Lowercase Capital related stories
All articles and analysis
Jason Calacanis's Open Angel Forum: Coming to a Town Near YouMahalo CEO Jason Calacanis -- who launched the campaign against pay-to-pitch investment gatherings last fall -- has an announcement to make: Open Angel Forum is coming to both San Francisco and New York very soon. Kevin Rose of Digg and Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital will host the San Francisco event on March 4. Angels and entrepreneurs can apply to participate in the event here http://openangelforum.com/2010/02/07/applications-open-for-oaf-sf-march-4th/ The New York event http://openangelforum.com/2010/02/07/applications-open-for-new-york/ will be held on April 8 and hosted by Brian Alvey, who cofounded Weblogs with Calacanis and now co-runs the publishing platform Crowd Fusion http://www.crowdfusion.com/ Alvey will be joined by Charlie O’Donnell, founder of the career startup Path 101 http://www.path101.com and currently an entrepreneur-in-residence with First Round Capital.
- peHUB First Read
* Alan Patricof and Eric Dinallo take to the NYT Op-Ed page, arguing against proposed rules that would require VC firms to register with the SEC http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/opinion/31patricof.html?_r=2&ref=opinion I agree, in general, but also have a nitpick about the P4 lead: "Venture-capital funds deal solely with privately purchased equity securities in start-up companies, which are not traded in public markets." Not only do some of these companies, if successful, ultimately create public securities that VC firms hold, but more and more VC firms are making investments in already public companies. Just last week, for example, Tallwood Venture Capital agreed to acquire https://admin.venturecapitaljournal.com/48115/tallwood-vc-sponsors-ikanos-acquisition-of-conexant-unit/ what could become a 45% stake in Ikanos Communications. Again, not saying this negates the authors' larger point, but I do wonder if Patricof/Dinallo would argue a firm like Tallwood should indeed be required to register... * Bloomberg: Leverage rising on Wall Street at fastest pace since the credit squeeze began two years ago http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a_XpcU5pY0f4 * Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower as commodities retreat http://www.reuters.com/article/usMktRpt/idUSLV7113520090831 European shares drop http://www.reuters.com/article/eurMktRpt/idUSLV9004020090831 the Nikkei slips on strong yen http://www.reuters.com/article/tokyoMktRpt/idUST5544720090831 and Chinese shares dive 6.7 percent http://www.reuters.com/article/hongkongMktRpt/idUSHKG34930920090831 * Non-profits test out analytics software for social investing http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/29/analytics-for-toeing-the-fine-lines-in-social-venture-investing/ * Deloitte: Emerging markets private equity is down around 60% between Q3 07 and Q1 09 http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20090831100015 Around 47% of investors expect the pace to pick back up, while 40% expect a further decrease. * Dave Shepard of VC-backed Sequoia Communications http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2009/08/25/ceo-says-sequoias-extinction-reflects-why-semiconductor-startups-are-an-endangered-species/ which shut down earlier this month: “I think the venture-backed model for semiconductor startups is broken. The complexity of these chips has just gotten so high, it just takes so much money to fund a startup nowadays, that to the VCs, it’s just not worth it.”
- Week in deals, July 6, 2009
Summary of tech companies and other businesses that raised financing in North America in the past week