Published: 7/28/2011 10:26:22 AM, comments: 0
Bryce Roberts is an experienced venture capitalist at O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and he has a thought-provoking post on whether or not regional venture funds will be able to continue to raise new money:
View post hereWhat prompted him to write the post is the recent decision by Boise, Idaho-based Highway 12 Ventures to not raise a third venture capital fund.
"Something simpler" is needed to create local early-stage capital, according to Roberts, though what that something is he doesn't say.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDeal Published: 7/27/2011 10:21:29 AM, comments: 0
PE Hub has a slideshow of the top 10 industries receiving venture capital investment during Q2, 2011.
View post hereIt was no surprise that Internet companies received the most amount of investment, no doubt due to a relatively few large fundings for the hottest Internet startups. The slideshow has some good historical data as well.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/26/2011 10:15:55 AM, comments: 0
Mohr Davidow David Feinleib provides a
great recommendation for a new book on how to pitch your product or service to anyone.
Pitch Anything
The book uses a unique approach called "framing", which is the idea that you need to create context and relevance in order to "own the frame" of any pitch.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/25/2011 10:32:45 AM, comments: 0
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation tapping the use of federal money for a new New York State focused venture capital fund.
Called the Innovate NY Fund, its purpose will be to invest in early-stage, growth oriented companies, in order to keep them in the state.
In addition to the federal money, the fund will also tap the New York State Capital Access Program and the Bonding Guarantee Assistance Program.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/20/2011 10:25:15 AM, comments: 0
The national
Space Angels Network has announced a partnership with the
Silicon Valley Space Business Roundtable.
The Space Angels Network is a national network of early stage investors in the aerospace industry.
According to the announcement, the partnership aims to share resources and create collaborative events.
The first event will be a reception on July 21 at the NASA Ames facility in Mountain View, California.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/18/2011 9:21:46 AM, comments: 0
VentureDeal is pleased to publish its Venture Capital M&A Report for the period of Q2, 2011.
View report here Covering the most active venture capital industries, the report provides details on individual notable transactions, industry trends and aggregated data.
The report is available at no charge. Feel free to pass along the report to colleagues or friends who may benefit from the information.
VentureDeal
Facebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/13/2011 10:33:48 AM, comments: 0
This post references part 2 of 3 of an incisive series of posts by noted VC Mark Suster of GRP Partners.
View post hereAn interesting point of the post is that the limited partners of the VC firms, e.g. pension plans, endowments, etc. have not "caught up" to the general trend of software startups needing far less capital to start businesses.
He suggests that new LP funds will be set up in the future to provide smaller capital amounts to the emerging "Micro VCs."
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/12/2011 9:53:04 AM, comments: 0
Consulting firm Deloitte & Touche recently published the results of its annual
global venture capital survey co-sponsored with the National Venture Capital Association.
The survey was composed of 347 responses from among nine countries, 48% of the responses of which were from the US.
The main take-away of the survey was that venture capital firms believe that current IPO market activity is insufficient to support the health of their industry in their respective countries.
So, despite the recent strong IPO market in the US - at least for Internet companies - there is still much improvement needed to continue to fund innovative technologies and companies.
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Facebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/11/2011 9:44:43 AM, comments: 0
The number of venture capital funds that have successfully raised new funding has dropped, according to a
report by Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association covering Q2 2011.
While the amount of funding showed a 28% increase in dollar commitments, the number of VC firms that raised the funds in the second quarter of 2011 declined by 23%.
So, if these numbers are correct, we're essentially seeing a flight to quality as limited partners place their funds with VC firms that have a successful track record of profitable exits.
While the headline is negative, the VC industry market is clearly working and will ultimately result in a healthier and sustainable industry.
VentureDealFacebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/6/2011 10:57:48 AM, comments: 0
Interesting article from the WSJ on the drop in business loans to small businesses.
View post hereThere are multiple data sets referenced in the article. Loans to small businesses have dropped either 8.6% from a year earlier (source: FDIC) or a whopping 14% (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) from big banks. Small bank lending to small businesses dropped "only" 3%, year over year.
Whatever numbers you use, they aren't good. Either small businesses are not seeking loans due to soft demand and/or banks aren't lending due to tighter underwriting standards.
VentureDeal
Facebook.com/VentureDealPublished: 7/5/2011 8:56:11 AM, comments: 0
Noted Internet VC Bijan Sabet has a very incisive post on his perception of the evolving venture capital business for the Internet sector:
View post hereEssentially he is saying that the old "20%" rule in which VCs always strove to own 20% of any company they invest in its becoming the exception and not the rule.
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