Joshua Ruch, Managing Partner at Rho Venture Capital gave us a talk about Venture Capital. Previously he was an investment banker and received an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Joshua co-founded Rho in 1981 and they have offices in NY, Palo Alto and Montreal. Rho ventures has invested in ~200 companies, including Ciena, Compaq, Tripod or Tacoda and seeks to invest and participate in all stages of financing, from seed to the IPO. Their latest fund raised ~$700M.
Some of the things he pointed out:
- Nowadays, if you want to make money, do not go to Private Equity or VC; go instead to a Hedge Fund.
- Nowadays is difficult to take a company public if it does not have ~$65M in revenues. In 1999, with $10M or less you went public.
- When selecting a VC, consider the knowledge of their network in the company ecosystem and the individual General Partner track record with companies at similar stage and in the same company ecosystem.
- Rho invests only in trusted sources and he is usually reactive (i.e., BPlans go to him).
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