Why Charles River Ventures sat out on Twitter’s latest round
When Twitter raised its most recent round of funding at $1 billion, a few players were conspicuously absent, including Union Square Ventures and Charles River Ventures.
Why did Charles River sit out? Size and strategy.
Charles River Ventures is focused on using a $325 million fund for early stage investments. Participating in a high-valuation round means too large a share of the fund goes to too few companies, said George Zachary (pictured), a partner at the firm.
The… Continue Reading
Charles River Ventures introduces friendly “convertible” seed round
Updated
Charles River Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, has launched a new investment strategy, offering rapid but tiny $250,000 checks to Internet start-ups.
The program, called QuickStart, recognizes times have changed, and that Internet companies no longer need the vast amounts of cash that most venture capital firms want to give to them. The CRV program also offers entrepreneur the friendly terms of the “convertible” seed round, explained below.
VentureBeat talked with the firm’s Silicon Valley… Continue Reading
Roundup: FON’s gambit, Obvious, Zachary’s blog, Vox & more
Roundup in Silicon Valley:
FON exploits opportunity to stir up WiFi interest in San Francisco — Search engine company Google is having a heck of a time getting “crazy nut job” local SF residents to agree to its plans for a city-wide WiFi project. So while big Google is stymied, another company, FON, is hoping to slip under the regulatory radar with a grassroots campaign: Offering hundreds of its La Fonera wireless routers at an event it… Continue Reading