Underachieving
Is that VC talk for "likely to still exist 10 years from now"?
No venture capital please, we're British: Why a pair of storage startups went it alone
Two UK storage startups both went without venture capital and struggled to grow. One was Object Matrix, the other Storage Made Easy. Both are consequently outside the storage mainstream and traded VC-funded growth acceleration for being in control of their own destiny. Oddly enough, neither would go the VC funding route if …
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 10:44 GMT verno
On whose scale?
They may be underachieving based on a silicon valley perspective but if they are making their owners enough money to pay their staff as well as make a nice little earner thank you, as it sounds like they both are, then they may be achieving everything their owners want...
Matt
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 13:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
So whats the point of this article then?
Options bellow.
1. VC means you can spend lots of other peoples money quicker.
2. It's tough getting VC in the UK.
3. Re-selling cloud storage and re-packaging it is now a thing.
4. Sorry hard-working Entrepreneurs (sic) but seems to me that people pay good money for crap and the knack is to find those people and extract as much cash from them as you can before they realize they could do it much better themselves if only they were more organised.
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 13:47 GMT Len
Not a fan of VCs but they can serve a purpose
I am not a fan of VCs and would favour the solid route of funding growth out of revenue/profit over getting a highly speculative investment with some dangerous strings attached (I know a couple of people who have been kicked out of the company they've build themselves by their VCs).
That said, there are occasions where the outlay of money required to achieve a vital next step is so big that there are few alternatives. In those cases I would always try and get a company to revenue positive or even profit making before trying to get investment. The balance of power when looking for investment into a revenue/profit making company is significantly different.
I suppose that is very European (or should I say un-American) of me. Yes, the business tend to grow less but at least they survive more than a few years.
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 14:08 GMT amanfromMars 1
The Banks' Biggest Enemy can Choose to be User-Friendly
Methinks with the wheels starting to fall off long established but now decrepit wagons, because of the release of sensitive, previously held secret information, one will see cases of venture capital being invested in/donated to new state and non-state actors in return for them not pursuing or postponing their pursuing of new markets which will decimate existing investment structures/flash cash stash money arrangements.
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 14:46 GMT BebopWeBop
Everybody wants to be a unicorn but it's the cockroaches that survive a nuclear holocaust
Luvverley - even if the Diplodoci (?) of these markets might hope that the might manage to squash the od roach - not that easy with a big foot optimised for making sure that the animal does not sink into soft ground.
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Wednesday 8th November 2017 20:06 GMT John Smith 19
"more pleasant work environment. In 2006 they moved to..Cardiff in Wales."
Where they were able to snap up staff from the AA's main in house IT operation?* (Are there other Cardiffs in the UK?)
You'll note all of this is niche, high end, probably high markup, no use to home users, stuff.
Which is fine as far as it goes but.
Just need a few thousand like them and the UK economy should be in great shape.
* Trivial Pursuit, IT version.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
