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Comment by timdierks | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty easy to name any number of >$100M acquisitions that have been shut down. Regardless, that's only a goal of VCs: there's no shortage of VC-funded companies that have been sold for far less than $100M when they couldn't raise the next round at a palatable price.

No startup company can make a defensible claim that their product will be around for the long haul.

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> It's pretty easy to name any number of >$100M acquisitions that have been shut down.

In the B2B space in the last decade? Please go ahead! Name 5 off the top of your head and I'll concede the point.

> that have been sold for far less than $100M when they couldn't raise the next round

Sure, but the question was about what VCs _want_.

Not sure where the B2B constraint came from. That's a little more challenging, because B2B companies are more likely to have revenue and enterprise sales channels, etc., worth preserving, and it's not particularly relevant to your thesis (that products from VC-backed companies are less likely to get shut down).

Still, here's a few that came to mind where the product has been shut down or changed sufficiently to be the equivalent for many customers: dMARC FeedBurner AuthenTEC Face.com TellMe Wildfire

I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I thought about it a little longer. I'm pretty sure these are all >= 100M.

Vendor reliability is a problem at all levels. If you don't have a multi-year maintenance contract, all the more so.

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