Azure Made No Investments For Over A Year
It was between February of 2008 and May of 2009 that the venture firm completely pulled back, according to a couple of the partners -- not because they'd stopped looking for investments, but because the valuations on the companies they did see were too "frothy," and they couldn't reach agreements with the entrepreneurs. Remember it was during this period that Sequoia summoned its portfolio companies for a stern lecture on conserving cash and its "R.I.P. Good Times" presentation, illustrated with a headstone and a somewhat graphic picture of a butcher knife stuck in a pig's carcass in case anyone didn't get the point. When I first met Azure's Mike Kwatinetz, however -- in May of 2008, over four months before the Sequoia meeting -- he was the only VC I knew who was saying publicly that there was a bubble and that startups were over-valued and that they were spending too much money. That's not to say he was the only VC saying it, just the only one I knew.
