Enterprise Profile
Frederic Baud
In fact, after a discussion with PatrickLardant, I realized that the
question about size only is too restrictive: we have to speak of the
profile in general and this includes in particular maturity.
If we take the standard framework venture / growth / buy-out / late-
stage, we have to define in what segment we operate. As a reference,
VC funds are typically dedicated to specific stages. Furthermore, the
staff are different and methods vary between the different stages.
Even though the different instances of the P2PVenture platform
addressing the different segments could share a lot of the technical
components, I'm wondering if it is not natural to treat separately
these as different projects that could be incubated separately. A
project targeting buy-out for small businesses with an end valuation
of €1M (typically the transmission case)could be very different from a
project targeting venture of startup with a potential end valuation of
€30M. -- FredericBaud
February 11, 2007
Start-up looking for 250K€ up to 500K€ -- PatrickLardant
I think that a "natural" metric to characterize the size of the
enterprises within the scope would be to use valuation. Of course,
since we will probably mainly deal with private companies, valuation
is a natural metric, but certainly not an observable one. Revenue is
easier to observe, but the link with valuation is very dependent from
the industry. So the platform has to provide some mechanism to assess
a valuation (something BAs and VCs routinely do)
Using valuation, there are still two ranges to define.
- First one is the end valuation of the company (valuation when the
investment will be liquidated: be it debt or equity). For example,
some VCs only trade with companies whose value will be above €100M in
the end. - Second one in the current valuation of companies we want to
let in the matching process offered by the P2PVenture platform. Taking
again the example of VCs, even if €100M is the end valuation, some may
accept to enter when the company's valuation is below €2M (this is
considered seed investment), others when it is below €15 (first
round), €30M (second round), €60M (third round), €80M (mezzanine).
So we have to define two ranges, the valuation range where we want to
match investors and projects looking for money, and the range for the
end valuation of project where we want liquidation to happen. --
FredericBaud