Connie Loizos

Amidst all the doom and gloom in the venture industry, one new firm has sprung up like a daisy in the heart of San Francisco’s financial district: Physic Ventures, the first venture firm to invest in healthcare — not for treatment, but for prevention. It’s an entirely new mandate — not something you can say […]

I just read Valleywag’s glowing report about a party thrown in San Francisco last night by pan-European venture firm Wellington Partners, to celebrate its new Palo Alto office. Apparently on the menu: “cheese gougères, tiny lamb chops, mushroom napoleons, Kobe beef sliders, croutons with creme fraiche, smoked salmon and caviar and a bite-sized tuna tartar, […]

Allen Morgan, a corporate attorney turned venture capitalist, has left Mayfield Fund, where Morgan has worked since joining the industry in 1999. I reached out to the company early this morning, and I’m awaiting word back. In the meantime, I know that Morgan is making individual investments right now, including in Mashery, which helps companies […]

Today, Austin-based Challenge Games announces a $4.5 million Series A round from Sequoia Capital — which is great for the startup; Sequoia has backed a long roster of some of technology’s biggest stars, from YouTube to Google to Yahoo to Apple. I also think Sequoia was lucky to land this funding. Challenge Games, which has […]

Mevio, formerly known as Podshow, is today announcing a new, $15 million round, capital that brings total funding for San Mateo, Calif.-based startup to, yipes, $39 million. In just three-and-a-half years. The money came from Crosslink Capital Partners, DAG Ventures, Sherpalo Ventures, and returning investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Sequoia Capital. I don’t […]

It’s probably fair to say that the defining characteristic of Reid Dennis is dogged perseverance.The 82-year-old formed the venture firm Institutional Venture Partners in 1974, and he still shows up once a week for partners meetings. (Dennis is a partner in each of the firm’s funds except its $600 million 12th fund, closed last year.) […]

David Su, one of the founding partners of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer’s $360 million China Fund, closed in April 2007, is out the door. His departure comes just five months after another founding partner, Joe Zhou, took off to start his own venture fund. Zhou is still listed at the firm’s Website as an […]

As the gap between the superrich and everyone else widens, high-end real estate prices have soared; Ivy League endowments have ballooned (Harvard is now managing more than $35 billion); and business jets have become de rigueur (not just using them — owning them). Apparently, the same people who aren’t afraid to splurge big-time on such […]

Between the IPO drought and a slowdown in M&A, Marty Pichinson can’t answer the phone fast enough these days. Pichinson is cofounder of 27-year-old Sherwood Partners, long known to industry insiders as “the undertaker” of the venture industry. Its primary role is to efficiently shutter companies, and, when possible, to return a little something to […]

General Atlantic, the global, growth-stage private equity firm, has been getting a lot of attention lately — not from entrepreneurs looking for funding, but from VCs looking for funding. “I wouldn’t even say the calls have been coming over the last six months, but the last three months,” says Marc McMorris, a managing partner in […]