Sequoia Capital vs. ComVentures

Matt Marshall | February 27th, 2007

Updated

comventuresfight.bmpSequoia Capital, the high-profile venture capital firm sued another firm, ComVentures, for ripping off aspects of its Web site design.

The two sides apparently have resolved the fight, although the settlement hasn’t shown up yet in online records.

This is one of the silliest squabbles we’ve seen in a while. Dan Primack has good coverage of the spat. However, looking at the sites at the source of the dispute, which Dan points us to for comparison (here is Sequoia’s and here is ComVentures‘), it’s really hard to see where the beef is. It’s quite surprising that VCs spent time fighting over this.

Although we admit the following portion of the complaint is somewhat hysterical:

comventues-silly.bmp

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7 Comments

  1. February 27th, 2007
    10:37 am

    VC Watcher said:

    This lawsuit isn’t the cause, just a symptom. There’s no love lost here.

    It’s easy to get a lawsuit going for such a trivial reason because Sequoia could prove when the incident happened (access logs) and present a piece of HTML from both that have substantial similarity. With a rhetorical thrust, one argues visual similarity. A lawyer can keep this one alive for quite a while.

  2. February 27th, 2007
    2:36 pm

    Clarius said:

    Sequoia is just a bully firm, thats the way they play. Playground bullies to the end. Either you make em 10x in a year or you are out.

  3. February 27th, 2007
    3:00 pm

    Lawyers Get Rich said:

    Lawyers are undoubtedly laughing themselves to the bank on this one. Makes you seriously wonder about VC decision making…

  4. February 27th, 2007
    3:37 pm

    mathew said:

    more interestingly - did anyone see the comventures team profile photos?

    http://mattishness.blogspot.com/2007/02/where-are-customers-yachts.html

  5. February 27th, 2007
    5:16 pm

    Franc said:

    Well, I think both are doing with enough reasons.
    Typically a firm needs to select a target to fight or compete or learn in order to build up internal strength and move up. In this case, Sequoia has a lot to be admired for.

    On the other hand, Sequoia must have paid handsomely to design their websites. And no one
    likes to be copied.

    It would be even funnier if ComVentures hire someone to impersonate Mike Moritz. Then,
    byebye Mr. CopyRight.

  6. February 27th, 2007
    8:11 pm

    jack largent said:

    This may be the moment Sequoia jumped the shark. These types of bullying tactics are things that sequoia does in deals, which are now playing out in public. The bloom is off the rose. They beat the hell out of people regularly, yet moritz and sequoia have this pristine air about them. The truth is, they are nothing more than bad people picking onthe small guy.

  7. February 27th, 2007
    8:24 pm

    Dan said:

    Grinnel is the biggest backer of Com Ventures. They are the best VC …Com …Com…Cm.

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