Venture Capital News Archives

Close WSJ Blogs November 30, 2009, 9:49 AM ET By Hillary Canada This morning's roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web: Art by Mike Lucas Guardium Plays Hard To Get - IBM is offering to buy database security start-up Guardium for as much as $225 million, Reuters reports, citing Israeli newspaper TheMarker.

Procter & Gamble has been busy slashing prices and realigning its product portfolio to compete a bit more on a value platform.

Q: What do venture capitalists do? - A.N., West Hills, Calif. A: Partners in venture capitalist firms pool their money and invest in fledgling companies, sometimes specializing in certain industries or areas, such as computer-related technology or biotechnology.

Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson's announcement last week of a government guarantee for the principal amount invested in the newly launched Barbados Entrepreneurs' Venture Capital Fund is sweet news to the ears of the local, regional and international investment community.

Nextronex Energy Systems has secured $1 million in local investments to finance the production of the companya s new solar inverter manufacturing program in Northwest Ohio.

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., BUSINESS WIRE -- SupportSpace, the leading provider of on-demand remote tech support solutions, announced today that it has raised $10 million in funding.

A tax break for U.S. financiers up for debate in the House Ways and Means Committee is indefensible, but not ready for termination, a committee member said.

Matt J. Whitworth, United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that two Columbia, Mo., men were sentenced in federal court today for their roles in a multi-million dollar investment fraud.

BEIJING: China's top economic planner has issued guidelines to channel central government money into new venture capital funds to support the high-technology sector.

China's central government Thursday announced it is to join local governments and private investors in a pilot program to facilitate venture capital funds for innovative and high-technology industries, and industrial restructuring.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is starting a new startup called Asana to solve enterprise collaboration, and he just closed a $9 million series A round from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz. this follows $1.2 million angel round last spring from investors including Ron Conway, Peter Thiel, Mitch Kapor, MySpace CEO Owen van Natta, ...

Transaction aimed at simplifying the company's group structure. Danish telecom operator TDC AS said Thursday it has signed a plan to merge with Nordic Telephone Company ApS in order to simplify the company's group structure and optimize its capital structure.

Total venture-capital investments could fall below the $1-billion mark this year for the first time since 1995.

In the latest lob into the morass that has become somewhat of a sport amongst journalists and those that follow the venture capital industry, Carl Schramm and Harold Bradley write in BusinessWeek about " How Venture Capital Lost Its Way ". The evidence? Venture capital funding is down - from an "astonishing" 1.1% of US GDP in 2000; and in the 3rd ...