In Israel, it has become close to impossible to get an investment for an Enterprise Software startup, even worse than in the US. One of the main reasons is that enterprise software sales are hard, and expensive ( a lot of high cost man power, and long sale cycles) - which is true. Everyone is looking at models to get around those issues (e.g. open source, SaaS), but fundamentally it remains an issue.
Not that there aren’t problems or opportunities in enterprise software (see The Trouble With Enterprise Software for a nice overview of some of the issues), there are huge issues with enterprise software, and SOA (Services Oriented Architectures) are no panacea. So opportunities for technical innovation abound, it is just that most VCs don’t believe that it is a good investment of time or capital. Since VCs are awfully busy, and have more on their plate than they can handle, once this is a “rule-of-thumb” it is hard to get their ear.
I think this will have grave implications for Enterprise IT shops (and vendors). In last few years most large IT vendors have gotten into the habit of “outsourcing” their technical innovation - they buy companies rather than develop the technology in-house. If the VCs stop investing - then in a few years, innovation in the enterprise software market will dry up. Given the current state of enterprise software, that can’t be a good thing….
I think that things will change - since there is still a lot of money in enterprise software and large vendors need technology, someone will have to provide them with it. Enterprise software companies probably will have smaller chance at IPO - but given the relative lack of competition they should have a better shot at M&A. The trick is to have unique, innovative technology that solves a problem for enterprise IT departments – or even better, for the business. I also think the pendulum has swung too far, and will swing back in a couple of years - making any investment done now, much more valuable in the future

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 2:37 am and is filed under Aquisition, M&A, Startups, VC, Venture Capital, open source, software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.