Dan Primack

I'm busy putting together the morning email (and a bit hungover from last night's Shindig), but wanted to quickly post a pair of Q1 data reports that hit my inbox this morning. Analysis will follow a bit later. First up are VC-backed exits, which had a banner quarter. And I don't just mean compared to the past year's slog. The National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB) report higher VC-backed M&A exits than ever before in a single quarter, with 111 deals generating $5.86 billion in disclosed value. VC-backed IPOs also rebounded, with nine offerings raising more than $930 million. Download the numbers here. As for private equity fundraising, Preqin reports that 79 funds raised $50.4 billion in Q1. This is a slight bump over the prior quarter. Worth noting that Preqin data includes all types of

Kleiner Perkins is about to begin its double-secret meeting about "developments in the mobile content revolution." Specifically, it seems that the Silicon Valley-based venture firm is doubling the size of its iFund to $200 million. It also will expand its focus from iPhones to also include iPads. Not really worthy of a press conference, is it? On the other hand, the double-secret meeting strategy has gotten the technorati to cover the news, so it works from a pure PR level. Kleiner partner Matt Murphy signaled that such a move could be coming, in a VCJ story from April 2008: “There’s no hard cap on this,” says Matt Murphy, a KP partner and lead investor for the iFund. “If we see opportunities beyond the $100 million, we’ll increase the allocation.” Worth noting that the original iFund was a carveout of an existing KP fund, rather than money specifically raised for Apple-related purposes. Our assumption is the same is true here, which makes us wonder what sector is getting deemphasized. Could it be cleantech?

Last week, TechCrunch reported that four VC firms were "fighting furiously to be the lead investor in FourSquare's next venture round." That story remains mostly accurate today, except that the four is now a three. peHUB has learned that Redpoint Ventures is no longer in the running to lead what Arrington referred to as a $10 million round with a pre-money valuation of between $60 million and $70 million (which my source calls "spooky accurate"). The remaining trio includes Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures.

ZipCar is moving ahead with plans to go public in 2010, peHUB has learned. The car-sharing company is in the midst of hiring several financial and corporate communications executives, including at least two that should have "exposure to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations." It also is believed to have begun meeting with potential underwriters. If a ZipCar IPO sounds familiar, that might be because of a "will it or won't it" series of stories from last summer. First, Bloomberg reported that CEO Scott Griffith had disclosed plans to go public in 2010. Later that say, TheDeal called Bloomberg's story "a gross misinterpretation" and "nonsense," based on a followup interview with Zipcar spokeswoman Nancy Scott Lyon. Specifically, TheDeal quoted Lyon as saying: "We did not announce an IPO and have no immediate plans to go public."

We’ve got 500 peHUB readers playing in our annual March Madness contest, and the current leader is Bob Aspell of Sverica International. He's got Duke beating Kansas in the final game, which might actually be good enough to win in a year of excessive bracket busting. In second place is someone calling his team Longhorn, which has Syracuse beating Duke in the Finals. And in third place is Dan Stevens, an analyst with Industry Ventures, who also has Duke beating Kansas. Unfortunately for Dan, he has no way of beating Bob (although some others do). Remember, the winner gets a peHUB archive subscription, a one-year magazine sub to VCJ or Buyouts and the keys to peHUB Wire for a morning. Continued good luck to all...

Electric car maker Tesla Motors today filed amended earnings with the SEC today, as it continues to drive toward its inexplicable IPO. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company reported nearly $112 million in 2009 sales revenue, compared to just $14.7 million the year before. Good increase, although Q4 2009 was sluggish with just $18.6 million. The company's 2009 net loss was $55.7 million, of which around $24 million came in the final frame. Tesla also continues to warn of a "decrease in revenues and increase in losses prior to the launch of the Model S" sedan, which is scheduled to begin selling in 2012 at nearly $50k per vehicle.

More than 1,000 peHUB readers have bought tickets to our upcoming shindigs in Boston (3/31) and San Francisco (4/14). Be sure to join us, by getting yours today: Boston: http://bostonshindig.eventbrite.com San Francisco: http://sfshindig.eventbrite.com Tickets cost just $10, with proceeds going to a local charity to be voted on by event attendees (nominate one upon purchase). We look forward to seeing you there...

Don't worry angels, the Senate Banking Committee hears your angst. Beginning a few weeks ago, there's been a lot of digital ink spilt over how Chris Dodd's financial reform package could make life more difficult for early-stage investors and early-stage companies (including by yours tuly). Specifically, the bill would repeal the federal preemption for Regulation D filings, while also opening the door for a doubling of the accredited investor thresholds. So I spoke yesterday to a Senate Banking Committee source, who told me: "The original intent of these provisions was to enhance consumer protections. We are seriously considering the concerns brought to us in recent days."

Bob Litan, vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, stirred up the VC community yesterday with a HuffPo piece about how Chris Dodd's financial reform bill is bad for angel investors. The general sentiment is nothing new to peHUB readers, as I've previously criticized Dodd Bill provisions that would raise the accredited investor threshhold (thus draining the angel pool) and preempt the federal regulation for Form D (thus making it more complicated/costly for startups to raise money from investors in multiple states). But Litan finds another interesting nugget, writing:

I was playing around in our VC funding database, and noticed that I could do searches by Congressional districts. So I decided to look at which districts had secured the most VC funding since the 111th Congress was sworn in on January 7, 2008. My metric was # of companies funded, as opposed to total amount invested. I felt this was a better gauge of VC-backed startup activity, and less likely to be skewed by one or two big deals. Get it after the jump...