For the sixth consecutive year, investors, gathered up to generate the updated so-called “Midas List”.
Midas was an ancient King who was cursed, so that whatever he would touch would literally turn to gold. Henceforth, in modern day language, a person that has the “Midas touch” is universally acknowledged as being someone who is very successful, with great wit and intellect, and great entrepreneurial skills, so that whatever he touches “turns into gold”, i.e. into a very lucrative venture.
Back to the Midas list, it looks like this winter investment in new technology dropped by 15 % which marked a significant drop, due to all of the following factors:
- The Ukrainian war;
- The freezing of Intellectual Property and other assets; and
- The Global Energy crisis.
Beyond that, the collection of the list, includes investors from Israel, the Middle East, and Europe. It is produced by Global partners in association with the Forbes and the ‘True Bridge’1 .
Interesting enough the Index Ventures has 4 entries in the updated list, and as a private equity company, they claim to invest in people: “Other firms invest in deals, the index invests in people. A deal is transactional. Relationships endure, and ours are based on curiosity, thoughtfulness, and deep conviction”. On the opposite side is Accel as the main competitor of Index.
Accel’s key person Philippe Botteri has a dream. Clouding and ecosystems are keywords which denote the company’s obsession with emerging technologies, the weather crisis and the web:
“That said, cloud companies have raised an unprecedented amount of capital over the past couple of years – around $230B across Europe, Israel, and the USA. A good part of this capital is still sitting on company balance sheets today. In addition to the above, the secular trends which have fueled the emergence and growth of the cloud ecosystem remain very strong”.
The list is produced by data which reflects the most successful investments in newly established businesses, that its contents deal with high profile of IPO that haven’t still entered the stock exchange market, or they recently did, or it is the result of a buyout.
It is important for venturers to stand-up for their ideas and to create strong associations with the brand they represent. Start-ups create an amalgama of fused backgrounds, nationalities, disciplines, as well as a belief system. For example, the Filip Dames of Cherry Ventures an ex-baritone says his colleagues wouldn’t go to Karaoke with him.
Cherry Ventures collected several factors to consider, regarding investment in technology & start-ups:
- Where and at what stage do you invest?
- When is the right time to approach you about investing?
- How many investments do you make?
- Do you have an industry or sector which you are focused on?
- What are your investment criteria?
- What is your investment process and how long does it take?
- How do you support companies?2
Finally, a term which shouldn’t go amiss is that of ‘unicorn’ companies. In start-up language, the definition of a unicorn company is the following:
“Unicorn companies are those that reach a valuation of $1 billion without being listed on the stock market and are the dream of any tech startup”
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