Contact: Scott Denne
The bulging coffers of buyout funds are delivering a record amount of exits to venture capitalists, providing some measure of relief as strategic acquirers scale back dealmaking and the IPO market remains a selective venue. Yet relying on a different category of buyers could have venture investors rethinking how to value the products – startups – they sell to them.
So far this year, private equity (PE) firms have spent $4.8bn on 40 companies that have taken venture money. That nearly matches last year’s record dollar total ($5.2bn), according to 451 Research’s M&A KnowledgeBase, and is on track to pass the number of such deals in 2016.
Returns from both PE shops and strategic acquirers range from prodigious to paltry, although usually at vastly different multiples on the high end of the market. Take the two largest VC exits this year, Cisco’s $3.7bn acquisition of AppDynamics and PetSmart owner BC Partners’ purchase of Chewy for an estimated $3.4bn. Both delivered outsized returns, but Chewy went off at nearly 4x trailing revenue, which is above market for an e-commerce transaction although not in the same neighborhood as the 17.4x AppDynamics garnered.
In AppDynamics, Cisco is gambling that the application performance management vendor will mature into that lofty price. PE firms are less inclined to make such a wager. While PE shops are buying venture-backed companies – they account for a record 14% of venture exits so far this year – they’re looking for proof, not potential. Those tougher standards could start to trickle down to valuations in venture fundings as PE firms determine a larger share of the outcomes.
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