produce some of its best returns ever over the next 10 years.” — Robert Liptak, managing director, Clarus Ventures
SECTORS: “Solid-state storage will get hotter.” — Kevin Ober, managing director, Divergent Venture Partners
“The funding of mobile first companies will increase significantly.” — Keith Teare, general partner, Archimedes Labs
“Clean-tech investing dollars will fall as large-sized rounds drop in frequency. This will be mistaken for a problem.” — Rodrigo Prudencio, partner, Nth Power
“2012 will be the year of renewable energy.” — Bart Stuck, managing director, Signal Lake
“Innovation is the single best chance we have to fix the health-care economy. let’s not screw it up by eliminating investment in this sector.” — Lisa Suennen, managing member, Psilos Group
THE SOCIAL NETWORK: “Hail Facebook! Long live Facebook.” — anonymous
VCS AND OBAMA: “Obama loss finally gives certainty to investors, VC markets and IPOs have record year in 2013” — Ross Barrett, founder, BVM Capital
“Similar to 2011 but towards the end of the year all investment will increase if Obama is not re-elected.” — anonymous
“Obama regulations rescinded. America recovers.” — anonymous
AND FINALLY, NEWS YOU CAN USE: “There will be some new bubble that starts. Not sure in what.” — anonymous
By Zoran Basich
Source of this Article: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/