Managers

Self-driving cars will zoom onto highways sooner than you think

The day of the self-driving car is coming, writes guest columnist Mark Lydon, managing director for Intel Capital’s $100 million Connected Car Fund.

Intel Capital invests $28 mln in five Chinese smart devices startups

Intel Capital said it has put $28 million to work in five Chinese companies making new-generation hardware and related technologies, including wearables and Internet of things devices and components.

Harris Barton tackles second fund with $10 mln commitment from Michigan

The former San Francisco 49ers has raised $46.3 million for his second co-investment fund, beating his target.

VCs get smart on edtech: VCJ

More VCs hoping to make the grade, as investment activity in edtech picks up.

Be afraid: VC investing is on pace to match 2001

For the first three quarters of this year more than $33 billion has been put to work in U.S.-based companies. That is $3 billion more than the amount invested in all of 2013, according to the MoneyTree Report from the NVCA and PricewaterhouseCoopers, based on data from Thomson Reuters.

SAP Ventures rebrands as Sapphire, looks to broaden LP base

SAP Ventures renamed itself Sapphire Ventures on Thursday to emphasize its independence from its sole limited partner, SAP.

iNovia Capital opens office in Kitchener-Waterloo

Canadian venture capital firm iNovia Capital has opened an office in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. A blog post by firm partner Karamdeep Nijjar said the decision was made because of the high quality of technology product teams being produced by the University of Waterloo, the large number of successful local company founders, and sophisticated local organizations that help build innovative companies, such as Communitech. Based in Montréal and with managed capital totaling $275 million, iNovia is focused on making early-stage investments in digital media, SaaS, e-commerce and connected devices sectors.

Canaan Partners closes $675 mln for tenth fund

Canaan Partners has raised $675 million for its tenth fund, beating its $600 million target.

LPs rejoice! Free benchmarks are now available from Bison

Less than a year after Thomson Reuters outsourced its benchmarking to Cambridge Associates, Bison has introduced a series of free benchmarks to help institutional investors determine how the performance of a single fund measures up against a population of peers.

Who is the best-performing public pension based on PE returns?

Public pension funds in the United States invest on average 9.4 percent of their portfolios in private equity, and the pension with the best 10-year returns this year is the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.