Lawrence Aragon

Jerry Murdock, a managing director and co-founder of Insight Venture Partners, is one of three plaintiffs who won a $54.1 million judgment against Citigroup Inc. on April 12, according to Reuters.  An arbitration panel ordered Citi to pay the investors for losses from municipal securities funds sold by Citigroup Global Markets, Reuters reported.  Besides Murdock, […]

If your grad school was the only determining factor in getting onto Forbes magazine’s Midas List of top venture capitalists, which school should you attend? A.) Harvard Business School B.) Stanford Business School C.) None According to an analysis of the Midas List by James Newell, a senior associate at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), the answer is B – Stanford.

In this week’s Social Scene, Diva of Distressed Lynn Tilton goes to war with Forbes, Ethernet inventor/VC Bob Metcalfe settles into his fifth career, new NVCA Chairman Paul Maeder explains "bublet," Founders Fund's Sean Parker takes himself off the market, Garage Technology Ventures' Bill Reichert is three days away from his birthday, and lots more. OUT & ABOUT Venture capitalists turned out in full force for this year’s annual meeting of the National Venture Capital Association in Boston. My colleague Joanna Glasner was there and shared some of her observations -- including the significance of the line for the women’s bathroom -- yesterday. Here are more of Joanna’s musings: Happy Birthday to Venture (and Bob Metcalfe)... Bob Metcalfe turned 65 yesterday -– and he wasn’t afraid afraid to tell everyone. The Ethernet inventor, 3Com founder, Polaris Venture Partners partner and, most recently professor of innovation at the University of Texas at Austin, announced the milestone to a mostly-VC audience of several hundred.

Go big or go home has become the mantra for venture capital firms. So far this year, U.S.-based venture firms have made eight investments in information technology companies that have topped $100 million, according to peHUB’s analysis of data from Thomson Reuters (our publisher). That’s a huge increase from the single IT deal that was […]

Venture capital fundraising roared back in Q1, driven in part by several late stage funds that were created to invest in hot Internet companies. A total of 38 U.S.-based VC funds raised more than $6.6 billion in the first quarter, up from 35 funds that raised just under $3 billion in the prior quarter, according […]

As we reported earlier today, VC fundraising roared back in Q1, with U.S. VC funds raising their largest amount since the third quarter of 2008. Bessemer Venture Partners led the pack, raising a monster fund of $1.6 billion. Who else is in the top 10? Click through to check out our slideshow.

In this week’s Social Scene, buyout bigshot Steve Schwarzman shows yet again that he has way more money than you and me combined, VC Naval Ravikant gets the old “I left the code at home” excuse, a rich British entrepreneur goes gun crazy, and Skype investor Morten Lund is a year older today. Have a […]

Qihoo 360 Technology Co. Ltd. hit the cover off the ball in its market debut yesterday. The VC-backed Chinese Internet company priced at $14.50 and soared more than 130% to $34 by the close of the day. As impressive as that was, Qihoo is not the top performing VC-backed Chinese IPO since the start of 2010, according to Thomson Reuters (publisher of this blog). See our slideshow to find out who's No. 1, and where Qihoo ranks in the top 10.

Kleiner Perkins has raised $932.3 million out of a targeted $1 billion for its KPCB Digital Growth Fund, according to an SEC filing dated March 11. The fact that the firm had increased the target for the fund from $750 million to $1 billion was first reported by Fortune’s Term Sheet blog on February 16. In fact, Term Sheet reported that KP was raising in excess of a billion dollars. The regulatory filing shows that the target for the fund is $1 billion and that $67.67 million remains to be raised. The document also shows that KP sold its first stake in the fund on Nov. 17.

In this week’s Social Scene, Hollywood falls back in love with venture capital, the Google Ventures team goes Gaga, Don Valentine gets his closeup, Peter Wagner sees a sign of the Apocalypse, Jim Clark and his supermodel wife are expecting their first child, and lots more. Have a personal tidbit you’d like to share about yourself or a friend/colleague? Email me at lawrence.aragon@thomsonreuters.com. I’m looking for birthdays, baby announcements, marriages, new car/boat/house/fill-in-the-blank purchases, funny quotes, vacation pics, snaps from industry events — you get the picture. MAKING THE SCENE In yet another ominous sign that we may be repeating the past, Hollywood is suddenly finding venture capitalists interesting again. To wit, comedian Adam Sandler is co-producing a CBS sitcom that will be set in a VC office, and the HBO drama