PrivCo for Venture Capital

With PrivCo, Venture Capital Firms can:

• Identify key investment opportunities that meet your demands
• Baseline and learn from portfolio company comparables
• Prepare competitive term sheets by analyzing recent comparable deal terms including board seats demanded, stock ownership structure, and valuation.
• Utilize PrivCo’s private company database to aid in private company valuations
• Identify investment flows and specific market trends with PrivCo’s ultra-granular industry classification that includes over 1,200 Sub-Industries.

Case Study

A Silicon Valley venture capital firm has deal sourcing analysts dedicated to searching out suitable, early stage, privately-held companies for venture capital investments. The firm specializes in making VC investments in early stage private companies that are capable of becoming public or acquired within several years. Its target companies typically meet the following characteristics:

• Early stage, $1 million to $ 5 million in revenue
• Have raised at least $500,000 in seed angel or venture capital funding, but not more than $2 million
• In its target industries of technology or biotech
• In its target locations of California, Nevada, Oregon, or Washington

The inefficiencies of extensive time spent cold-calling, searching tech trade journals, attending startup conferences and business plan presentations, negotiating NDA agreements and meeting with target early stage private companies that didn’t meet their financial or investment criteria led the firm to turn to PrivCo data to improve deal sourcing efficiencies and deal results.

Using PrivCo.com, the VC firm’s analysts were able to quickly narrow down potential target private companies using its above search criteria. PrivCo’s modernized and proprietary PICS codes ("PrivCo Industry Classification System") could be used to drill down into emerging micro-industry sectors such as Ag-Biotech, Social Gaming, Online Coupons, and Mobile Location Based Technology, categories that don’t exist in traditional SIC and NAICS code systems. Business descriptions, funding histories, current ownership, and whether the firm was independent or already venture backed are all used to include or eliminate prospective venture investments, increasing the firm’s deal sourcing accuracy, saving time, and locating hidden-gem investments missed by other VC firms with the potential for maximum investment returns.

The venture capital firm closes several attractive venture investments, including in under-the-radar private companies overlooked by competing VC firms, that are perfect fits for its latest VC Fund IV.