Risk Evaluation for Internet Investments Anya Eldan Managing Partner, Platinum Venture Capital 18 February, 2002

Investing in Internet Companies Is Internet a burst bubble or a growing viable market? Which companies are “Internet Companies”? Should we invest in Internet Companies? What are the risk factors in Internet Companies - what did we learn? What is relevant to Israel?

Internet is Here to Stay (it is a huge success…) E-Commerce: $1.23Trillion 2001; $6.8Trillion 2004; (Forrester Research) Registered domains: 29.5M (NetFactual) On-line population: 529M (Global Reach) Value of top Internet company: AOL $125B

What is Internet Company? Wireless browsing? WEB storage? On-line shopping? Content delivery acceleration? Payment engine? Web access load balancing?  Applications and Services specifically enabled by Internet and infrastructure technologies making those applications and services possible and effective

-Internet-powered media and communications -Dynamic pricing online trader platform -Online retailer -Global Internet communications, commerce & media -Web-based financial services -Online consolidator of hotel accommodations -Online ticketing, city guide & classified services -eBusiness & Internet-marketplace solutions -Online investing services -Infrastructure SW enabling convergence of Internet & wireless communications Company Profile Market-Cap (in Bil. $) Annual Sales (in Bil. $) 10 Leading Internet Companies

Is it time to invest in Internet (again)? YES! Internet markets are growing strong and are becoming mass markets Internet technology is maturing past early adoption Valuations are low Exits are coming back (PayPal?) Lessons are learned (maybe)

What did we learn? – Risk Factors (1) Challenging new Business Models (eyeballs, viral marketing, revenue sharing) Mass deployment required for success Many new categories, only 2-3 will make it (execution! first mover? smart money? Luck!) Speed of adoption is slower than expected (change of procedures, new infrastructure, scalability of technology)

What did we learn? – Risk Factors (2) Management –inexperienced entrepreneurs, fast riches, no long term operational planning, no “relevant” management experience Operations – Internet applications lack security, s/w quality, support of unexpected demand bursts, new logistics models Brand Building – very expensive for new companies, reliance on new Internet media

Israeli Internet Companies State-of-the-practice: –Don’t invest in applications and services –Invest in Internet infrastructure Did we really comply?

Public Israeli Internet Companies  Internet traffic management solutions; 2001 Sales - $43M, Market-Cap - $170M  Integrated performance management solutions enabling businesses to test and monitor Internet applications; 2001 Sales - $361M, Market-Cap - $3Bil  software that assists organizations in monitoring & optimizing the performance of their IT infrastructure; 2001 Sales - $56M, Market-Cap - $525M  Web-based & messaging solutions 2001 Sales - $18M, Market-Cap - $5M  Internet communication infrastructure software enabling companies to communicate business-critical, time-sensitive information to their customers; 2001 Sales - $21M, Market- Cap - $60M

Private Israeli Internet Companies Online comparison-shopping service; 2001 Sales - $12M eCommerce search solutions based on intuitive free text search integrated with dynamic browsing; 2001 Sales - $14M Integration solutions for B2B e-Commerce; 2001 Sales $3M Web application security and control software for e- Businesses; 2001 Sales - $9M Live on-demand collaboration, communication & eLearning platform; 2001 Sales - $9M

Reality Check : 150 Internet Companies from D&A Applications: 38 On-line Marketing, profiling, etc: 22 Rich media on-line : 17 Content distribution: 16 B2B, CRM: 16 Payment: 9 Security: 8 Wireless Internet : 8 Internet technology: 8

Invest: Real Technology Advantage Security Image processing, compression Enterprise s/w Supply chain technologies Algorithms for load balancing, optimization Wireless technologies Internet technologies (XML, Linux, PHP…) Machine learning, natural language processing

Invest: Can bring to Market Now Current Market Need – don’t have to create demand, no need for drastic behavior pattern changes Short Penetration time – start making money from the start Simple Channel – someone out there benefits from selling your product “Standalone” Product - high entry barrier but low integration requirements with other products

Invest: Know to Execute Simple Business Model – make money from selling product/service to single customer yearly licensing is great! preferably to established players Revenue sharing a bonus Reliability – old timers from s/w industry Management – preferably entrepreneur Nothing wrong with service – just don’t use Israeli team!

Invest: Perceived Exit Strategy IPO of profitable companies – Y/2003 Mainly M&A Candidates: Service companies looking for technology edge Growing enterprise software companies looking for new products for existing channels Margin increasing technologies

Investing in Internet Companies Same as other investments but even more carefully: Clear market need -Simple profitable business model -Execution skills -Barrier to entry -Deep pockets……for when everything turns out to be different