horowitz

One of Silicon Valley's most successful venture capital firms could become quite a bit richer if rumors that its founder is trying raise $1.5 billion are true.

The New York Times reported today that one of tech's most influential investors, Marc Andreessen, is looking to raise $1.5 billion for his Andreessen Horowitz investment firm. According to the Times, if Andreessen comes up with the funds, it could more than double the firm's assets. Right now, Andreessen Horowitz has $1.2 billion distributed between three funds.

Since launching in 2009, Andreessen Horowitz has been one of … Read more

The IPO market may have regained its footing--sort of--but clearly not fast enough for some wanting to sell their private shares.

Trading on SecondMarket soared 55 percent in 2011 to a total of $558 million in transactions, as ex-employees, founders and others connected with hot startups cashed out shares. The company creates a marketplace for stock in private companies.

Demand, meanwhile, was huge, with those trying to buy private shares--measured by what SecondMarket calls "indications of interest"--offering more than $6 billion during the year.

SecondMarket says it's now completed more than $1 billion in private company … Read more

Yahoo's hiring of Scott Thompson as its new chief executive may grease the skids for an investment in the Web giant from the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm.

Andreessen Horowitz has already submitted a bid for a piece of Yahoo. Thompson has a connection to the firm. The former PayPal president was hired at the online payment service by then-PayPal President Jeff Jordan. These days, Jordan is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and reportedly among those working on the firm's bid for a Yahoo stake.

Jordan was effusive, in a press release, when PayPal hired Thompson as senior … Read more

Pinterest, an invitation-only site that describes itself as a pinboard to organize and share things you love, is growing at a phenomenal pace.

The site received nearly 11 million visits in the week that ended December 17, almost 40 times the number of visits it received during a single week six months earlier, according to Experian Hitwise, which measures and analyzes consumer behavior on the Web.

That's a 4,000 percent increase and lands Pinterest as the No. 10 social site among the 6,581 properties that Hitwise tracks. (See chart below.) It was beat out by the likes … Read more

As Yahoo's board mulls bids for some or all of the company, at least one thing has finally become clear: browser pioneer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen won't be running the struggling Web giant.

Andreessen posted a note on his blog that neither he nor his partner at Andreessen Horowitz, former OpenTable chief executive Jeff Jordan, have any interest in leading Yahoo.

"To be crystal clear, neither Jeff, nor I, nor any of our partners at Andreessen Horowitz, are in the running for, or would accept, any operating role at Yahoo, including CEO, acting CEO, chairman, or … Read more

Fab.com, a design-focused e-commerce site that's growing like mad, today announced that it has raised $40 million in a round led by the big venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.

It's a spectacular rise for Fab.com, which just six months ago changed course from its original business to become to a retailer all sorts of goods--from jewelry to artwork and home furnishings--through flash sales that typically last 72 hours. Fab.com started as a social network for the gay community.

"It's humbling, it's exciting and it's pretty amazing," said Jason Goldberg, the founder … Read more

Yahoo as we know it may be coming to an end.

Years of mismanagement and strategic drift have taken their toll, and the buzzards are circling. Odds now seem good that sometime within the next few weeks or months, Yahoo will have a new CEO, a new owner or one or more new private investors--with big changes likely to follow whatever happens.

But this target is moving rapidly, so it's understandable if you're having trouble keeping up with the latest news. As Yahoo enters open season, here's a guide to help those of you playing at home … Read more

Google+ has officially moved out of its infancy, the social project's product manager Bradley Horowitz said at the All Things Digital AsiaD conference today.

Speaking to All Things Digital's Peter Kafka, Horowitz said Google+ has "reached beyond the early adopters" and now has 40 million users. Even with that strong early growth, Google+ is actually still a "project" and not a product, Horowitz said. That means the company faces quite a bit of work to bring Google+ up to snuff.

A key component in that, Horowitz said, is bringing the "Google" by … Read more

On Yahoo's third-quarter earnings call this afternoon, Tim Morse took time to answer just about every question, except the ones that analysts most wanted to hear: When will Yahoo's board decide what to do with the company?

Despite Yahoo's better-than-expected results, questions about its future are the most pressing ones. The company, which fired its chief executive Carol Bartz last month, has increasingly been rumored to be considering takeover offers. A raft of companies have lined up to kick the tires, according to various reports, including Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Chinese Internet company Alibaba.… Read more