Sramana Mitra: I’m going to double-click down on your second category. You have product-market fit. The options are, do we sell the company now or do we go for another round of funding. If we choose to go for another round of funding, we will get funded because we have product-market fit. In that scenario,
Sramana Mitra: What role does valuation play in whether an acquisition happens or not? Seksom Suriyapa: This is a tough one. The reality is that it tends to be the issue of whether a deal happens or not. Very professional corporate development teams are highly disciplined around how they value deals. Similarly, in the case
Sramana Mitra: Let’s take this example that you started with. Who drives acquisition? Is it product leaders or corp dev? How do you find about this company that you ended up considering an OEM deal with that led to an acquisition? Seksom Suriyapa: In a very perfect world, I advise that product leaders should drive
Seksom Suriyapa, Partner at Upfront Ventures, and formerly Head of Corp Dev at Twitter, SuccessFactors, and McAfee and Akamai discusses exit strategy from the buy-side perspective at length. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by having you talk a little bit about your background in corp dev doing acquisitions from the buy side from various significant companies
Seksom Suriyapa, Partner at Upfront Ventures, and formerly head of Corp Dev at Twitter, SuccessFactors, McAfee and Akamai, discusses exit strategy from the buy-side perspective at length.