Global Silicon Valley Capital [NASDAQ: GSVC] announces a $7 million investment in Twitter and other tech stocks.
In early July, OneMedSentinel reported that Global Silicon Valley Capital [NASDAQ:GSVC] went public with a $50 million raise lead by Ladenburg Thalman. The fund gives investors a means to own equity in highly regarded venture backed technology companies funded by leading Silicon Valley venture funds.
Since that time they have invested almost $40 million and last week GSVC filed to raise an additional $100 million to continue their buying spree into hot tech stocks. The financing will be led by Citigroup and co-book runners Ladenburg and Janney Scott.
Noteworthy is their nearly $7 million dollar investment in Twitter, making GSVC one of the few outside shareholders (other than management and the VC´s who funded the company) to own the stock. GSVC made news with their Facebook investment back in July, but the Twitter is more notable because it is representative of the company’s capacity to get into deals that are largely unavailable. GSVC seems to be well connected. The other prominent investments listed in their filing with the SEC yesterday.
- Kno, Inc. $2,250,000
- Gilt Group, Inc. $5,499,250
- Chegg, Inc. $5,999,996
- Bloom Energy Corporation $1,771,335
- Facebook, Inc. $6,587,500
- Groupon, Inc. $2,035,200
- Twitter, Inc. $6,932,493
- Zynga $4,000,000
- SharesPost, Inc. $2,250,000
GSVC’s founder and CEO, Michael Moe, is a long time advocate of the growth economy and sees GSVC as an antidote to the broken finance ecosystem for growth companies and their VC backers. Moe made a name for himself as a Wall Street analyst where he ran growth company equity research at firms like Montgomery and Merrill Lynch before founding investment bank, ThinkEquity. His best selling investment book “Finding the Next Starbucks” helped him build a following and a network that enables GSVC to get invitations to deals.
GSVC is addressing a large market problem in the entrepreneurial ecosystem– the death of small IPO’s, provided the fundamental cog in the entrepreneurial ecosystem has disappeared. Moe’s vision is that capital markets for growth companies are broken.
GSVC, in part, addresses this need. Moe’s investment in Sharespost , another of a crop of firms springing up to fill the needs in the wasteland of small company IPO’s. Like the more well know Secondmarket, these firms are springing up this year, creating liquidity for investors in private companies that the IPO market used to provide. Secondmarket has experienced explosive growth and some expect the firm to do over $900 million in transactions in the coming year. GSVC is not alone in seeing this opportunity. Last month, we interviewed Keating Capital CEO, Tim Keating. His investment fund raised $86 million and will begin trading under symbol KIPO during the fourth quarter. It invests in private companies scheduled to go public and provides an opportunity to invest.