Mark Boslet

Ridejoy said it raised $1.3 million in a seed round led by Freestyle Capital and followed by Lerer Ventures, Start Fund, SV Angel, Founder Collective and Y Combinator. Also joining the round in the ride sharing company are individual social technology investors Ben Ling, Owen Van Natta and Joshua Schachter. PRESS RELEASE Social Ridesharing Pioneer […]

Facebook filed for a $5 billion IPO on Wednesday as the social networking site with $3.7 billion in 2011 revenue opened up the details of its business to public scrutiny for the first time. The company’s top shareholder is CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded the company in a Harvard dorm room and holds 28.4% of […]

Early-stage investing is chugging along at a nice pace. But Silicon Valley venture capitalists are less confident about the months ahead than they were during the financial tumult of the fall. This is according to the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index prepared each quarter by Mark Cannice, a professor at the University of San […]

One big uncertainty for the year ahead is the health of the private equity fundraising market. After all 2011 wasn’t what you might call the best of times. But then, it is not as if the industry really needs the money, as strange as that sounds. Here is a calculation I came across this morning […]

Pennsylvania’s Public School Employees’ Retirement System has been a cautious investor in venture capital. But it hasn’t been afraid to put capital to work. The dollar value of the bets PSERS has placed in the first decade of the new millennium is up considerably over the 1990s, even though it hasn’t purchased a share in […]

Jeff Clavier has closed a $55 million third fund that will enable his seed-stage firm, SoftTech VC, to make bigger bets on portfolio companies and reap bigger rewards. Clavier, the firm’s founder and managing partner, said the fund was oversubscribed and has invested in 23 companies so far with money from its first and second […]

Last year’s volatile financial markets have begun to hurt short-term venture returns. No surprise in that. Long-term returns so far remain untouched. Third-quarter returns slipped into negative territory and one-year returns retreated from a mid-year peak, according to data released Wednesday by Cambridge Associates and the National Venture Capital Association. Meanwhile, 10-year returns rose, as […]

Last year was pretty solid year for the secondary market. SecondMarket’s results are just one example. The online exchange for private company shares said its transaction volume surged 55% to $558 million as ex-employees, investors and founders sold shares to institutional and other buyers. This year could be a moment of truth. With private company […]

Last year brought a broad-based rebound in venture investing. Dollars committed rose 22% and most industry sectors benefited. Software, biotech, cleantech, Internet, medical devices and IT services all saw an increase in dollars to startups. But a noticeable shift in the funding landscape set 2011 apart from the past decade. Early stage investing leapt to […]