For many tech startup and scaleup founders, the ultimate goal is to exit – selling their company for vast sums of money. This article, co-authored by Simon Pearson, Anna Faelten and Jonny Chiles from EY’s TMT Corporate Finance team, explores how you can figure out if you are prepared for exit.
For Uber’s ninth anniversary, co-founder Garrett Camp shared the company’s first pitch deck via Medium. “UberCab” (“Cab” was dropped from the name in 2010) promised a one-click, members-only car service that catered to entrepreneurial residents of San Francisco’s Bay Area. Nine years and a new CEO later the company has transformed the logistical architecture of many major cities and successfully raised over $9bn.
The presentation offers a rare insight into how Uber positioned itself to early investors. Within the first four slides Uber outlined the core problem with the existing taxi ecosystem (the use of ageing and inefficient technology) and positioned itself as an on demand car service empowered by the mobile phone. The core message was that the underlying technology deployed by Uber would drive improvements in service. In other words, Uber chose to position itself as a technology company first, and a taxi company second, articulating an investment narrative that resonated with the Venture Capitalists (VCs) of Silicon Valley....