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wanderer
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作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
'Angels' and Other Newcomers, Including Foreigners, Rush In To Venture Funds, As in the '90s
Tourists tend to ignore signs and jaywalk. And that is how a lot of seasoned venture capitalists tend to think about the newcomers who invaded their industry during the technology-stock boom of the late 1990s.
In retrospect, the arrival of the "tourists," as established venture capitalists derisively call them, marked the frothiest part of the stock bubble, during which billions went into dot-com upstarts with little hope of survival. After the tech-stock crash, many left town, their investments worthless.
Now, another crop of newcomers is growing back.
Once again, angel investors -- wealthy individuals who advise start-up companies at their earliest stage -- are returning. So are "emerging" venture funds, in many cases backed with big bucks from public pension funds eager to get into the next hot venture-capital firm.
New state-backed venture funds are popping up around the country, targeting local entrepreneurs. So are venture firms run by corporations, which are usually the first to dive in during an up-cycle and the first to jump out when things get rough.
And there are tourists of a different stripe: foreign investors who were bit players during the last boom.
Already in the first two quarters of the year, 82 venture firms raised $5.8 billion, outdistancing the $3.7 billion for the same period in 2003, according to the National Venture Capital Association.
The pace is expected to pick up, the NVCA says. At least 200 more venture firms are in the marketplace trying to reel in investors, called limited partners. At the same time, many would-be limited partners are knocking on the doors of more-established venture-capital firms, eager to invest -- despite venture firms' weak track records over the past few years.
Even though there are fewer newcomers than during the boom, some established venture-capital players fret that there is too much demand from investors to fit into the smaller, new funds of brand-name venture-capital firms like Sequoia Capital or Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, both backers of the recent successful Google Inc. initial public offering of stock. With so much money pouring into the funds of the upstart venture capitalists, they fear that valuations of start-up companies will be driven up. Worse yet, they fear another bubble.
Thomas K. Lynch, a senior managing director of investment-advisory firm Wilshire Private Markets Group in Pittsburgh, says some investors don't realize that "there are only so many good entities and so many technologies that can go commercial at any one point in time. That only takes so much capital."
Among the new investors, "angels" -- cutting checks for anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million -- are financing early-stage investments that risk-averse venture capitalists abandoned during the downturn, according to Jeffrey Sohl, director of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.
John Morris, co-founder of investing group Tech Coast Angels in Los Angeles, says: "We have lots of new members coming in." Some of them recently raised $3 million for what they dubbed Seraphim Fund I, for seed-money deals. In Silicon Valley, a new group calling itself the Beijing and Shanghai Angelinvestors held an organizational dinner last month. Another, Silicom Ventures, reports that it "worked through the summer" to invest amounts from $500,000 to $1 million in very small start-ups.
George McQuilken, head of an investors' group called eCoast Angel Network, is seeing "a huge uptick in activity" in Portsmouth, N.H., and pockets of Massachusetts. His New Hampshire group has grown from five to 14 active members over four years. "It gives us much more economic power than we had before," he says.
At the same time, dozens of first-time, so-called emerging funds are popping up, hoping to capture some of the new money that the more-established firms are turning away.
There also are some more experienced upstarts. Shasta Ventures, for one, was launched by experienced venture capitalists who left New Enterprise Associates, Trinity Ventures and Battery Ventures, firms that shrank during the downturn among other changes. "These are proven world travelers, they've been around," says Clint Harris, founder and managing partner of financial-advisory firm Grove Street Advisors, in Wellesley, Mass. "I wouldn't call them tourists."
Some of the unseasoned venture capitalists are getting backing from big-name investors. TheCalifornia State Teachers' Retirement System, for instance, has earmarked $100 million just for emerging firms. Other public funds, snubbed by some established venture firms that are wary of public-disclosure requirements, also are looking into emerging funds. One beneficiary: American River Ventures, of Sacramento, Calif. It closed a $100 million fund this spring, with backing from wealthy individuals, the federal Small Business Administration and the giant California Public Employees' Retirement System.
In Texas, PTV Sciences LP launched a first-time $66 million fund for biotechnology start-ups there, helped with money from the University of Texas Investment Management Co. States such as Pennsylvania, Indiana and Utah also have launched venture-capital entities designed to promote local investment and regional job growth.
Corporations, too, are getting back in the game. Honda Motor Co. of Japan has expanded its Honda Strategic Venturing unit in Mountain View, Calif. At Hitachi America Ltd., the U.S. unit of Japan-based Hitachi Ltd., David Ai, vice president of the electronics giant's Corporate Ventures Catalyst division, says, he's "engaging in more investment opportunities."
In Toronto, Royal Bank of Canada has budgeted $100 million to build a portfolio of early-stage technology start-ups, most in the U.S., through its Strategic Technology Fund. "We were quite lonely when we started in 2003," says Kevin Talbott, the bank's vice president of corporate ventures and managing director of RBC Technology Ventures. So far this year, STV has co-invested with other financial institutions in five start-ups. "There seems to be a renewed interest, especially this year," he says.
Then there are the "very large pots of overseas money" trying to get in on the action, says Josh Lerner, a Harvard Business School professor who specializes in venture capital. These investors are looking for better returns than they think they can get elsewhere. Which is why representatives of Finland's largest municipal employees pension fund knocked on doors in Silicon Valley to find spots for $125 million.
作者：wanderer 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 WSJ: Tourists to Another Stock Bubble? -- wanderer - (6715 Byte) 2004-9-08 周三, 12:23 (1149 reads)
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