Briac

Highland Capital Partners has just begun accepting applications for its third-annual Summer@Highland program, which is designed to “provide selected student entrepreneurs with the environment and resources for advancing their startup initiative/company to the next level.” Specifically, selected entrepreneurs and teams will receive a financial stipend for the summer, complimentary office space in Highland’s Massachusetts or Silicon Valley locations and access to Highland’s investment staff (for advice, etc.). There is no investment commitment either by participating entrepreneurs or Highland, but if you really hit it off…

* Payscale, a VC-backed online provider of compensation information, has filled out its March Madness bracket. Not based on ball skills, but based on the median salaries of each school's graduates. * Chuck Grassley says he wants AIG executives to commit suicide. Senator, you may want to work on your hyperbole. * Morning Call: U.S. futures mostly flat, European stocks break winning streak, the Nikkei gains 3.2% and Hong Kong down less than a percent. * Most interesting tidbit from the 60 Minutes interview with Ben Bernanke was that Big Ben once waited tables at South of the Border. If only there was some photographic evidence... * Extra, Extra: Last print edition of the Seattle P-I is on newstands now. Ex-Rocky Mountain News staff plan to launch website. * Jeremy Grantham: Reinvesting when terrified (.pdf)

* Strange Bedfellows: David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group) and Leo Garard (U.S. Steelworkers Union) co-author a blog post on the future of U.S. manufacturing. * KKR pays its Amersterdam-listed affiliate $200 million, to buy the affiliate's stakes in five KKR portfolio companies. Moreover, there's now talk that KKR just might buy the entire affiliate, which would scuttle the firm's existing plans to go public on the NYSE via a reverse merger. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, European shares rise for fifth-straight session, London up 1.5% at mid-day, the Nikkei jumps and Hong Kong climbs 3.6 percent. * Destroying civilization with nanotechnology. Paging Steve Jurvetson... * President Obama today is expected to announce new steps to aid small businesses, including a cut in lending fees and boost in loan guarantees. * It's been a year since Bear went bust. Where are its leaders now?

* Qatar's sovereign wealth fund is going on hiatus: "For the next six months we will do nothing," said Hussein Ali al-Abdullah, executive director of the Qatar Investment Authority. * Christopher Hitchins: The revenge of Karl Marx. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London falls early, so does the rest of Europe, the Nikkei drops 2.4% and Hong Kong shares rise. * Virgin America needs new investors to keep afloat. Someone! Help! Please! * Not all nations hit new March lows. * Find your favorite PE pro on Forbes' list of the world's (remaining) billionaires.

* Full transcript of Tim Geithner's appearance last night on Charlie Rose. * Chadwick Matlin: Thanks Mr. Madoff. You were the villian America needed. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point higher, London down early, European shares rise on miners and M&A talk, the Nikkei jumps on Citi and techs and Hong Kong closes up. * Sign of the Times: Cheers (fka The Bull & Finch) lays off famed bartender Eddie Doyle. * Must See TV: Jim Cramer to appear on The Daily Show tomorrow night. * Q&A with Roger Ehrenberg on shutting down a VC-backed company. * Felix Salmon has a bunch of Citigroup questions. He also cites a USA Today poll showing that Americans support bank nationalization, so long as it gets called something other than "nationalization."

What follows are six VC deals culled from recent Regulation D filings with the SEC. They have not been otherwise disclosed: PicoChip, a Bath, England-based provider of signal processing products for wireless communications, is raising $25 million in Series E funding, according to a regulatory filing. It already has secured around $15 million, including $5 million via the cancellation of existing promissory notes. Backers include Highland Capital PartnersScottish Equity Partners and Atlas Venture. It had previously raised over $64 million. www.picochip.com Cornerstone OnDemand Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based provider of talent management software and services, has raised around $9 million in Series E funding

* Merck to buy Schering-Plough: It's not private equity, but a new $40 billion+ merger is still a new $40 billion+ merger. * Michael Lewis: Wall Street on the Tundra (a.k.a. Iceland) * State-by-stage unemployment rates. * Morning Call: U.S. futures off more than 2%, European shares drop early, Nikkei falls to 26-year low and Hong Kong drops 4.8% as HSBC tumbles. * Has cloud computing lost its VC luster? * The Loss Generation: Young Americans are getting cautious with their money. * Get ready for Wolfram Alpha. It's like Hal 9000, but without the emotional outbusts.

* Top Treasury candidates pull their names. The under-staffing of our most essential executive department is just numbing. * David Kamp: Is it time to rethink the American deam? * Morning Call: London dragged lower on financials, European shares slip, Nikkei drops 3.5% and Hong Kong down 2.4 percent. * Crash of 2008 now worse than the crash of 1929. * True Ventures launches its Entrepreneurs Corps, which will partner "undergraduate students with some of our portfolio companies for a summer of learning and innovatio." Great move. * KKR's clever fund amendment.

* Yet another Op-Ed telling us, among other things, that venture capitalists are "paralyzed" and how "marquee venture capitalists have little time nor inclination anymore to invest seed capital in early stage companies." This one is in the WSJ, and was written by Tom Hayes and Michael Malone. Not only are the authors wrong about the two aforementioned statements, they also incorrectly assert that SOX is the reason that promising VC-backed companies aren't going public today. Yes, SOX increases the cost of going public, but a few million dollars won't dissuade a company that can make triple-digit millions via an IPO. The real problem is a lack of public market buyers for almost any IPO, whether it be a VC-backed tech or an established, revenue-generating company (just ask buyout shops with pipelines of IPO-ready companies). The IPO market is dead because it's missing half of it's supply/demand equation -- not because of an accounting rule. * Roger Ehrenberg on Citi: The difference between drama and dramatic action. * Morning Call: U.S. futures are mixed, European shares fall on financials and autos, the Nikkei drops 1.5% and Hong Kong drops by nearly 3 percent. * Demise of the poison pill? * Medtronic juices the VC-backed exit market: $700m+ for CoreValve, and $325m for Ventor Technologies.

* Carried interest taxation is back on the table. And to think, it was just one month ago that NVCA chief Mark Heesen called me "dead wrong" to suggest that Obama's election meant an increase in the taxes VC and PE pros would pay on profits (were there any profits on which to pay taxes). * Sara Lacy looks at recent VC deals data, and believes that it points to foreign investment as the next big thing. * Morning Call: U.S. futures point to rebound on Citi relief, London edges higher, European markets rally, the Nikkei down on credit fears and Hong Kong closes up. Apparently the markets only hate the idea of bailouts when it's individual mortgages being discussed... * Mark Cuban: Was Madoff a better investment than your mutual fund? * Conventional wisdom be damned: The U.S. remains the world's leading manufacturer, in terms of the value of goods produced.