New Comm Biz

Acquisitions are a tricky thing. They are hard to pull off but they are the lifeblood of the current startup environment. Going public is just not an option right now. Even if the market conditions were better SarbOx makes it extremely expensive to go public, putting it out of reach for many hot startups.

Working with Highway 12 Ventures over the last 8 months I’ve learned that in order to get funding you need to have an ‘exit’. Since IPO isn’t an option this means you have to have a short list of companies that would acquire you. This is part of the reason building a business on advertising is so atractive. It’s not just because it’s a relatively easy way to go, it’s also because there are a lot of companies that would be interested in acquiring you.

The problem with an exit plan is that it doesn’t always work out the way you want. I can gaurantee that when Delver.com, an alternative search engine was putting together their exit plan Sears was not on that list.

Sears Acquires Social Search Engine Delver.com | TopTenREVIEWS Blog

Sears acquires Delver.com in online expansion effort — chicagotribune.com

Apparently Sears is doing a lot to bolster their online shopping presence. It will be interesting to see how they use this technology. Personally I’d love to see a company like Sears enter the e-commerce space and shake things up.

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• [israeli startup] Delver Acquired by Sears (ouriel.typepad.com)
• UK search engine ‘could rival Google’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Expand Your Search Universe With Drag and Drop Zones (readwriteweb.com)

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