Connie Loizos

Back in 2006, a number of ex-Googlers became full-time investors, including angels Aydin Senkut, Georges Harik and Paul Buchheit (founder of FriendFeed). It would be overstating things to say that the tide has now turned, but at least one former VC, Karim Faris, has joined Google to focus on investments and acquisitions. Faris spent the last year and a half working independently to help startups build their teams and raise financing, but for four years before that was a principal at Atlas Ventures in Boston, where he sat on the boards of Atlas-backed Lilliputian Systems, a Wilmington, Mass., a portable fuel cell technology startup, and CLK Design Automation in Littleton, Mass., which makes timing and power analysis tools used in microprocessor design (and that continues to list Faris as a board member, and

Kevin Scott, the last man standing at 3i in Menlo Park, is forming a new venture firm called Maywood Capital Partners. In a note to acquaintances on Friday, he wrote that at Maywood, which is taking up residence in Redwood City, Calif., he’ll “continue to manage the bulk of 3i’s US early stage venture portfolio […]

I just received a note from Tim Draper’s assistant, announcing that Draper has decided to begin blogging on venture capital, the economy, and how to foster and support entrepreneurship around the globe. Draper seems like an awfully busy guy, so I’m not expecting much more than what’s available right now at the site, called The […]

Halsey Minor isn’t making any new friends in the art world, but he’s making plenty of enemies. In September, it was widely reported that the auction house Sotheby’s was suing the Internet entrepreneur turned venture investor for refusing to pay for three paintings he purchased in May, including, ironically, “The Peaceable Kingdom,” by renowned American folk painter Edward Hicks. According to Sotheby’s, Minor initially told the auction house that he hadn’t paid for the works because he was owed money by other parties. Minor, who has countersued, has said he hasn’t paid for the paintings because Sotheby’s didn’t directly disclose to him its financial stake in the sale. (Minor contends he might have bid a distressed asset price otherwise.) Now peHUB has learned that Minor is taking on another venerable Manhattan-based auction house, Christie’s. Its alleged offense was hampering Minor's efforts to sell seven Richard Prince paintings by holding on to them for a protracted period this fall, after failing to help him

There’s no shortage of interest in clean tech. According to the Cleantech Group, 158 clean tech companies received a record $2.6 billion in funding in the third quarter of this year, a full 37 percent more money than was deployed in the third quarter of 2007. One new entrant that’s helping to bolster those numbers […]

Think things will start to turn around in the second half of next year? Hah, good one. So suggested Colin Stewart, the vice president of capital markets at Morgan Stanley, earlier today at the AlwaysOn conference in Half Moon Bay. “I wouldn’t want to delude you,” said Stewart to an audience of roughly 50 attendees, […]

"When [former Cisco CEO John] Chambers was paying the prices he was back in ’99, an acquisition was a good out. Today, a private sale doesn’t get us the returns we need to make us attractive to LPs as an alternative asset class." --Joe Schoendorf, a venture partner at Accel Partners, speaking both about the venture industry and specifically Accel -- which turns 25 this month -- at today's AlwaysOn conference in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

In this video to promote the AlwaysOn conference happening today and tomorrow in Half Moon Bay, California, panelists DFJ’s Tim Draper, seed-stage investor Mike Maples, and investment banker Michael Barker of Revolution Partners, among others, comment on the state of the startup industry.  As you’ll see, the clip covers a lot of ground, from when the […]

I just crossed a somewhat entertaining discovery made by Portfolio magazine: Craig Newmark, the bespectacled founder of the wildly successful Website Craigslist doesn’t book his flights online, preferring to — gasp! — phone a travel agent, who makes his arrangements for him. In fact, it sounds like Newmark has never booked a flight through one […]

First Round Capital, a four-year old venture firm based in suburban Philadelphia, is so far among the most active Internet investors of 2008. It has backed 17 new startups, and is tied only with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a much larger fund. As 2008 winds to a close, and the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declares a recession, I thought it made sense to check in Josh Kopelman, who founded First Round and whose past accomplishments include cofounding the companies Infonautics Corp., which went public in 1996, and Half.com, which sold to eBay in 2000. I wondered where he thought Internet investing might head from here, and how he plans to approach 2009. The economy is in a tailspin. Where does it make sense to invest online right now? The deals we think are the most attractive now are capital efficient and somewhat counter cyclical. Mint Software [whose personal finance management technology First Round first backed in 2006] is a perfect example of a counter-recessionary business, one to which people are turning as they focus on their portfolios and saving money.