Following up on my post on the buyout world, the VC world has also experienced valuation inflation over the past year. As more and more liquidity comes into the sector (mostly acquisitions), VC’s are beginning to feel bullet proof again. We are starting to see VC’s promising entrepreneurs $80m and $90m pre-$ valuations if they can get some proof points in a given area (we’ll see if they come through). Since venture does not use much debt, the debt crisis has not hit home yet (it will should the economy go into recession and ad budgets and cap-x budgets get slashed). If you want to get a sense of what is driving the increasing craziness, check out some members of the asylum. Slide at $550m and Rockyou at $325m??? While we have several on here (and fingers crossed they hit Henry’s values!), I scratch my head a bit. While not the extremes of 1999, there are a lot of $’s for eyeballs (or "attention" as it is now called these days). Here is Blodgett’s estimates of property values:
THE SAI 25: THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE STARTUPS
Rank
Company Valuation
1. Facebook $9 billion
2. Wikipedia $7 billion
3. Craigslist $5 billion
4. Betfair $5 billion
5. Mozilla Corp $4 billion
6. Yandex $3 billion
7. Webkinz $2 billion
8. LinkedIn $1.3 billion
9. Habbo $1.25 billion
10. Oanda $1.2 billion
11. Linden Lab $1.1 billion
12. Kayak $1 billion
13. QlikTech $850 million
14. Ning $560 million
15. Slide $550 million
16. TheLadders $500 million
17. Stardoll $450 million
18. Ozon $450 million
19. Thumbplay $400 million
20. Glam Media $400 million
21. Rock You $325 million
22. Tudou $300 million
23. Efficient Frontier $275 million
24. Zazzle $250 million
25. Spot Runner $250 million
Contenders
Federated Media $245 million
Yelp $225 million
Meebo $220 million
Indeed $200 million
Zillow $200 million
LoveFilm $200 million
Metacafe $200 million
Adconion $200 million
4INFO $175 million
Photobox $150 million
Vibrant Media $150 million
Gawker Media $150 million
Mahalo $150 million
56.com $150 million
Youku $125 million
Digg $125 million
Etsy $115 million
LinkExperts $100 million
Powerset $80 million
Trialpay $80 million
Huffington Post $75 million
Associated Content $65 million
Live Gamer $60 million
Twitter $75 million
Mint $50 million
Prosper <$50 million