| Although we occasionally make our initial investment in companies at later stages of their growth cycle, we prefer to invest in new technologies prior to commercial development because it enables us to leverage our value-added capabilities. We have provided seed financing for about one-third of the companies in our portfolio and have led the first institutional round on over three-fourths. We prefer to lead most of the financing rounds in which we participate, and can usually assemble a syndicate of effective investment partners to join us. We generally hold a board seat and play an active role in the company's development.
We look for companies with:
- clearly defined market opportunities,
- differentiated and proprietary technology advances, and
- an experienced management team with proven effectiveness in the tumultuous environment of a high-tech startup.
We seek to invest in companies working on platform or "core" technologies that are revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary. By this we mean technologies that contribute "order of magnitude" improvements in broadly relevant industry fundamentals such as efficacy, efficiency, speed, power usage and cost. Investment opportunities related to such fundamental advances frequently have both high barriers to entry (such as those protected by strong intellectual property rights) as well as the potential to have a significant impact on multiple markets. |
