Friday Five: Hijackers, Industry Survey, Funding and Exits
After a multi-week hiatus due to the holidays and, of course, the ever-present demands of deal making as the year comes to a close, Friday Five is back to highlight a few of the top stories from the week.
- A group of hackers commandeered Twitter's DNS for about an hour on Thursday night, directing traffic to their own webpage. According to the social media giant, its website and micro-blogging that plugged into Twitter's API were not affected. This is the second time in less than six months that Twitter fell victim to a DNS attack, though it is the first time that a "Cyber Army" took credit for the fiasco. What is a "Cyber Army" anyway? Do they attend boot camp, wear uniforms and otherwise follow unquestioned orders from superiors? I digress.
- Earlier this week, the National Venture Capital Association released its yearly Venture View Survey. The survey polled more than 325 venture capitalists across the country, and the results were as expected with the industry professionals remaining somewhat bullish about the short-term future. 63% expected the total dollars invested in 2010 to stay the same or increase. 50% predicted an increase in the number of companies receiving funding. The survey pointed to clean technology and Internet as the industries best positioned for higher investment levels in 2010. Asia will continue to be a growing focus for investment dollars. 74% predicted an improved IPO market. And the overwhelming majority predicted that funds raised in 2010 will be smaller than previous funds and the overall number of funds would decline over the next five years.
- Regado Biosciences yesterday closed its Series D financing, raising $40 million from an investor syndicate led by LCF Rothschild Group that also included existing investors Domain Associates, Quaker Bioventures, Aurora Funds and Caxton Advantage Life Sciences Fund. The New Jersey-based company is developing antithrombotic therapeutic aptamers with active control agents. Regado's successful raise is a nice feel-good moment for emerging companies in light of the continued talk of general venture capital industry contraction.
- Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies is leading a group that is buying a $180 million stake in Zynga, a social gaming company that produces popular online games such as Mafia Wars. The deal comes off the heels of DST's $200 million investment in Facebook. DST is certainly making a major bet on the social media space with those two deals.
- The Wall Street Journal's Venture Capital Dispatch contains an interesting blog post titled "Exit Conundrum: Wait For An IPO Rebound Or Sell To An Acquirer?" that focuses on Acclarent's $785 million sale to Johnson & Johnson. Until the IPO markets come roaring back, which may be quite some time, it seems likely that many companies will opt to go the safer route chosen by Acclarent.
That is all for now. We won't have the same radio silence over the next few weeks that we did in late November. Enjoy your weekend!
