Mark Boslet
In peHUB’s continuing series of slideshows on venture funds and fund performance, we’ve looked at funds through the lens of IRRs, annual commitment trends and cash returns. Here is another look at cash returns that is more troubling than becoming. We isolated the 39 venture capital funds in the University of California’s private equity portfolio […]
Apple will continue to feel the presence of Steve Jobs even with the iconic leader no longer its CEO, board member Bill Campbell says. Campbell (pictured) spoke briefly about Jobs during an on-stage interview at the Demo conference this week. He shied away from details, but offered insight into the Jobs’ decision to forsake his […]
Video has been said to be the future of the Internet. Why express your thoughts in text when you can display them in full motion? So it is no surprise social video startups were a focus of the Demo Fall 2011 conference in Silicon Valley on Wednesday. There is little doubt social video is at […]
Investors navigated the halls. Luminaries such as LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and SoftTech’s Jeff Clavier took the stage. Demo Fall 2011 was in full swing Tuesday. What stood out at the tech conference was its eclectic assortment of startups, varying from the sublime to the silly. Several of the most appealing enterprise-focused companies seemed poised to attract […]
The University of California has been a steady buyer of venture funds since the dot-com implosion at the end of the last century. Investments dipped at the start of the last decade. But enthusiasm rose starting in 2004 and has continued. Even during the difficult year of 2008, the regents of the Golden State committed […]
Everyone these days seems to be getting into the startup accelerator business. Why not an international mobile phone giant? Why not, indeed. Vodafone on Thursday become the latest institution to open a Silicon Valley accelerator with the aim of sparking innovation, and, according to a press release set for distribution, providing “potential financial assistance.” In […]
TrueCar broke the ice. Many LPs hope the hole gets larger. TrueCar, a startup that lets consumers check the prices of car sales, said Wednesday it raised $200 million in debt and equity financing, with part of its equity investment marketed on the secondary site SharesPost. SharesPost says it is the first time a company […]
LPs appears to be warming to private equity, in particular mid-market buyouts, distressed equity and venture capital. At least they were prior to the August financial shock. Almost two-thirds of LPs said they committed new money to the PE asset class in the first half of the year, a pace that is ahead of the […]
Few venture firms are more storied than Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But after several hugely successful funds in the mid 1990s, both firms saw late dot-com era funds run afoul of bubble-year challenges. The data for this observation come from the venture portfolio of the University of California. The university’s board […]
I came across a smidgen of data today that may not surprise anyone, but is worth mentioning. Vintage year 1997 venture capital funds appear to lead the industry in returns. Two years later, performance entered a downward slide that hasn’t completely reversed. According to a Preqin analysis of fund IRRs, vintage 1997 funds “have achieved […]