After a virtual freeze in IPOs and exits, a report by BBC says that buy-out and start-up activity in the Valley is heating up, and investors are taking notice. Recent deals have included the purchase of Mint.com by Intuit for $170m, Adobe buying Omniture for $1.8bn, Skype selling to a private equity syndicate for $2bn and VMware buying SpringSource for $420m.
Unemployment in the area is starting to ease off its record high of 11.9 percent, and venture capital companies are hiring again. Though companies are running leaner and ditching the lavish parties that were once a staple in the Valley.
The BBC article quotes Satish Dharmaraj, a partner with Redpoint Ventures, a firm specialising in internet start-ups, as saying, “We are seeing an enormous amount of really good companies coming up and good people leaving their jobs and joining start-ups, which is always a sign of confidence.”
Several other venture capitalists noted that this is a good time to start a company. New companies will be poised to capitalize on the upturn when the economy gets back to normal. They mentioned that Microsoft, Google and Cisco all started during a down economy.
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