vc

Investors rarely make or break a startup, but they can make life a hell of a lot easier or harder for an entrepreneur. That's why entrepreneurs need to put some thought into who they want to add to their team, instead of taking the first money that's offered to them.

But how do you choose the right investors for your startup?

There are hundreds of factors to consider, but some stand out more than others. While anybody can give you money, only a few can give you the sage-like advice you need to succeed. And while adding a … Read more

Keith Rabois, the former Square COO who resigned last month amid sexual harassment allegations, is joining Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading VC firms.

Khosla Ventures was founded by former Kleiner Perkins partner Vinod Khosla and was an early investor in Square, the mobile-payments company. According to TechCrunch, Rabois had been considering an offer to join Airbnb as an executive before deciding on the Khosla position. Clearly, the cloud of scandal hanging over his head did nothing to cool the ardor the tech industry felt for him.

That might have something to do with the fact that on … Read more

In April, Facebook said it would buy the young but fast-growing, photo-sharing service Instagram for a jaw-dropping $1 billion. By early December, consumer and entertainment startups were complaining they were having a hard time finding early-stage funding. So what happened? It would be easy to blame Bravo's nausea-inducing reality TV show for the reversal of startup fortunes, but the reality is something a little less Hollywood: Lack of good ideas, economic fears, and poor returns from many of the startups that have already been funded.

In other words, an investment cycle obsessively focused on consumer-tech startups may have finally … Read more

Superstar angel investor Ron Conway will no longer be part of the team of investors giving money to the dozens of startups taking part each year in Y Combinator, one of the world's most prestigious incubators.

Y Combinator said today that it is sharply reducing the amount of venture funding each startup coming through the program is given. For the last two years, each team was seeded with $150,000 in funding from Conway, of SV Angel, Yuri Milner, and Andreessen Horowitz. Starting today, that amount has been slashed to $80,000 per team, the incubator said, as it … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- The future for startup funding is "getting more unpredictable."

That's what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham said today, theorizing that because there are so many more young companies getting off the ground these days, venture capitalists may well have a much harder time predicting winners than in the past.

It makes sense. Startups can get going today for as little as a few hundred thousand dollars, so there are many more of them. "But the funnel at the top is the same," Graham said during the Y Combinator Demo Day. "… Read more

Nobody wants to admit it, but building a personal brand is essential if you want to thrive in a business world dominated by social media. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and even venture capitalists who have only recently stepped out from the shadows and into the spotlight.

I became intrigued by the rising role of personal branding in the VC world by a New York Times article last week that discussed how more VC firms are hiring PR specialists to help brand their firms.

Here's a quick excerpt from that article:

"Now, Sand Hill Road in Silicon … Read more

Pitching your startup idea to investors, journalists, and random people on the street is a rite of passage for all entrepreneurs. You have to convince hundreds (if not millions) of people that you're building something worthwhile and that they should get on board.

Most pitches fall flat though (the best VCs invest in perhaps 1 percent of the startups that pitch them), and it's often because of simple problems that could've been avoided. Nervous entrepreneurs stray from their story, and arrogant entrepreneurs demand unreasonable valuations and then get laughed out of the room by top-tier angels.

Here … Read more

New Enterprise Associates, one of the world's largest venture capital firms, has raised $2.6 billion for NEA 14, its 14th venture capital fund, TechCrunch reported this evening.

TechCrunch figures the new fund may be the largest in venture capital history, beating out a $2.56 billion fund that Oak Investment Partners raised in 2006.

The new fund will have a pretty broad deployment target, New Enterprise Associates partner Tony Florence told TechCrunch.

"From a sector perspective we will continue to be very enterprise-focused, but also very, very active in the consumer Internet space, where there are certainly … Read more

DogVacay, a startup that matches people who need a dog sitter with people who are interested in caring for dogs in their homes, is getting additional first round venture capital funding, the company was set to announce on Thursday.

The site, which reminds me of an Airbnb for boarding dogs, has received an undisclosed amount from Andreessen Horowitz, a VC firm that led a $112 million investment in Airbnb almost a year ago and has also invested in Facebook, Twitter and Zynga. DogVacay raised more than $1 million in a seed round of funding in March from First Round Capital, … Read more