Last week, I was at a conference in Cambridge on the subject of early stage funding. Being in Cambridge, we do a lot of work with start up and spin out companies, advising the companies, funders, and institutions putting technology into the companies (personally, from an IP/IT perspective, assisting our corporate team). As was discussed at that conference, particularly by Laurence Garrett of 3i, though Cambridge has well-established support networks for early stage companies, it still lags a way behind Silicon Valley in terms of scale and sophistication. Also at this conference, various VCs big-upped Facebook as the quintessential Web 2.0 company.
In the context of this, I was vaguely reassured to hear The Times report that Facebook looks set to suffer at the hands of some keen VCs, who significantly diluted the founders' equity stake in the company following last year's $25m funding round (Facebook now being estimated to be worth over $1b). Even the biggest, cleverest Silicon Valley companies can suffer the same (money) problems as start ups the world over.
Incidentally, any blogging lawyers on Facebook should join Geeklawyer's new group "Blogging Lawyers".
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