Emerging manager to launch technology activist fund to tap into tech bubble Salome Gvaramia

The question of whether the tech industry – and in particular Silicon Valley – is in a bubble has been much debated this year. Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of his eponymous venture firm, is one of the advocates against the bubble chatter, according to Vanity Fair. The growth of mobile phones has created unprecedented disruption, he says. Furthermore, in contrast to the dotcom boom days, many companies are now creating revenue. But as there are up to 100 unicorns in the U.S. alone, people are getting worried. Mark Cuban, who sold his Broadcast.com for $5.7bn before the dot-com bubble burst, told the magazine that we are in the midst of another one. Roger McNamee, co-founder of the private-equity firm Elevation Partners, told CNBC, "We are going to have a correction one of these days." And Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital, said on Twitter: "Arguing we aren't in a bubble because it's not as bad as 1999, is like saying that Kim Jong-un is fine because he's not as bad as Hitler."

A unicorn, in the investment industry, is a start-up company whose valuation has exceeded $1bn (you can find a table of the biggest American unicorns here.) The Economist this summer identified 99 listed technology companies valued at $1bn or more in Silicon Valley. Together, these 99 companies are worth some $2.8tln (an increase of 75% over the past 30 months), and account for around 6% of all corporate America's corporate profits.

The NASDAQ Composite Index, which went from about 2,500 to around 4,800 in the last five years, is up 1.70% YTD, after returning 15.7% in the last year.

New activist tech fund

Meanwhile, an American investment company is not waiting to check whether ......................

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This article was published in Opalesque's New Managers a top-down monthly analysis, news and research publication on the global emerging manager space.