Current thoughts - June 2004

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Bono as a VC and Asger Aamund on stress Amusing news during the last couple of days. First of all U2's Bono has joined Elevation Partners, a new Silicon Valley private equity firm. Since the fund will focus on media investments this could makes sense. But I laughed when I read that he is going to be the managing director of the fund. Bono is intelligent and capable. But given his ongoing engagement with U2, I find it hard to see how he can drop in for Monday morning partners meetings. Another intriguing development is that a former McKinsey consultant, Pierre Van Hoeylandt, is going to launch Afghanistan's first venture capital fund, the Afghanistan Renewal Fund, targeting MUSD 50. That is certainly "developing markets". Probably good for Afghanistan, but I hope that he is including personal body guards in the management fee calculation! Finally, quote of the week came from Asger Asmund: "Fordelen ved at være afstumpet er at man har en højere stress-tærskel".
June 17, 2004 01:51 PM

Not enough new companies 2003 was a terrible year in terms of the number of new life science companies that was started. An analysis of the number of life science companies that were incorporated during the last four years shows a dramatic decline in the second half of 2002, continuing up until today. This could become a fundamental problem not only for venture capital funds, but also for the Danish economy going forward.
June 15, 2004 12:49 AM