Venture Capital

Matt Cohler, employee No. 5 at Facebook, will leave the high-flying social network this fall to join venture firm Benchmark Capital as its youngest general partner at 31 years old.

Cohler, whose job description, as written on Facebook, is "ensuring that Zuck (Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg) never makes it back to Harvard," has been the company's technical adviser, recruiter, and business strategist since 2005, roughly a year after the company started from a dorm room at Harvard University. Cohler said he will remain a special adviser to "Zuck" and the executive team at Facebook even … Read more

Mochi Media, an advertising network for casual game sites, said Wednesday that it closed on a $10 million series B round of funding from Shasta Ventures and Accel Partners.

The San Francisco-based company, which launched three years ago, had previously raised an undisclosed sum from Accel Partners. It plans to use the new funds to develop its fairly new advertising platform MochiAds for game developers. Since the network was launched last October, it has expanded to reach more than 60 million unique visitors per month on multiple gaming sites.

Online gaming is attracting more large investments of late. Earlier this … Read more

In Silicon Valley, like other industry hubs, your next job typically has to do with who you know.

Jeff Weiner, soon to be former executive vice president of Yahoo's Network division, joined the Internet media giant about seven years ago after being recruited by his Hollywood mentor Terry Semel, then-Yahoo's new CEO. Now that Semel is gone, however, it seems that Weiner will make his next move following former Yahoo cohorts into the venture capital business.

Word is that Weiner, a new father, will become an entrepreneur in residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, according to … Read more

Flixwagon, a tool for live video broadcasting to the Web via smartphones, is working on a version for the Apple iPhone and Windows Mobile devices.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based Flixwagon is still relatively new. In January, the company launched a free downloadable application for video broadcasting for the Symbian mobile operating system, used largely by Nokia smartphones such as the N95. In February, MTV became its biggest customer, by deploying 23 street reporters with Flixwagon-enabled phones to report on Super Tuesday.

Now, the company is developing support for additional mobile platforms so that it can appeal to an even wider set … Read more

In sizing up the nation's status as a world leader in science and technology, here's a little good news-bad news from a study released Thursday by the nonprofit think tank Rand.

The U.S. remains the worldwide leader in science and technology, based on R&D spending, the number of Nobel Prize winners who call the U.S. home, and the number of top universities sitting on U.S. turf.

But the bad news is the U.S. educational system, kindergarten through high school, continues to underperform in developing bright minds in math and science. Europe and … Read more

John Gage, the man who coined the phrase "the network is the computer," has left Sun Microsystems to become a venture capitalist.

Gage, Sun's fifth employee and its former chief researcher, will join the venerable firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to help grow its investments in clean technology.

Gage, which left Sun on June 1, said to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Everything we built at Sun sucks power. We've got to make a difference in where power comes from and how it's used."

Gage's departure follows a grim fiscal third quarter … Read more

Venture capitalists say the United States still dominates in technology innovation, according to a new survey. But Europe and Asia are quietly excelling in fields like clean tech and software that could eventually pull more investments overseas.

Germany, for example, is becoming a new leader in clean technology, according to a survey of about 400 venture capitalists worldwide released Tuesday by Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association. The U.S. is still the more attractive investment opportunity in clean tech, but at least 43 percent of respondents recognized Germany for its expertise in solar photovoltaic and other green technologies.… Read more

Nathan Myhrvold was chief technology officer of Microsoft, but since 2000 has been building a portfolio of inventions (patents) at Intellectual Ventures. He's also a talented chef, photographer, and paleontologist. He was interviewed Wednesday at D6 by Walt Mossberg.

Mossberg dived into the controversy around Myhrvold's venture, which has been called an institutionalized "patent troll." Myhrvold says, "We invest in ideas, not the realization of it." He says, "We recruit inventors before they have an invention."

"And then you own it?" Mossberg asks. "Yes, but we pay the inventor.&… Read more

Flock, a Firefox-based Web browser that plays up social networking online, has raised $15 million in a fourth round of funding led by Fidelity Ventures. The company's previous investors, Bessemer Venture Partners, Catamount Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, also participated in the round.

The deal shows continued faith in the alternative market for Web browsers, beyond the dominant Internet Explorer. Alternative-browser rival Maxthon, for example, has been downloaded more than 140 million times; and it's one of the most popular browsers in China. The Beijing-based company has pulled in investments from Charles River Ventures and Google.

Flock, which was … Read more