Top Venture Capital Firms – Based on InvestorRank
By admin on December 6th, 2011
© Images_of_Money
InvestorRank is a method that has been developed by Chris Farmer, a VC at General Catalyst Partners. Based on this ranking, a list of the top venture capital firms has been created. InvestorRank works like Google's PageRank. Where Google's PageRank orders search results based on how many links each page gets from other sites, InvestorRank looks at the connections between venture capital firms. A bond is created whenever two venture capital firms co-invest in the same deal. If one of the venture capital firms follows another one in a later round, that boosts the rank of the earlier investor. The more that venture capital firms invest in syndicates with other highly ranked venture capital firms or even before they do, the higher the InvestorRank. According to this method of ranking, the top five venture capital firms are: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Accel, Benchmark Capital, and Union Square Ventures.
Venture Capital Funding
By admin on December 1st, 2011
© Brooks Elliott
One definitely needs funding while starting a business, the dilemma usually comes in choosing the type of funding. Venture capital is a means of equity financing for fast-growing private companies. The main goal of venture capital is to build companies so that the shares can become liquid, whether through IPO's or acquisitions, as well as provide a rate of return to the investors. There are two groups of thought when it comes to venture capital – one being that getting venture capital reduces risks as the entrepreneur shares both risks and rewards with the venture capitalist. On the other hand, one may argue that procuring venture capital would reduce one's own flexibility in dealings; one would have to be accountable to other investors. In the end, it is always a strategic decision that needs to be made with a long-term view in mind.