Connie Loizos

Venture returns are improving, but it’s still too early to say we’ve seen the last of poor industry performance. With the exception of the 15-year returns, which declined slightly, venture capital performance improved across all time horizons from the end of Q3 to the end of Q4 2010, according to Cambridge Associates and the National […]

According to the Israeli newspaper Globes, the Israeli venture capital firm Pitango is setting out to raise a $350 million sixth fund. The firm, founded in 1993, closed its fifth fund in 2007 with $330 million. Amazingly, Pitango — whose LPs include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System, and […]

Last week, entrepreneur Craig Walker announced that he has started a new “accelerator” called Firespotter Labs. The company’s plan is to build roughly three startups simultaneously, and then, before they raise a Series A round of their own, hand them off to teams of individuals who Firespotter recruits. To get started, the company has raised […]

Last month, entrepreneur Matt Mireles (pictured) published a tweet, asking: “Why is TechStars NYC run by a non-entrepreneur?” The “non-entrepreneur” in question is 29-year-old David Tisch, whose grandfather built Loews into a Fortune 100 company that operates hotel chains, and whose family’s largess has helped bankroll numerous institutions, including the Tisch Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Since 2007, the young Tisch has been seed-funding startups with his brothers. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has also started two Internet companies, both of which were shuttered in less than a year’s time.

Glassdoor, a three-year-old, venture-backed employment site that’s driven by anonymous user submissions, has just released a study of the top 25 companies to join if strong work-life balance is a priority. Given the round-the-clock work ethos of many tech companies, it comes as little surprise that tech is barely represented on the list, which is topped by Nestlé Purina […]

Earlier today, I asked Marc Andreessen if we’d see his venture firm, Andressen Horowitz, raise a third fund in 2011. “Nice try,” Andreessen joked before telling me that it was “doubtful.” I doubt that. Andreessen Horowitz is one of the biggest winners to come out of today’s news that Microsoft has purchased the Internet phone […]

Everyone knows Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Now, the media savvy founders of Andreessen Horowitz are beginning to raise the profile of their other two GPs, beginning with John O’ Farrell, who joined the team last year and is credited for many of its later-stage deals. (O’Farrell also manages a new $200 million “co-investment” fund […]

Being a startup founder can be exhausting. It can be lonely. These days, with investors tripping over themselves to slip money into founders’ pockets, and reporters rushing to tell their stories, it can also be pretty prestigious. FoundersCard has been quietly and smartly harnessing that prestige by assembling a members-only community of mostly entrepreneurs whose […]

Want to get your startup employees to listen to you? Then give them a task in person or over the phone — then follow up with them using some other medium like email or instant message. Sure, it’s common sense. But a new study confirms that too many managers wrongly assume that giving instructions once […]

Eighteen months ago, Noah Kagan’s life took an unexpected turn. Just weeks after the “Scamville” controversy erupted in the fall of 2009 —  it called out numerous offer networks for ads that didn’t disclose hidden fees or obligations — Kagan’s offers company Gambit found itself banned from Facebook. It practically killed Gambit. “We lost 95 percent […]