Libor Capital Are Looking for Partners in Silicon Valley

Toronto, Canada, November 6, 2015 (Newswire.com) - With the upward trend continuing companies like Libor Capital are looking to expand. Nigel Cameron Libor’s Partner & CFO sees a future in a partnership with another VC in Silicon Valley as being a win win for both companies. Nigel said “we have been discussing a partnership with various firms over the last 6 months and with the current buoyancy in both the Canadian and U.S. VC markets we feel it is time to take the plunge”.

Barring a collapse in investing this fall, 2015 would mark the biggest year nationally and in Southern California for venture capital investment other than 2000 — when the dot-com boom reached a peak, according to the MoneyTree Report released last week by consulting giant PwC, the National Venture Capital Assn. and Thomson Reuters.

Companies aiming to go public need the cash to sustain rapid growth while waiting out a topsy-turvy stock market.

"No one really knows what the next 12 to 18 months are going to look like, so they now have a couple of years" of funding, said Billy O'Grady, senior vice president at City National Bank.

Investors are paying higher prices sooner in a company's life than they traditionally have. The median valuation of companies before new investments nearly doubled to more than $68 million over the summer from $36 million in last year's third quarter, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

But publicly traded technology companies and Wall Street have shown only tepid interest in swallowing shares this year: 2015 is on track to have the fewest number of initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions of venture-backed companies in four years, venture data tracking company PitchBook said.

Some venture capitalists are sounding off at the rise of private companies valued at more than $1 billion, a figure that's become a badge of honor. Higher valuations and delayed sell-offs could result in company founders seeing bigger financial gains when they go public.

Still, some start-ups are having little troubling raising cash. First-time entrepreneur David Adams raised a total of more than $12 million in the last year for HomeSuite, a Palo Alto company, to expand to Los Angeles and New York City. The business acts as an online brokerage for renting furnished apartments by the month.

Despite the competition for capital, Adams said his fundraising was easy because no one's gone after the millions of short-term housing customers he's serving.

"Financial cycles happen, and they've happened forever," he said. "But when I look at the future, people are going to want more flexibility in housing and they'll want on-demand solutions. To me, that makes me feel very comfortable."

Other entrepreneurs who have seized on the upswing in venture capital investment also feel confident.

Culver City-based restaurant chain Tender Greens launched in 2006 with a corporate name TYP Restaurant Group, short for 10-year plan. This summer, the company met its goal of generating a return within 10 years for friends, family and customers who invested early.

An investment from first-time corporate investor Union Square Hospitality Group enabled Tender Greens to buy back shares.

With 2016 as the 10-year anniversary, the company jumped in early to take advantage of the favorable market, co-founder David Dressler said.

"It's not any secret that there's been tremendous appetite, particularly in fast-casual restaurants, over the last 12 to 18 months," he said.