An interesting experiment is under way over at Venture Beat. Matt Marshall’s newest creation, VentureBoard, is an outgrowth of VentureBeat, designed to facilitate emerging techology-related transactions.
VentureBoard is an experimental forum for emerging technology-related transactions.. We have some ideas about how companies, both buyers and sellers of assets, can create and pursue opportunities initiated on VentureBoard, and are interested to see how this evolves.
According to the site, markets for early stage companies in Silicon Valley have been inefficient for a long time. VentureBoard will provide “an open and efficient forum for an exchange of products, assets and services”.
Ventureboard serves two main purposes:
(1) It is a place where individuals or emerging tech companies can advertise their products, assets or teams for sale and where established companies can find them.
(2) It is a place for service providers, such as financial, debt, accounting, legal and PR companies, to advertise their services, and for emerging companies to locate services they need.
I learned about VentureBoard from RadioHandi founder Brian McConnell. He dropped me a piece of email last week to let me know that they were going to put RadioHandi’s assets up for sale, and would be conducting that sale with the help of VentureBoard. RadioHandi is at a stage where it can either take on venture capital, or look for an acquirer. Acquisition makes the most sense to the founders. However, they’re still too small to attract the attention of the investment banking community, hence VentureBoard. Brian likens what they’re doing to putting a house up for sale. They’re hoping to see a minimum of $5 million dollars, and will be taking offers until November 9th. You can see the RadioHandi listing here, and read Brian’s first hand account of why he’s taking the VentureBoard route, here.
Good luck, to both RadioHandi and VentureBoard. This should be an interesting experiment to watch.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
