Venture Capital

How much is Facebook worth? Instagram deal offers new clue

Plenty of speculation is going on in Silicon Valley about just how much Facebook's purchase of Instagram will end up being worth.

When Facebook made the purchase last week, it said it was paying $1 billion in cash and stock. What it didn't say was how much was cash and how much is stock.

The New York Times, citing people briefed on the terms, is reporting that the deal is is roughly 30 percent cash and 70 percent stock, which would value Facebook at more than $75 billion.

But that's just a starting point, according to the … Read more

VC funding slumps in Q1, but get ready for 'Instagram effect'

People looking for signs of a slowdown in tech funding could find ample evidence in the data for the first quarter. CB Insights, which tracks investments of venture capital firms and some big angel investors, reports that VCs plowed $5.9 billion into startups in Q1 -- a 22 percent drop from the last quarter of 2011 and the lowest amount since the second quarter of 2010.

But not so fast. That's not the sound of a bubble popping. Deal volume was huge in the first quarter, and lack of any mega-deals dampened the sheer dollar amount. (Yammer, the … Read more

Report: Path nets $40 million in funding, $250 million valuation

Path, the popular photo-sharing social network, is about to announce it has closed a $40 million round of funding that values the San Francisco startup at $250 million, according to sources who spoke to All Things D. Update 5:24 p.m.: Path said it has raised $30 million in a funding round.

The report, which came out late last night, said that the new round was led by Redpoint Ventures and could be announced as early as today.

The company, which was founded by Dave Morin, who co-created the Facebook Platform, and Shawn Fanning, the co-founder of Napster, has … Read more

Who says Silicon Valley forgets you if you're over 40?

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--It's nearly 10 a.m. in the City Council chambers here, and 43 people are waiting for their turn to speak.

These are not citizens with civic matters on their minds; divided into two lines that stretch out from either side of the podium in the center of the room, these veterans of Google, Cisco, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft, Boeing, Sun, and others, are here looking for a new lease on their professional lives.

One by one, they lean into the microphone to introduce themselves. They mention where they've worked in the past, list their skills, … Read more

CNET's live event: A good time to start a business? (video)

We hosted a panel last week at CNET's San Francisco headquarters with three top investors who shared their take on booming tech startup world and, more importantly, what they're looking for among the throngs of people trying to create next big thing.

So is the opportunity big now for budding entrepreneurs?

"Hell, yeah," said the Dave McClure of 500 Startups (beginning around 1:45).

George Zachary, with the VC firm Charles River Partners, said the "tension in the air is definitely higher" as his inbox is filling up faster and faster with eager pitches … Read more

SecondMarket confirms layoffs

SecondMarket confirmed today that it has executed a round of layoffs in response to the impending Facebook IPO. CNET first broke news of layoffs at the online private equity market yesterday.

Although we previously reported that the layoffs would affect over 20 percent of its staff, SecondMarket now tells us that the number is closer to 10 percent.

While we were unable to obtain a comment yesterday, a SecondMarket representative said this in an official statement:

In a post-Facebook market world, we have decided to eliminate some positions that are no longer core to our company's long-term mission. We … Read more

Y Combinator: Disneyland for investors

Y Combinator is one of the most influential organizations in Silicon Valley. But thanks to the incubator's most recent demo day, it has become a Disneyland for investors, where startups are the attractions that VCs and angels are willing to pay to ride.

On Wednesday, YC graduated 65 startups from its program, its largest class yet. The room was wowed by pitch after pitch from companies like Sonalight, 99dresses, Ark and Socialcam. There were plenty of graphs depicting skyrocketing user growth and revenue, and investors (as they typically do at YC demo day) ate it up.

This demo day … Read more

VC: There's no Series A crunch, there's a 'seed glut'

SAN FRANCISCO--An article last fall suggesting investment was getting scarce for early stage startups stirred a major commotion in Silicon Valley. But one of the Valley's most prolific investors said tonight that the real issue is there are simply too many companies getting seed funding.

At the inaugural CNET Community Series event here this evening, Naval Ravikant, the founder and CEO of AngelList, rejected the notion that there is a so-called Series A crunch, saying instead that there is a "seed glut."

During the panel on "Startup Funding: Strategies and Opportunities" hosted by CNET's … Read more

SecondMarket expected to lay off 20 percent of staff

Update: SecondMarket confirms layoffs and gives specifics in a statement.

The online private equity market SecondMarket will layoff 30 of its 130 employees, a source familiar with the company's plans told CNET. The company has risen to prominence in recent years as a venue for buying and selling stocks for private companies, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Zynga.

With Facebook set to go public this spring, the layoffs could be indicative of a forthcoming drought in private equity. Just yesterday, reports began to surface that Facebook would this week halt secondary-market trading, a move that will weigh heavily on … Read more