Blog - Corniche Growth Advisors

15 Nov 2022

Fintech M&A 2022 defying gravity

While global M&A and Fintech funding has suffered in 2022, the Fintech sector saw M&A activity rise sharply this year. There were 591 Fintech M&A deals recorded in the first half of 2022, representing a 46% increase on 1H2021 numbers, and an even bigger increase of 70% on pre-pandemic (1...

14 Jun 2022

Will “startups acquiring startups” continue at the same pace?

Selling your startup to another startup has been a viable early-stage exit strategy. Over half of all acquisitions were venture-backed companies buying other venture-backed companies during the halcyon days of 2021, and there are good reasons to do these deals. But is this trend set to continue with...

08 Jun 2022

Seven signs that your CFO can drive growth successfully

Building on our previous article How soon should you get a CFO into your startup?, this article by Patrick Flesner and published by I by IMD (Institute of Management Development) explains why a strategic CFO is critical to the growth stage of a startup. “If your CFO limits himself/herself to ...

25 May 2022

Stock markets moving into private markets – how will technopreneurs benefit?

There has recently been a flurry of activity in EMEA with both the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) announcing their private market launches, whilst investing in platforms that facilitate this. This is not a new concept as the Nasdaq Private Market has been tradi...

23 May 2022

Embedded insurance: A huge opportunity for Insurtechnopreneurs

Embedded insurance is a feature of a product rather than a separate offering, usually sold by a non-traditional distributor at point of sale. This is a potential game changer, given that insurance is traditionally a grudge purchase “sold and not bought”. It can apply to almost every form of insu...

13 Mar 2022

Private company non-executive directors drive more growth

Building on last month’s article which asked “Do private equity or non-executive directors impact company growth?”, I dig into the differences between boards in private and public companies and what tends to drive higher performance in private companies. I have since chatted to more folk that ...

13 Mar 2022

Venture capital and the new era of inflation

How will this new era of inflation affect a technopreneur’s ability to raise early stage venture capital and the valuation at which they raise, given that many listed tech stocks have lost significant value since the beginning of the year, and that inflation continues to rise and appears to be her...

07 Feb 2022

NFTs are not a gimmick. They could radically transform your business

The token economy could transform your company, turning on its head the concepts you currently have of business model, customer, shareholder, supplier and user. (Credit: Arturo Bris: Professor of Finance at IMD) One of the top news items in European football in 2021 was the signing of Lionel Messi �...

07 Feb 2022

Do private equity or non-executive directors impact company growth?

The Covid19 pandemic has certainly helped records tumble in many ways, but one that I took note of last week was that on 2/2/22 the world passed 1,000 unicorns (companies that are worth $1billion or more) – 100 more than in July 2021. What a milestone! A Crunchbase search shows that the total ...

07 Jan 2022

Capital raising with an ESOP

An Employee Stock/Share Option Plan (ESOP) can provide technopreneurs with an important tool for attracting and retaining key talent to help build and scale their early stage startup. But how are these share options managed within the context of a capital raise? As a technopreneur you will be famili...