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Technology mergers and acquisitions matter more than ever to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and transaction advisers. They've always accounted for at least 85% of all exits, but in the past five years, that percentage has spiked even higher. In the first six months of this year, only six information technology startups completed IPOs. So, acquisitions are truly the path to liquidity for all but the most exceptional of startups.

Despite that reality, there isn't currently a venue where you can go to learn about what the main acquirers are looking for. There are numerous conferences to hear venture capitalists pontificate about where they are deploying their capital. And there are even more gatherings for entrepreneurs to predict why their product or service is going to change the world. But, there is nowhere to go to listen to corporate dealmakers explain how startup acquisitions play into their particular company's growth plans.

Until now.

On October 5 at the Computer History Museum, The Deal is bringing together corporate dealmakers from some of the most acquisitive technology companies around. These include:

IBM
Symantec
Yahoo!
Oracle
VeriSign
EMC
SAP

In the first eight months of this year alone, those companies have spent more than $5 billion on a slew of technology companies. Also speaking will be venture capitalists from firms such as Greylock Partners and technology-focused private equity firms firms such as Silver Lake Partners. You can find a fuller list of speakers here.

I'll be writing more about the conference participants and the themes covered by the panels and keynote presentations in the coming weeks. I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts on what you think we should or shouldn't be talking about on October 5. So, feel free to drop me a line with feedback on the agenda. And if you're a blogger or member of the press interested in covering the conference, please contact me.

For more on The Deal's Silicon Valley Summit, see:
Conference web site

Tags: svsummit06, svsummit, m&a, vc, venture+capital

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