Dan Primack

Morgenthaler Ventures last week raised $400 million for its ninth fund, and its first to not include an actual Morgenthaler within the general partnership. Alex Haislip reports over at PE Week (sub req.) that Gary Morgenthaler will be a "venture partner" on the new fund, and quotes firm spokeswoman Ching Wu as saying: He has reached a point in his career where he would like more freedom to manage his personal investments and activities. This arrangement allows Gary the flexibility he seeks while keeping him connected to the work and industry he loves. Gary joined the firm in

The California Public Employees' Retirement System has finally updated its private equity performance data, which was a couple of quarters behind when I called to complain last week. The revised data now brings us through the end of Q2 2008, which makes sense given traditional lag-times in GP reporting and the need to reconcile those reports with actual cash-flow data. But something is missing. Actually, there are 96 things missing -- 96 funds listed in the prior report that are not listed in the new report. What this means is that CalPERS disposed of over 25% of its private equity fund investments between the end of 2007 and the end of June 2008 (not including 2008-vintage funds or the California Emerging Ventures portfolios). Some of these funds may have simply run their natural course, like a Warburg Pincus vehicle from 1990. But the majority are of more recent vintage, including seven funds raised in 2005 and ten funds raised in 2004. This almost certainly means secondary sales, perhaps as part of a PE portfolio reorganization

What follows are nine VC deals culled from recent Regulation D filings with the SEC. They have not been otherwise disclosed: * Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc., a San Diego–based maker of controlled-release injectable products, has expanded its Series A round to $85 million, according to a regulatory filing. It had previously secured approximately $30 million. Backers include MPM Capital, HBM BioVentures, OrbiMed Advisors and Sanderling Ventures. www.pacira.com * Waterfront Media, a New York-based online health media company, has raised $20 million in fifth-round funding, according to a regulatory

Eschewing the five-day workweek, tomorrow I’ll be moderating a venture capital panel at Harvard Business School’s 14th Cybersymposium. It begins at 2:50pm, and will feature: Peter Bell (Highland Capital Partners), Andy Goldfarb (Globespan Capital Partners), Bob Hower (Advanced Technology Ventures), Ray Rothrock (Venrock) and Neil Sequeira (General Catalyst).   The Cybersymposium’s overall focus is tech […]

Want to get the VC world’s attention? Just create an exceptionally dour PowerPoint presentation, and hope someone leaks it into the blogosphere. Last month’s example came from Sequoia Capital, whose “graveyard” deck provided the firm’s portfolio companies with PR cover for mass layoffs. This month’s comes from Adeo Ressi, founder of love it/hate it website TheFunded.com, and is titled “The Canary is Dead: Something is wrong in venture capital.” Ressi developed the presentation for a private talk at Harvard Business School, and a local startup CEO (and former venture firm EIR) leaked it soon-after. You can see it after the jump, but the basic gist is that the VC model is broken because VC firms don’t believe they can succeed in a more efficient market. In other words, the consensus is: “You have to be brilliant to make money in this system, and most firms are not brilliant. Except for us and a few others.” Ressi’s presentation has been getting slapped

We often lose track of earn-outs, those milestone-based payments that can come years after a company is formally sold. So thanks to Silicon Alley Insider for pointing us toward this SEC filing, indicating that Harmonix scored $150 million last quarter from parent company Viacom. Harmonix is the maker of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the games that have caused millions of teenagers (ok, and me) to see fake guitar tabs when it’s time for shuteye. It raised around $7.7 million in VC funding between 1998 and 2001, with a top post-money valuation of $38 million. It was then bought by Viacom subsidiary MTV Networks in 2006 for a reported $175 million. That sale figure now rises to $325 million with the Q3 earn-out, and is expected to go even higher.

CalPERS is the granddaddy of PE performance disclosure, originally by accident and later by an out-of-court settlement with those muckrakers over at the San Jose Mercury News. But it’s one of those issues that has fallen from the limelight, which is perhaps why CalPERS hasn’t updated its online data for the past few quarters. The […]

Yesterday, I wrote that Obama’s victory signaled the coming end of carried interest being treated as capital gains. It’s a change that I have publicly supported for more than a year, but I still wanted to check in with its most vocal opponent, Congressman Tom Reynolds (R-NY). Reynolds did not stand for reelection this time around, and will be one of several GOP departures from the House Ways & Means Committee (Phil English, Jerry Weller, Jon Porter, Ron Lewis). He said that the shakeup will make it more difficult for Republicans to effectively fight Democratic efforts to change tax policy, but that the Committee still has “fine leaders” like Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan. "I think everything is now on the table,” Reynolds says. “The private equity carried interest issue was out front, and any time you have exposure to potential revenues, it never goes

Two weeks ago, Julius Genachowski co-authored a guest post for peHUB, arguing that venture capitalists should support Barack Obama for president. Today, Obama tapped Genachowski to be part of his presidential transition team. Genachowski is a founding partner of LaunchBox Digital, a Washington, DC-based early-stage investment firm and consultancy. He also serves as a special advisor to General Atlantic, a managing director of Rock Creek Ventures and is the former chief of business operations for IAC. There is also talk that Genachowski could end up as Obama’s CTO, if Obama adds

Remember that big debate over how the IRS should treat carried interest, in which certain agitators (hello mirror) argued that such profits more closely resemble ordinary income than capital gains? Well, it effectively ended last night at 11pm ET, when Barack Obama corralled his 270th electoral vote. Momentum for such a change stalled late last year, […]