Venture Capital

Check out tonight's CNET panel with top Silicon Valley investors

Our live stream is over. Thanks for watching. Check CNET tomorrow for clips from the live event.

Join me tonight as I talk tech startups with three of Silicon Valley's most respected investors and overall startup advocates -- Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Naval Ravikant of AngelList, and George Zachary of Charles River partners

You can read more about the event here. If you want to understand who gets funded and why, come back to this post tonight at 7 p.m. PT, where we'll be streaming it all live.

And if you are in San Francisco, we … Read more

The sound of crickets: VC offices on Y Combinator Demo Day

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you 're an entrepreneur looking for money today on the famous Silicon Valley venture capital row known as Sand Hill Road, yes, that is the sound of crickets you hear.

That's because today is Y Combinator Demo Day, and the lion's share of the biggest tech-oriented VCs in the Valley are packed into one auditorium here, listening to 65 early-stage companies pitch their wares.

The list is a veritable who's who of investors: Ron Conway, Tim Draper, Jeff Clavier, Mike Arrington, Stewart Alsop, and many, many others. And they've got their checkbooks … Read more

Startup pitches post-JOBS Act: Pump up the volume

Here's one likely outcome of the JOBS Act that passed the Senate last week and is on its way to becoming law: The noise from startups vying for investor attention is going to go up.

Maybe way up.

A key provision of the Act makes it okay for a company to publicly talk about the fact that it's raising money -- something that, while often ignored, has been a lingering threat among the booming startup world. When the rule barring general solicitation goes away, any hesitancy to hawk one's business will vanish.

How could that play out? … Read more

Join top Silicon Valley investors, hear their fund-raising secrets

See that giant building above? That's the headquarters of CBS Interactive, home to CNET, in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood. And if you've ever wondered what's inside--keep reading out-of-towners, this is for you too--now's your chance to find out.

On Thursday, March 29 at 6 p.m. PT, CNET will host three of the biggest names in venture investing to talk about how you--yes, you, guy with the messenger bag walking past our office--can fund your entrepreneurial dreams.

In addition to the staples--wine, beer, and light grub--we'll have three longtime Valley players--Dave McClure of … Read more

Dangers in angel investing

With so many millionaires minted by companies like PayPal, Google, and now Facebook, angel investing has become a big deal, particularly in tech. But some of the more seasoned investors are apprehensive about participation from newcomers.

Investors Paige Craig, David Tisch, and Naval Ravikant discussed the topic of angel investing in a panel led by CNET executive editor Paul Sloan. The group agreed that many investors have no business investing.

According to Ravikant, there are, "too few sophisticated investors," and he'd know. As the founder of AngelList, a network that connects startups with angel investors, he's … Read more

Twenty thousand reasons to go to SXSW

More than 20,000 people will roll into Austin, Texas, this week for the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival. The question is, besides copious amounts of free beer and barbecue, why are all those people--a broad mix of marketers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and social media junkies--showing up?

Over the years, SXSW has gotten bigger and has morphed from being an insular technology conference with a tight community of regular attendees to a mainstream event that appeals to everyone from those SXSW veterans to thousands of first-timers who want to get in on the action.

With that many people on hand … Read more

Metrics Watch: What does Square's $4B in transactions really mean?

Jack Dorsey and the brass at Square--the startup he runs when he's not doing duty as executive chairman of Twitter, the other company he co-founded--always gets amazing press.

And often deservedly so. Square's main product, a sleek device that turns the iPhone into a credit card processor, is a game changer for many. It's made it easy for individuals and small vendors to accept credit cards with little hassle, paying a flat transaction fee of 2.75 percent.

Square late Sunday blasted out news about a new product, an iPad app called Square Register, that won it … Read more

Charles River Ventures raises $375 million startup fund

Charles River Ventures today announced that it's keyed in a $375 million fund to continue its investments in technologies.

CRV intends to focus investments from its latest fund on startups with, "disruptive technologies, teams and business models." Startups like Hubspot, Vlingo, Yammer and Zendesk, all count themselves among CRVs investments.

"CRV has seen consistent liquidity from our portfolio over the last decade, with 21 major liquidity events, IPOs and company acquisitions since the collapse of the bubble," said CRV general partner Izhar Armony.

In addition to its strong startup portfolio, CRV boasts a number of … Read more

Dogpatch Labs fosters innovation among early startups (video)

Much of the investment world is about relationships, says Ryan Spoon, a venture capitalist with Polaris Ventures and co-founder of Dogpatch Labs.

Dogpatch Labs was founded in 2008 as a place where early-stage startups could innovate. Entrepreneurs share work space, but more importantly it's a place where they can interact with each other and share knowledge, says Spoon.

There are no contracts or commitments for the startups participating in Dogpatch. The upside from an investment perspective is that Polaris gets a first look at startups early on. SmartPlanet visited Dogpatch Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., its newest office, to … Read more