alarm:clock

Venture Capital - Sunday, October 30, 2005

London Calling

Jason Ball, who operates the London Business Angel Network and London Seed Capital , chimes in on an alarm:clock post last week about a funding round that the startup Flirtomatic raised from Doughty Hanson. Ball lets on that:

Flirtomatic approached London Seed Capital and London Business Angels earlier in the summer looking for a different sum than what they raised in the end from Doughty Hanson. Unfortunately, DH offered more money at a higher valuation that what we were considering, and the company made an understandable choice to go with the larger funding round. I'm not convinced they need what they raised since their marketing spend should be limited to an initial London-based splash and then feed on the viral aspect of the business and I doubt the ownership structure varies significantly from what we were proposing.

We are pleased to see Ball provide transparency to a trend. Internet startups are increasinlgy offered cash that they really don't require. Entreprenuers might as well take it and stick it in the bank for a rainy day.

Read - London Start-ups: Flirtomatic (Jason Ball's TechBites)