This Blog has Moved!

Due to a variety of reasons, The Silicon Prairie blog has been moved.  The new blog is titled Growth Equity and can be found at http://growthequity.blogspot.com. The focus will continue to be more on Chicago and the  Midwest, but would like to cover building and investing in all high growth, earlier stage businesses.  Please visit the blog at its new home and support entrepreneurship in the Midwest!

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The Eight Best Questions We Got While Raising Venture Capital

It's been awhile since I've posted anything to this blog, but this article makes me want to start up again:


The Eight Best Questions We Got While Raising Venture Capital

Now, I gotta hustle over to the Chicago Booth Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Conference!

Chicago Booth wins Entrepreneur's Choice Award at National VCIC

Congrats to the team from Chicago Booth who won the Entrepreneur’s Choice Award at National VCIC this weekend! Here are the full results:

VCIC 12 International Finals Results

• 1st - UNC Kenan-Flagler
• 2nd - Oxford Said
• 3rd - MIT Sloan
• Entrepreneurs’ Choice - Chicago Booth

TARP for Dummies

I thought this was pretty darn funny (click on picture to see the rest):

GrubHub Raises Series B

GrubHub, an online service for ordering restaurant takeout and delivery meals, has raised $2 million in Series B funding. Origin Ventures and Leo Capital co-led the round, and were joined by return backer Amicus Capital. The Chicago-based company will use the capital to expand its services to Boston, San Francisco and New York City.

I had the honor of competing against these guys in the University of Chicago New Venture Challenge a few years ago when I was an MBA student (they won). Congrats on the continued success guys!

Congrats to Chicago Booth on VCIC Win!

I know that most of us are focusing heavily on our March Madness brackets right now (go Kansas and Syracuse!), but I wanted to send out a congrats to the Chicago Booth team that recently won the regional VCIC competition at the University of Colorado (see VCIC brackets above). That team will now move on to compete in the international competition in April. For those of you who aren't familiar with the VCIC, it is a great program for MBA students...it is essentially a venture capital case competition.

Congrats to all the regional winners, and good luck in the finals!

Chicago PE Firms Raising Capital

The following blurbs on Chicago PE firms raising capital comes courtesy of PEHub:

CIVC Capital seeks $575 million for its third fund, with a hard cap of $700 million. The fund, called CIVC Partners Fund IV, was formed in May of 2008. CIVC Capital’s prior fund had $650 million in commitments and closed in 2003. The fund hired UBS as a placement agent in 2008. CIVC is based in Chicago and invests equity slices of between $15 million and $85 million in business services, financial services, marketing and information services companies.

Wind Point Partners has raised at least $842 million in commitments toward its seventh fund. The fund, which has a target of $1.15 billion, according to regulatory filings, has at least 43 investors. The firm was slated to hold a first close on greater than $700 million, which is greater than its entire sixth fund, around this time last year. Wind Point has offices in Southfield, Michigan and Chicago, and 60% of the firm’s deals are add-ons.

Linden LLC is in the market with Linden Capital Partners II LP. The fund seeks $300 million, a slight jump over its prior, effort, a $200 million pool of capital which closed in 2006. The firm, based in Chicago, grew out of First Chicago Equity Capital, and invests in mature health care and life sciences companies.

AIG Bonus Stats

Some facts to chew on:

• The top recipient received more than $6.4 million;
• The top seven bonus recipients received more than $4 million each;
• The top ten bonus recipients received a combined $42 million;
• 22 individuals received bonuses of $2 million or more, and combined they received more than $72 million;
• 73 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more;
• Eleven of the individuals who received "retention" bonuses of $1 million or more are no longer working at AIG, including one who received $4.6 million.

There are enough people on the squawk box providing their views on the AIG situation, so I'll just pass along the facts and let you form your own opinion. However, my definition of a "bonus" is that it is only contractual so far as you meet performance goals...

...oh, and by the way, the bonus plan details have been released online. It appears that the employees of the financial products group had a 30% carried interest in trading profits (and most likely did not have to put much of their own capital at risk). I guess we know now where some of the Enron traders ended up after the fall of that house of cards...

How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job

Love this...file under "things that make you go DUH!"

How to Tweet Your Way Out of a Job

Classic...