Uber’s new round of financing values it at $17 billion. So these lucky ones who were in at the start have made 2,000x their initial outlay.
The valuation of Uber is poised to hit an eye-popping $17 billion in its latest round of funding. That makes the four-year-old black car startup one of the most valuable private technology companies in the world. As a result, the startup’s early investors, whose shares are now worth as much as 2,000x their initial investment, are looking pretty smart.
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That means even a tiny little $20,000 angel investment is now worth around $40 million. Even investors from the $3.5 billion round have now almost quintupled their money in less than a year.
There’s one company that is conspicuously not on this list: Universal Music Group, which owned the domain name “Uber.com” prior to 2010. That year, Uber bought the domain from Universal using Uber stock, which Universal Media Group later sold back to the company for a small profit. According to a person familiar with the transaction, if Universal had held onto its stock, it would now be worth more than $100 million.
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As far as other start-up/venture capital things go, I thought the Paul Graham interview I posted last night was great: Airbnb founder Nathan Blecharczyk interviews Paul Graham
The best book on the subject I've seen is Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.
And these notes from a class taught by Peter Thiel are also extremely useful: Notes Essays—Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup—Stanford, Spring 2012