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Start-up funds adopt more global focus
 When Hotmail, a business backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, was sold to Microsoft in early 1998, its $400m price tag caused something of a stir. Today Juniper Networks, a four-year-old start-up funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, trades on Nasdaq at a capitalisation of $69bn. The last two or three years have been an extraordinary period for venture capitalists ...more
INVESTOR RACE:
Investors jam the road to Silicon Valley
Highway 101 is an unprepossessing stretch of road. Overlooking ugly strip development, the often jammed road runs along the least scenic route from San Francisco to San Jose. It is a poor advert for northern California's charms. The highway's malls and scattered office buildings give little hint of the revolution occurring along it ...more
THE UK:
Unbridled enthusiasm gives way to caution
When Clickmango, the natural health products e-tailer, raised £3m in the space of eight days last September, UK venture capitalists were fighting to get a slice of the hottest internet sector - business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. By May the euphoria had disappeared ...more
JAPAN:
Sobering up the morning after
These should be the glory days for Japan's venture capital industry. For decades venture businesses - the preserve of banks, insurance companies and over-extended domestic private equity groups - have finally attracted the attention of big Japanese corporations and foreign investors ...more
CORPORATE VENTURERS:
Old industry hands track new ideas
When Intel Capital started up in the 1990s, the venture investing arm of the computer chip maker had fairly limited objectives. It mainly targeted companies that were potential suppliers or customers ...more
SWEDEN:
Fledglings learn not to follow the flock blindly
The Swedish venture capital community has behaved a bit like a flock of penguins, says one wry observer - all following each other unthinkingly into the water. During 1998, business-to-consumer mania raged. Last year, it was business-to-business start-ups ...more
FINLAND:
Backwater pushed to the forefront
Petri Niemi, investment director at CapMan, a Finnish venture capital firm, says he has no difficulty getting through the door of Silicon Valley venture capital firms just now. He simply has to say he is Finnish ...more
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