Acquisitions come through complicated processes and startup founders encounter difficulties from the begininning. For example, the connection between them and buyers has traditionally been done through personal networks. And then the work to do to finalize a deal. Complex tasks, actually.
We are now introducing a new solution that could help all of the people involved in these operations: San Francisco, CA-based Exitround aims to become a reference marketplace for seed-funded companies to “discreetly” explore strategic opportunities, find potential acquirers, and start building relationships with them.
Launched four months ago by CEO Jacob Mullins (previously at Shasta Ventures) and Greg Dean, an engineering executive from Avira, the private platform has been joined by more than 200 buyers including 16 public companies, and nine Fortune 500 firms.
Exitround has just formed its Industry Council, whose members will provide resources to create better experiences for buyers and produce blog, podcast and video content to educate entrepreneurs.
It includes:
– Pat Matthews, Senior Vice President Corporate Development, Rackspace
– Adeo Ressi, CEO & Founding Member, The Founder Institute
– Ted Rheingold, Founder of Dogster/Catster; Entrepreneur
– Mark Seneca, Partner, Orrick
– MG Siegler, Writer and Investor
– Ryan Spoon, Senior Vice President Product Development, ESPN
– David Tisch, Managing Partner, Box Group
To date, according to a post by Mullins, the platform has seen high demand for
– Android product teams and developers
– Ruby on Rails product teams (who have exceeded Python)
– Product teams with strong engineering fundamentals as opposed to specialized mobile experts
The average startup in Exitround has raised $635k and consists of seven people, five of whom hold technical positions. 67% of them come from the US while 33% are based internationally.
FinSMEs
10/07/2013