

"A New Kind of Venture Capitalist Makes Small Bets on Young Firms" - jaydub
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/technology/22venture.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

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skinner696
I spoke to these guys a couple months ago and was very impressed. We aren't
ready to take funding yet but they gave us some very good advice, asked
excellent questions, and were generally nice people. I'm not surprised they
are getting some good pub.

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rantfoil
This is precisely the exact kind of trend and evolution entrepreneurs need.
Rather than hands-off dumb money at crazy valuations and major dilution, young
web firms need smart VC's who act more like angels than ever before.

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fallentimes
And everything is so cheap. By the end of the summer, most of the YC companies
still had seed money left. Bootstrapping is much more doable now than it was
three or four years ago.

If I owned a VC firm that didn't do seed investments, I'd be worried.

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hugh
No you wouldn't. You'd just be focusing less on internet-based software
businesses and more on biotech, cleantech, nanotech, and other hardware-type
businesses.

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bootload
_"... biotech, cleantech, nanotech, and other hardware-type businesses ..."_

Your probably right. But it's worth noting that software plays a key part in
all of these industries.

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fallentimes
What's sad is how much money many of these VCs want you to take even if you
don't need it. They do this, in part, to secure their ~2% admin/management
fee, which they only receive for deployed capital.

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steveplace
Here's Fred Wilson's blog. He's a partner at USV, the featured company.

<http://www.avc.com/>

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amrithk
Its impressive how they manage to juggle between nurturing entrepreneurs while
still meeting their responsibilities to investors. Its a tough balancing act
and a model worth studying more.

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joshu
Long term, VCs who do not nurture entrepreneurs will not find the good ones
coming to them -- word gets around.

(And I'm speaking as one who has been through this with the mentioned firm. I
like them a lot.)

