Talk:Venture capital/Archives/2012

Improvement Drive

The article Grameen Bank is currently nominated to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. If you want to support the article, you can vote for it there.--Fenice 09:05, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

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After coming from Not_a_Number_Technologies I am finding it unclear whether 'Angel Investor' is another word for venture capitalist or is a venture capitalist of some sort.

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"Venture capitalist" refers to professional, institutional partners in a fund. Sometimes wealthy individuals decide to invest in a company that is the kind that could be interesting to a VC. Such a non-professional is an "angel investor." There are groups and associations of such people, and sometimes they invest together. Sometimes a venture that was funded by "angels" grows and receives VC funding.

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I've pruned the most well-known VCs list. There were a number of firms that showed up on that list that were not well known. I suspect that some VCs have been listing their own firms to promote themselves. I also removed Hummer Winblad, because although they used to be very highly regarded, the sad truth is that their investment returns after the dot com bubble have moved them distinctly below the other top tier firms.

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I have tried to clean up this article as it had been annoying me for a while. Hope these changes are useful, but I would be delighted to see others further my efforts. Forgive my opting to make these changes (somewhat) anonymously, only it is a small & incestuous industry... --91.84.6.9 00:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

We should remove the section on "development"

The section titled "Venture capital as a financial tool for Latin American and Caribbean development" reads like an essay, and is irrelevant to the main thrust of the article. I'd suggest it be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.217.109.242 (talk • contribs) 08:34, 31 May 2007

Yes, it does read like an essay, and is at times irrelevant. It is true, though, and the general point is relevant (that venture capital can be and is used as a tool for developing underdeveloped economies). I will shorten it drastically to something more appropriate and encyclopedic, and provide citations. -kotra 17:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the lag time. I shortened it to a few sentences as promised, but couldn't find any citations after a quick search. -kotra 05:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Statistical data changed

Some statistical information was recently changed by an anon without a citation. I don't know which information is correct, because neither had a citation. I'm raising the issue here because it might be subtle vandalism. Or maybe it's a constructive edit, and I'm just ignorant (well, I'm probably ignorant either way).

Old text:

ARD's $70,000 USD investment in Digital Corporation in 1959 had a market value of $37 million USD in 1968.

New text:

ARD's $70,000 USD investment in Digital Corporation in 1957 grew in value to $355 million USD.

-kotra 19:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Locator

I have found a VC locator: http://www.vclocator.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mac (talk • contribs) 14:17, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I have found another source of venture capital information: http://www.venturedeal.comItsdono 21:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)itsdono

Can anyone write about venture capital in Israel?? I know that Israel gets some of the most venture financing in the entire world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.176.81 (talk) 21:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Where are the lists of VC firms?

I've noticed many instances of text where venture firms which presumably had pages created for them that no longer have listings.

Is there a "secret hiding place" for VC firms? Or do the firms themselves delete their pages?

Here's an example from a page:

With investment from Mohr Davidow Ventures, Trident Capital, and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, SVIP grew rapidly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Silicon_Valley_venture_capital_firms only lists 2 firms, I suspect there are more... They should be ranked by size of assets under management, and number of deals —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.185.15.204 (talk) 16:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

If they were deleted, they were probably deleted for notability reasons. Wikipedia only has articles that meet its notability requirements (see Wikipedia:Notability). It's possible that the red-linked VC firms you've seen mentioned on Wikipedia had articles at one time that were deleted for notability reasons, or someone may have just linked them up when they didn't have an article yet. Sometimes editors link up articles before they exist yet (like this). -kotra (talk) 21:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Promotional text

The Venture capital and development section has had text about the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) and the Latin American Venture Capital Association (LAVCA) added to it about 5 or 6 times over the last couple years (see the above section for one example). Each time I considered the text promotional (probably added by someone in MIF) and it was unreferenced anyway, so I removed it. Now, the promotional text has been added again:

The Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF), of the Inter-American Development Bank has injected capital in over 40 venture capital funds, including eco-friendly investments, clean technologies and renewable energy, among others, in this region. MIF has also cooperated with the public and private sectors in promoting regulatory changes to make the region’s markets more attractive to local and international private sector investors. MIF has approved a grant to the Latin American Venture Capital Association (LAVCA), to work with other venture capital associations in the region to push for changes in the legal and regulatory environment in order to improve the business climate.

(the references are [1] and [2])

Normally, I would remove it again, but this time it has references (though they are self-published ones from MIF). Also, I am somewhat close to the topic (I work with LAVCA sometimes), so I may have a conflict of interest. So I'd like the opinions of other editors: is this text promotional, non-notable, or poorly sourced? -kotra (talk) 20:53, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the wording is promotional, and the Multilateral Investment Fund article is worse. At first sight, the sourcing and notability seem fine: I think it is ok to mention an inter-governmental fund working in an unusual area of the market. But someone please reword it to be more specific and directly related to the topic. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 12:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Vax780 small.jpeg

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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --04:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Adding Astute Observation by Forbes Magazine

I believe we should add the following from page 46 of the February 16, 2009 issue of Forbes. Any ideas on which section it belongs in?

Quote On

Over the past five years early-stage investments have given venture capitalists' limited partners a return of 5%, roughly the same payout as a Treasury bond index. Late-stage deals have returned 12%, according to the National Venture Capital Association. The recent collapse of the new-issues market, where early-stage venture capitalists have historically notched their biggest wins, has made things even worse.

Quote Off —Preceding unsigned comment added by Earththings (talk • contribs) 17:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)