Startups Beginning To See Venture Funding?
from the really? dept
Over the past year or so, we’ve seen venture capitalists clam up as tight as possible. The only money you hear them giving out is the money they’re handing back to their limited partners with that shameful “ok, yeah, we took too much” look on their faces. Of course, that isn’t the whole story, and VC investments have still been happening. However, according to this article, we’ve recently seen an uptick in big name venture fundings, suggesting that things are getting back to “normal” (as if there is such a thing). Most of the deals are in areas that you would expect: networking, semiconductors, enterprise applications, wireless and storage. These are all areas that VCs mention when you ask them where the future is. No big risks here. Also, most of these were follow-on rounds. Not so much the sign of VCs putting their money into something new, but trying to prop up old investments. There is one first round investment in a nanotechnology startup mentioned, but that seems to be the new “hype” area that VCs are talking about. I’m still not sure if this just represents a temporary blip, or if VCs are finally realizing that now is a good time to invest. They’ve given back plenty of money, but they’re still sitting on billions, and everything is so much cheaper these days: cheap valuations, people, office space and equipment, all mean that now is a good time to invest.
