Lawrence Aragon
The competition for startup talent just got more intense. Texas seed fund G51 Capital has partnered with Silicon Valley hyper-networker Larry Chiang to find promising startup founders at Stanford University. “We’re building a farm team of CS [computer science] and engineering majors and helping them to learn to be CEOs,” says Rudy Garza, founder and […]
Decked out in black jeans, a purple shirt, black jacket and orange Puma tennis shoes, Box.net co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie lived up to his billing as a rising star in the tech world at today’s Venture Alpha conference in San Francisco. Interviewed by Alastair Goldfisher, acting editor of Thomson Reuters’ Venture Capital Journal, Levie […]
After bringing you two slideshows that focused on the best-performing funds backed by the University of Texas Management Co., it’s time to “keep it real” by sharing the biggest losers.
(PeHUB subscribers can see our two previous slideshows here: UTIMCO in 17 Active Funds with IRRs > 25%, Union Square, Other Early Stage Tech VCs Kick Ass for UTIMCO.)
We took a look at returns for all of UTIMCO’s active funds and found 10 that were at least a decade old and had negative internal rates of return as of May 31. The university pension fund invested a total of $176.2 million in those vehicles. In return, UTIMCO has received cash distributions of just $55.7 million (or less than one-third of what it put in). And it has no hope ...
Michael Arrington’s controversial CrunchFund got the most press in Q3, but it didn’t break into the top five largest first-time VC funds raised during the period. In what was a weak quarter for overall VC fundraising, CrunchFund was one of 19 newbie that funds raised a combined $300 million, the lowest quarterly amount raised since […]
Q3 certainly wasn’t a pretty quarter for venture fundraising. In fact, it was downright ugly, with just $1.72 billion raised by 52 U.S.-based venture funds, the smallest amount raised since Q3 2003, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). In contrast, 49 U.S.-based VC funds raised nearly $2.9 billion in […]
Attention venerable venture funds: Limited partners don’t give a hoot about how long you’ve been in business. The only number they care about these days is your internal rate of return. The latest firm to learn that lesson is Prospect Venture Partners, a biopharmaceutical and medical device investor founded in 1997. Prospect has released its […]
Steve Jobs was one of very few people who could be called a legend in his own time. The college dropout co-founded Apple in 1976 and grew it into the most valuable company in the world, inspiring countless entrepreneurs along the way.
There are sure to be a litany of obituaries and stories about Jobs in the coming days, but we want to know what Jobs meant to you. Please share your thoughts and memories below.
Judging by UTIMCO’s latest performance numbers, producing an internal rate of return above 25% is quite a feat. Of the 216 funds the University of Texas Management Co. lists as “active relationships,” just 17 (or 7.8%) can boast the distinction of such a large IRR. Some quick observations about the before we get to the […]
The University of Texas Investment Management Co. is among the many limited partners burned by early stage, tech-focused venture capital funds launched during the dot-com bubble. But UTIMCO didn’t let that negative experience sour it on such funds – and it is now reaping the rewards. Since 2005, the LP has backed seven early stage […]
After two strong quarters, initial public offerings tanked in the third quarter following the August market correction and continued concerns about economies around the globe. IPO proceeds in the third quarter totaled $3.1 billion as of Sept. 27, down from $11.9 billion $12.3 billion in the second quarter, according to IPO Watch, a quarterly and annual […]