Dan Primack

Portland, Oregon's Marquam Hill is known to outsiders for its Sky Bridge, a 666-foot wonder that is believed to be the longest suspended pedestrian walkway in North America. To locals, however, the simply known as "Pill Hill." It's that latter reference that a new VC firm called Marquam Hill Capital is hoping to exploit (in a good way, of course). MHC was launched earlier this year by John Hull, a former partner with OVP Venture Partners, and Javier Fernandez, a former partner with Guggenheim Venture Partners and TL Ventures. Their goal is to invest in oncology-related startups, presumably including spinouts from the Oregon Health & Science University (which is located on Marquam Hill, alongside a couple of hospitals).

I promise that not every post today is going to be about 2009 numbers, but since they keep rolling in... VCCircle.com has released its first annual deal roundup, showing that total private equity investment in India fell around 63% last year, from $11.9 billion in 2008 to $4.4 billion in 2009. This includes a 52% drop in angel and venture capital investment. On the upside, the Indian private equity market experienced 96 exits worth $2.2 billion, compared to 44 exits worth $930 million in 2008. View the full report after the jump...

Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association this morning released Q4 and year-end 2009 data on VC-backed IPO and M&A exits. Not surprisingly, the results were underwhelming. The fourth quarter's five VC-backed IPOs brought the yearly total to just 13. That's more than twice the number of VC-backed companies that went public in 2008, but still played the backend of the slowest consecutive yearly total since 1974-1975. There were 67 VC-backed M&A exits last quarter, which generated $7.77 billion in disclosed value. The 2009 tally was 262 VC-backed M&A exits at a disclosed value of $12.55 billion, compared to 348 deals worth a disclosed value of $13.68 billion in 2008.

Just running some IPO data, and noticed something kinda creepy (at least if you're semi-religious and/or watched lots of Headbangers Ball): There were 666 VC-backed IPOs over the past decade, which raised $66.6 billion. Not exactly a great omen for investors who are banking on an IPO rebound in the near future. Or maybe the endtimes refers to just the recent IPO market -- just 19 offerings in 2008-2009 -- which most everyone would be okay with obliterating. Or, most likely, this is just a wonderful piece of statistical symmetry. Moving on: What follows is a slideshow of the decade's ten largest VC-backed IPOs, including brief updates on where the issues currently stand. Each offering caused cork-popping at the time, but only a few retained their glory...

Yesterday I emailed a handful of VCs to get their thoughts on 2009, and what might lie ahead in 2010. Same four questions for each. What follows are the replies of five venture capitalists and a VC fund placement agent. If more replies roll in -- hard to know with so few folks working -- we'll be sure to add them. Get it after the jump...

Venture capitalists entered the decade on a dotcom high, and this week will end it on an exit-starved low. In between, they invested in over 16,000 U.S.-based companies. What follows is a list of the 10 most active VC firms, based on our VentureXpert database (which, coincidentally, is being retired at year-end). The rankings are based on the number of U.S.-based companies in which a firm invested over the past decade -- regardless of number of financing rounds. And, just as a reminder, putting lots of money out the door doesn't necessarily correlate to the amount that comes back in...

When the final numbers come out next month, it's likely that venture capitalists will have invested less money in 2009 than in any year since 1997. It's currently tracking at just over $16 billion for U.S.-based companies, with the only silver lining -- from a deal volume perspective -- being that Q3 and Q4 figures were improvements over Q1 and Q2. But the investment slowdown didn't affect everyone. peHUB has compiled a list of the 10 companies that got the most VC love over the past year. It includes five cleantech companies (broadly-speaking), some social network-related plays, a biotech startup, a wireless networker and a private aviation company. Two of them have already filed for IPOs, while some of the others are considered prime candidates. Get the full list after the jump...

Twitter, a San Francisco-based micro-messaging service, has acquired Mixer Labs, makers of the GeoAPI geolocation-aware applications. No financial terms were disclosed. Twitter has raised over $150 million in VC funding, from firms like Benchmark Capital, Spark Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Institutional Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures. As an interesting side note, Bill Tai of […]

Personalized genetics company 23andMe Inc. has closed out its Series B funding round with $27.78 million, according to a regulatory filing. The company had held an $11 million first close back in May, but at the time only planned to raise $24.26 million. This is the company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, which had raised around $9 million in Series A funding from Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates and Mohr Davidow Ventures. MDV later sold its small stake back to 23andMe, after investing in rival startup Navigenics. No word on what may, or may not, have happened to the Genentech piece.

Ever since the Canopy Financial scandal broke last month, there has been lots of speculation about existing investors cashing out during the company's July financing round. peHUB has now learned that $40 million of the $62.5 million deal was used as liquidity for Granite Global Ventures, Canopy board member John Powers (CEO of Stanford Management Co.) and Canopy's three co-founders. Of that, GGV took the lion's share with $27.5 million. It's time for them to give the money back. As Deb reports below, over 1,000 people have had their Health Savings Accounts frozen because of the Canopy fraud. This mean sick people could be unable to access money saved for the purpose of paying medical bills. They may get the cash back eventually -- via bankruptcy proceedings -- but that's cold comfort to someone who is ill or injured right now. I'm told that one large healthcare administrator is making its clients good in the meantime, but it is an exception to to rule. Everyone else is just out of luck, and the FDIC doesn't care because a failed bank isn't involved.