Connie Loizos
Want to know how efficiently your body uses its glucose or how much oxygen your body can consume during an exhaustive go on the rowing machine? A Boulder, Colorado-based company called Sciona is betting that you do, and so are its investors. On the heels of two smaller rounds this year, the company is closing […]
Zynga, the San Francisco-based online gaming service led by serial entrepreneur Mark Pincus just completed a $29 million Series B led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Institutional Venture Partners. Zynga’s existing investors, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group and Avalon Ventures also participated in the round, which brings Zynga’s total funding to $39 million. […]
Alien Technology Corp. of Morgan Hill, Calif., is at it again.The 14-year-old — which sells UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products and services — is raising a $40 million pay-to-play Series I, an amount that will bring its total funding to a whopping $302 million, according to Thomson Reuters (owner of PEHub). It’s an awful […]
Vinod Khosla has a penchant for capital-intensive biofuel and ethanol companies, and now he has an A-list limited partner to help finance that predilection: The $244 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which is in advanced talks to commit up to $640 million to Khosla Ventures, according to two sources. The move will make CalPERS […]
UTI Ventures, an eight-year-old Bangalore-based firm, is in the process of trying to raise its third venture fund, according to the Business Standard, which says UTI’s target is between $400 million and $450 million, roughly four times its last fund, which closed in 2005. UTI’s investments are all over the place, from Vallabhdas Kanji, which […]
I often hear from LPs that despite the ongoing credit crisis, they’re still cool on venture capital as an asset class. Buyouts have treated them way too well in recent years; most see VC as an overcrowded field with lackluster results. Nothing new there. Even still, big pension systems typically pay some attention to venture […]
Last summer, a Silicon Valley venture firm was in dire straights. Its first and only fund, a $150 million vehicle raised in 1999, was fully committed except for follow-on capital. And though its three partners had been trying to raise a new fund since the beginning of 2005, the outlook was grim. The firm had […]