Venture Capital
Bryce Roberts was tired of hearing the same pitch over and over again: An entrepreneur would come calling with a bold idea and empty pockets, ready to build the future but for the lack of $2 million and a business model.
Elite and exclusive universities dominated Crunchbase's list. Seven of the eight Ivy League schools made it into the top 12 and collectively produced 1,115 venture capitalists. Harvard University produced a whopping 484 venture capitalists alone. Almost three-quarters of the venture capitalists that Crunchbase studied earned an advanced degree and 51 percent earned an MBA.
Sequoia, the venture capital firm known for early bets on everything from Apple and Google to WhatsApp and Dropbox, is setting a high bar to get into its upcoming global growth fund: $250 million.
The American venture capital industry, which invested $84 billion in more than 8,000 companies last year, has long faced little to no impetus to alter its demographics. Venture firms are usually small private companies made up of former tech executives or financial types, who are mostly male and white.
Venture capital firm 500 Startups opened an office this month in Miami, a boost for the fledgling technology hub that's seen companies form and then struggle to secure funding. Bedy Yang, a managing partner with the Mountain View, California-based company, said the office will serve as its base of operations for South Florida and Latin America, in addition to other markets in the eastern U.S.
Farmstead will use the new funds to scale operations of its rapidly growing AI grocery sourcing and delivery service, continue building out its core AI technology, accelerate hiring, and expand its service well beyond the Bay Area.
Venture capital is seen as private equity's more glamorous cousin and that's no surprise, but there is a wrinkle.
The bank, which purchased the brewery at a foreclosure auction on 9 March, has now sold on the company to North Hampton-based Runnymede Investments for an undisclosed sum. President of The Provident Bank, Chuck Withee, commented: "The Provident Bank is impressed with the Runnymede team on so many levels.
Eight Roads Ventures , a London, UK-based venture capital firm, has launched a $375m third fund for scale-ups in Europe and Israel. ERVE III will provide funding for fast-growing technology companies across enterprise, consumer, fintech and healthcare IT sectors.
At Correlation Ventures, we spend a fair amount of time using our proprietary database to identify the telltale signs of successful startups. One question we asked recently is whether there are diminishing returns for adding VCs to the board of directors at venture-backed startups.