Andreessen Horowitz today announced that it has closed on $1.5 billion for Fund III, and has now raised $2.7 billion since its founding in June 2009.  Here's a link to the press release:   http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120131005976/en/Andreessen-Horowitz-Announces-1.5-Billion-Fund-III

How and why has Andreesen Horowitz raised this amount of capital?  Ben Horowitz explains in his blog.  Here's the link:  http://bhorowitz.com/2012/01/31/why-has-andreessen-horowitz-raised-2-7b-in-3-years/ 

Venture capital investment was down 14% in 2011 compared to 2010, according to Dow Jones VentureWire.  VCs invested 4.4 billion Euros in 1,012 deals for European companies.  Investment dollars were down 14% and deals were down 19%.  Here's the link to the story:   https://www.fis.dowjones.com/WebBlogs.aspx?aid=DJFVW00020120129e81tarzzv&ProductIDFromApplication=&r=wsjblog&s=djfvw

I attended the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Outlook Conference in New York this past week, and there were a number of take-aways:

• Fundraising for venture capital funds continues to be difficult for all but the small number of "must have" funds.  Nothing new here, as 2011 was a difficult year and I don't see much to change that in the near term.
• Venture capitalists are bullish on investing opportunities.  They are seeing lots of innovative companies, and are deploying capital.
• LPs continue to re-balance their portfolios, and many are reducing the number of GP relationships they manage.
• Mega-buyout funds are out of favor for most LPs, and small-to-mid-market buyout funds are in favor.
• The IPO market is anticipating the Facebook IPO, and how that IPO performs will determine whether the floodgates will open for more venture-backed IPOs.
  

There were many impressive speakers,and Dow Jones did a good job with the conference.  Here's a link to an article on the conference:  http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/01/26/limited-partners-deal-with-venture-industry-contraction-restructuring/

Zynga's stock closed at $10.05 yesterday (Friday, Jan. 27), $0.05 higher than its initial public offering price of $10.00.  Zynga priced its IPO at $10.00 per share on Tuesday, Dec. 15 and began trading on Wednesday, Dec. 16.  On the 16th it opened at $11.00 per share, above the IPO price, but closed the day at $9.50 per share.  Morgan Stanley was the "lead left" underwriter on the IPO.  

Zynga had closed as low as $8.00 on Jan.9, but began trending up and closed at $9.52 on Thursday, Jan. 26.  The reason for the recent uplift in price may be due to several underwriters launching research coverage on the company in the past few days.  According to a recent article on MarketWatch.com, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Barclays Capital launched coverage with "buy" ratings and price targets in the range of $11 to $14, and BofA Merrill Lynch launched coverage with a "neutral" rating and a price target of $10.50 per share.  Here's the link to the MarketWatch.com story:  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zynga-underwriters-mostly-bullish-on-shares-2012-01-25?link=MW_latest_news 

There's a good article from Reuters yesterday discussing the dynamics of how investment banks are vying to obtain the coveted "left lead" position for the Facebook initial public offering.  The article discusses fees (which may go as low as 1% of the offering proceeds, down from the usual 7%), league table rankings (Morgan Stanley won the IPO crown last year) and personal relationships.  Here's the link:   http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-facebook-ipoview-idUSTRE80Q21920120127

Facebook is close to filing for its highly-anticipated initial public offering, and it could happen as early as next week, according to the Wall Street Journal.  Here's the link:   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577187062821038498.html

Venture capital investors in Facebook include Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Elevation Partners, Founders Fund, Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital Partners, Millennium Technology Value Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. 

The current issue of Economist has an article discussing the state of technology companies in Israel.  The article is "Israeli Technology Companies: What Next for the Start-up Nation? and the link to the story is here:   http://www.economist.com/node/21543151

The article discusses the entrepreneurial nature of Israel, and explores some of the issues that start-up companies face, including venture capital funding issues.  This article also builds on my prior post on venture capital in Israel, which can be found here:   http://www.allenlatta.com/1/category/israel/1.html

An article posted yesterday on WSJ.com "Portland makes Bid To Become Budding Techlandia" discusses Portland's emerging technology scene as well as some new incubator funds being established.  In my view, as salaries in Silicon Valley are driven higher by competition (see the WSJ.com article here), I believe the door will open to areas like Portland to develop their own technology / venture capital infrastructure.  Here's a link to the article:   http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/01/23/portland-makes-bid-to-become-budding-techlandia/

There's a post by Nick Bilton posted yesterday on NYTimes.com called "Distruptions: Tach Valuation Defy the Restraints of Reality."  It's an interesting read, as it offers one view of the mentality of tech company valuations in Silicon Valley.  In my opinion, the article focuses on a small (irrational) subset of behavior in Silicon Valley, while most of the seasoned, institutional venture capital investors take a more disciplined approach to investing and valuations.  Here's a link to the article:  http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/disruptions-the-sloshing-sound-of-tech-valuations/ 

Wired.com has posted an article by Juliet Eilperin entitled "Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust" that is a good read and insightful.  Worthy weekend reading.  Here's the link:   http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_solyndra/

In 2011, venture capitalists invested $28.4 billion in 3,373 deals, according to the PwC/NVCA
MoneyTree™ Report based on data from Thomson Reuters.  The data is available from the NVCA website, www.nvca.org.  This represents a 22% increase in dollars and a 4% increase in deals over 2010, and also represents the third largest annual investment total in the past 10 years, according to the press release.

Reuters reports today that Rovio Entertainment Ltd., the creator of the smash mobile game "Angry Birds" has indicated that an initial public offering is not imminent, and may not even happen this year.  Venture capital investors in Rovio include Accel Partners, Atomico and Felicis Ventures.  Here's the link:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/19/us-angrybirds-idUSTRE80I16520120119

The technology industry's opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act has been very visible and vocal.  The NY Times story "A Political Coming of Age for the Tech Industry" is an interesting read on how technology firms, including Google, Wikipedia and Facebook, have lead efforts opposing SOPA.  Here's the link:   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/technology/web-wide-protest-over-two-antipiracy-bills.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Pingdom, a website monitoring company, has posted, in their words "a veritable smorgasbord of numbers, statistics and data" about the internet.  Some interesting tidbits, including over 3 billion email accounts in the world, 555 million websites in the world, and 2.1 billion internet users worldwide.  Here's the link:   http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/17/internet-2011-in-numbers/

The NY Times yesterday posted an interesting article "In Tech, Starting Up By Failing" which discusses how entrepreneurs have been able to "pivot" and change direction for their companies.  An interesting read.  Here's the link:   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/business/for-some-internet-start-ups-a-failure-is-just-the-beginning.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Is the Volker Rule having an unintended negative impact on Venture Capital?  Silicon Valley Bank thinks so.  The Reuters article "Silicon Valley Calls the Help Desk on Volker Rule" is an interesting read.  Here's the link:   http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/12/us-financial-regulation-volcker-idUSTRE80B1QB20120112

AllThingsD.com is reporting that sources have indicated that the initial public offering for Facebook will occur in May.  If so, the article indicates that the filing of the S-1 registration statement should occur sometime within the next month.  Exciting times.  Here's the link:   http://allthingsd.com/20120116/is-facebook-ipo-on-track-for-late-may/

Chris O'Brien, columnist for the Mercury News and their affiliated website SiliconValley.com provides his take on the 2011 year for IPOs and then comments on some proposals to make the path to IPO a bit easier.  Worth a read.  Here's the link:   http://www.siliconvalley.com/chris-obrien/ci_19732103

Splunk, a "big data" company that makes software that enables enterprises to index, search and analyze large amounts of data in real time, filed its S-1 Registration Statement with the SEC on Thursday.  Splunk is the first "big data" company to file to go public, and so it will be one to watch.  Here's a link to its press release:  
http://www.splunk.com/view/SP-CAAAGNK 


The company filed for an IPO with a maximum size of $125 million and contemplates having selling shareholders.  Joint book-running managers are Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and BofA Merrill Lynch.  [Side note: is it just me or is the whole "joint book-running manager" thing getting out of hand?]  Co-managers are UBS, Pacific Crest and Cowen.

Investors in Splunk include August Capital, Sevin Rosen, JK&B Capital and Ignition Partners.

Here's a link to the SEC filing:  http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1353283/000104746912000155/a2206835zs-1.htm 

Corporate venture capital is an important part of the venture capital ecosystem.  Mike Brown Jr. of AOL Ventures has posted an interesting article on corporate venture capital that appeared yesterday on Fortune's From The Crowd section.  Here's the link:  http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/11/corporate-venture-capital/ 

There's a short interview in yesterday's Venture Capital Dispatch with Todd Chaffee, General Partner of Institutional Venture Partners, where he discusses IPOs, valuation and exits.  It's a short read, but has some good nuggets in it.  Here's the link:   http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2012/01/10/with-promising-portfolio-ivps-chaffee-takes-the-long-view/

There's a good post today on peHUB.com by Mark Boslet analyzing the 2011 results for venture-backed IPOs and M&A.  His conclusion: not a great year, but above average, and it could have been a lot worse.  The post is worth a read.  Here's the link:   http://www.pehub.com/130904/venture-backed-ipo-ma-markets-might-be-best-thought-of-as-above-average-in-2011-slideshow/

Ryan Spoon, a Principal at Polaris Venture Partners, has posted a good article on his website "How to Create an Early-Stage Pitch Deck".  Here's the link:   http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2012/01/07/how-to-create-an-early-stage-pitch-deck/#more-5732

The article has a link to a presentation on SlideShare.net which outlines the elements of an effective pitch for start-ups looking for early stage financing.  Here's the link to the presentation on SlideShare.net:   http://www.slideshare.net/ryanspoon/how-to-create-an-early-stage-pitch-deck 

There's an interesting post on peHUB today that features an interview with David Weild, a former vice chairman of Nasdaq, about reviving the market for initial public offerings of small cap companies.  Weild believes that an important element of this revival would be the re-establishment of trading spreads for small cap companies.  It's an interesting interview and worth a read.  Here's the link:   http://www.pehub.com/130811/group-to-push-for-%E2%80%9Ccustomized-spreads%E2%80%9D/

Summit Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm, announced yesterday that it had closed two new funds.  Its growth equity fund, Summit Partners Growth Equity Fund VIII, closed on $2.7 billion, and its venture capital fund, Summit Partners Venture Capital Fund III closed on $520 million.  Here's a link to their press release:   http://www.summitpartners.com/Summit-Partners-Closes-Two-Equity-Funds-with-Combined-USD3Billion-of-Commitments.aspx