Infotrade

The buttoned-down IT industry outshone flashy consumer Internet startups at raising money in the first quarter, logging a big increase in U.S. venture capital investments, especially in enterprise software. Venture capitalists invested US$2 billion in 257 deals with young IT companies in the quarter, according to a quarterly survey by Dow Jones VentureSource. That marked a 14 percent increase in dollars and a 2 percent increase in the number of deals compared with the first quarter of 2011, making IT the only large industry where both figures rose. By contrast, investors trusted 76 percent less money to consumer Internet companies, in 17 percent fewer deals, than they did a year earlier. That segment attracted $375 million in 88 deals in the first quarter of this year, according to VentureSource. The survey noted that one reason for the big drop may have been the strong quarter a year earlier, when hot companies such as Zynga and LivingSocial raised large amounts of money: $870 ...

It’s the  golden age  of the entrepreneur, but the people who fund them aren’t happy about it.  At yesterday’s Kauffman Foundation Fellows summit  in New York, a trio of veteran limited partners who invest in venture capital firms spent an hour taking questions from a crowd of 125 budding VCs and entrepreneurs, tossing out buckets of cold water along with their encouragement. What they want for Christmas: fewer VC firms, smaller funds, and saner valuations. During the past 15 years, LPs put $20 billion each year into VC, about four times the $500 million committed to venture in total during the decade 1985-1995. If venture is going to return to the cottage industry it once was, the LPs will have to scale back their investments. This year may go down as the year LPs finally blew the whistle on the venture capital model. Pretty much every one will say publicly or under their breath that the model is broken. To recap: Over the last ten years only 20 f...

by   EZE VIDRA   on   APRIL 10, 2008 - http://www.vccafe.com/2008/04/10/the-golden-age-israeli-startups-experience-funding-streak-part-i/ Since I started following the Israeli market in 2005, it’s not often that I’ve seen so many Israeli startups raise money in such a short period of time. Capital raising is seen across the board in Telecommunications, Cleantech, Internet, Consumer Electronics and Biotech in the last couple of weeks. Is this the Golden Age of Israeli startups? Or are institutional investors looking eastbound for a cushion to protect them from the imminent recession in the west? Part I – The Israeli venture capital scene In a  recent study , the  IVC Research Center  reports that the capital available for investment in the hands of Israeli VCs is now at $2 billion, making conditions ripe for the number of investments we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks. In 2007, Israeli venture capital funds raised a total of $1.1 billion (i...