Content area
Full Text
Of the 200 business plans that crossed venture capitalist Roland Oliver's desk in the past quarter, only one received an investment. Those are the long odds that startups better get used to in this economy.
If you're a young tech company, the venture capitalists who loved you last year won't return your calls. And the value of your company doesn't quite match the numbers you scribbled on a cocktail napkin in 1999.
But if you ask VCs like Oliver, of Vienna-based Monumental Venture Partners (www.mvpfunds.com), or tech companies like Arlington-based GroupServe, there still is plenty of money out there.
"The companies getting money today are far better because they have distinguished themselves in a down market," Oliver says.
In the past two weeks, a half-dozen tech firms received venture capital investments, ranging from $3.5 million for GroupServe to $45 million for SevenSpace. A look at what these companies do, who runs them and who their investors are may shed some light on why they got money while so many other entrepreneurs are struggling.
Venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs who have won their financial backing say that there are a few factors to getting money these days.
First, it doesn't matter if you're in a hot sector. There are no hot sectors now. It's about individual companies and their business plans. VCs want to see corporate partners, customers and a quick road to profits....