Venture Capital

Venture Capital Funds are Growing Strong...Again

Venture capital investments are showing signs of coming back strong. Last week, Dow Jones VentureOne along with Ernst & Young LLP released statistics indicating that venture capital investments in the United States rose 18 percent in the first quarter of this year, showing renewed confidence, with funding of information technology rebounding by 13 percent.
Some of the leading VCs, after a return to sanity when the 2001 bubble burst, are raising smaller funds, planning to make many investments, rather than a few larger ones. The thought is that this will protect them from from a repeat of bubble bursting.
Venture capitalists committed $5.63 billion nationwide in 761 deals completed during the first three months of the year, a 12 percent increase from the same time last year, according to statistics to be released Tuesday by Thomson Financial, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
Over the past year, venture capitalists have put $3.1 billion into Internet companies, about 14% of the $23 billion invested in all industries during that period. Another area of interest to VCs is green technology.
Some of the more well known Venture Capital Firms include:

Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers
Sequoia Capital
Fidelity Ventures
Intel Capital
Mayfield
Accel
Benchmark
New Enterprise Associates
Menlo Ventures
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Garage Technology Ventures

Venture capitalists are very selective in deciding what to invest in; as a rule of thumb, a fund invests only in about one in four hundred opportunities presented to it. They are most interested in ventures with high growth potential, as only such opportunities are likely capable of providing the financial returns and successful exit event within the required timeframe that venture capitalists expect. Because of such expectations, most venture funding goes into companies in the fast-growing technology and life sciences or biotechnology fields. Because of these strict requirements, many entrepreneurs seek initial funding from angel investors.