Last week's issue of The Deal included a story about the most successful venture capital exits of 2005. This isn't a story about which companies look the most promising. It's a story about the companies that lived up to their promise and achieved a return for their investors last year.
Some of the deals profiled, such as Skype's sale to eBay, are well known. Others received less publicity and are worth revisiting. Here is a complete list:
Skype's $2.6 billion sale to eBay
Baidu's $108 million IPO
Alibaba's $1 billion sale of stock to Yahoo
Idun Pharmaceutical's $298 million sale to Pfizer
Arakis' $187.4 million sale to Sosei Co.
CSTV Networks' $325 million sale to Viacom
Shopzilla's $560 million sale to E.W. Scripps
Intermix Media's (owner of MySpace) $650 million sale to News Corp.
Rent.com's $415 million sale to eBay
Netscaler's $323 million sale to Citrix Systems
Peribit's $312 million sale to Juniper Networks
Suntech Power Holdings' $545 million IPO
These deals may not be a comprehensive list of the biggest venture capital exits from 2005. But, each deal was worth mentioning for the exit strategy pursued, the returns achieved by the investors or the future trends it exemplifies. For the next few days, I'll be profiling some of the lesser known venture capital exits listed above. If you think I've left any notable ones out, please let me know.
For more on The Deal's venture capital deals of 2005, see:
The Deal
Tags: thedeal, the+deal, deal, vc, venture capital
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