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NEA Goes Hyper, Does 12 Deals in OctoberI was putting together the monthly list of most active U.S.-based VCs for the next issue of Venture Capital Journal and was stunned to see New Enterprise Associates atop the list with 12 deals. (See table below.) That's a much larger number than we typically see for a monthly period. What's it mean? Maybe it's a sign that deal making is finally heating up after a long cool spell. Or maybe NEA just wanted to let loose. To put those numbers into perspective, here's how the prior three months looked: For September, the most active VC was NEA, with eight deals; for August, it was Kleiner Perkins, with five deals; and for July, it was Intel capital, with seven deals.
- From Private Equity to Public Servants
The revolving door between politics and private equity has typically been dominated by public servants becoming private-sector millionaires. Over the past few months, however, it seems to have reversed course. Yesterday, The Department of Energy yesterday named Jonathan Silver, a former managing director with Core Capital Partners, as executive director of the DoE’s loan program. This came just hours after President Obama said that he will nominate Joshua Gotbaum, an operating partner with Blue Wolf Capital Management, to be director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. What follows is a list of other private equity pros who have taken government jobs since Obama took office this past January: Jeffrey Goldstein: A managing director with Hellman & Friedman since 2005, Goldstein left over the summer to become Traeasury's undersecretary for domestic finance. Prior to joining Hellman & Friedman, Goldstein spent five years as managing director of The World Bank. Matthew Kabaker: A managing director with The Blackstone Group, Kabaker was one of Tim Geithner's first hires as a senior advisor. Kabaker had joined Blackstone in 1998, and served on the boards of portfolio companies Alliant Insurance, Ariel Re, TRW Automotive, FGIC, HealthMarkets and Michaels Stores. At the time of his hiring, sources said that Kabaker's experience with financial institutions made him particularly qualified to help handle the TARP and toxic asset programs.
- peHUB Wire: Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Random Ramblings
- peHUB Wire: Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Random Ramblings
- Business School Theories Severely Tested
Here's a podcast of Zynga CEO Mark Pincus and one of his board members -- Bing Gordon of Kleiner Perkins -- telling a class of business school students at Stanford a couple of weeks ago how to build a great company. The most interesting part of the podcast is not Pincus, who said his vision of the Internet is like cable TV -- "always on, selling people shit...and hopefully it's not all shit" -- but Gordon, a veteran of Electronic Arts, who probably has his hands full right now because Pincus has been under attack all week by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington for allowing Zynga users to be scammed by expensive offers for virtual goods to use in Zynga's games -- a situation Pincus has been trying to correct.
- Week in deals, Nov. 9, 2009
Summary of North American tech companies and other startups that raised venture financing in the past week
- Consumer recycling company banks Series C
The startup has now raised $71.35M in total funding to rewards households that recycle
- While We're On The Subject Of Al Gore's Credibility...
Can John Doerr -- Al Gore's business partner over at Kleiner Perkins -- really write a credible review of Gore's latest book? Doerr has weighed in at VentureBeat http://venturebeat.com/2009/11/03/al-gores-new-book-our-choice-a-review-by-john-doerr/ and on Amazon.com on "Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis," which was released today and which Doerr calls "the perfect and powerful sequel to 'An Inconvenient Truth'." "When mankind confronts and conquers the climate crisis, it will be because one man made Our Choice clear," Doerr writes. No offense to these two guys, but what else would you expect Doerr to say?
- Can Al Gore Be A Profiteer Without Profits?
Lots of blog buzz today about a NY Times story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=1&sudsredirect=true on Al Gore's cleantech investments, and if such activity is ethically compatible with his lobbying for environmental legislation that could benefit his portfolio. Not surprisingly, critics see irreconcilable conflict. The Drudge Report, for example, has a breathless header about "Gore's big profits from global warming." Other outlets have used the term "profiteer," and even the NYT regurgitates the meme that Gore wants to become the world's first "carbon billionaire" (without noting it was first coined by virulent climate change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe). The NYT also rehashed Rep. Marsha Blackburn asking Gore about conflict of interest during a House hearing earlier this year, but without her daft question of whether or not Gore was "aware of... capital firm Kleiner Perkins." For the record, Gore has been a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins for more than two years, and listed as such on the Kleiner Perkins website.
- India investments continue slide
VCs pumped $77M into India in Q3, less than one-fourth as the same period a year ago