Lots of huffing and puffing beneath the bubble as Om reports on a rumor (and he calls it such at this point), that Six Apart, the company that brought us TypePad, Moveable Type and Live Journal, has raised another $12M in financing.
The fact that the word another and million are both in that sentence is scary enough. The fact that there’s a 12 before the word million means it’s time to run to the store for water bottles, batteries and plywood. The bubble may be upon us.
Go read Om’s post for the details on what he has heard and to see any updates once he tracks down some of the players.
Om ends by wondering about the exit strategy for Six Apart. You can be sure if some supposedly smart money is investing serious money in this company they have one. And I can only think of two:
(1) get bought by one greater fool, such as Yahoo or Google or another company that has lots of money burning a hole in its pocket; or
(2) get bought by a bunch of greater fools in an IPO.
Generally speaking, there has to be an exit strategy because, sadly, few of these new tech companies really plan on selling a product for the long term- most of them are interested only in selling themselves.
I suspect there is a hush all over the VC world (to paraphrase Herman) because the first one of these one-trick ponies to actually admit it wants to go public will face token scrutiny by some old media and outcry by those stalwart few who remain committed to learning from the past.
But when one of these companies breaks from the pack and heads towards Wall Street, the rest of them will stop and watch closely. If the first one makes it without falling flat on its face, I fear the race will be on.
Newsome.Org 