When training to run a marathon several years ago, I set my goal to finish in less than four hours. I got a Nike Triax watch with a little pod that connected to my shoe to tell me the distance I ran. It was great. I could tell my pace, heart rate, distance, so much information – it was the kind of feedback I needed to meet my goal.

Before I used it the first time, I had to calibrate it to recognize the length of my average stride so its calculations would be accurate. Periodically, through the years, I’ve done the same thing to make sure its feedback was accurate and useful for my running goals. Recently, I noticed that the distances it was recording seemed to be off so I went through the process to recalibrate it, my stride had subtly changed over the years.

Likewise,...

The carried interest debate has kicked into high gear, with legislation currently under consideration that could tax carried interest as ordinary income. Much of the conversation relates to the incentives or disincentives this would create or whether it is advisable. On that front alone, our view is that it’s a bad idea. Risk takers and investors should be rewarded for creating value, and that behavior should be encouraged as much as possible.

While treating carried interest as ordinary income may not kill the whole venture capital industry, it will cause some degree of contraction. Basic economics will tell you that some number of skilled people with other investment or career options will choose alternatives such as investing in the public markets over private equity if the d...

Glimmers of light are breaking through on the dark and cloudy financial horizon, and investors across the country – and around the world – are starting to hope that an economic dawn has finally arrived.

But despite the bright patches, it’s unclear whether the global markets will loosen and open enough to start generating meaningful growth that energizes companies, funds innovation and puts legions of people to work.

The most important reality here is the fact that we are beginning to see signs that there is some more debt financing available today than there was a year ago. However, most of the deals that are getting done right now are largely equity financed.

We continue to see a steady stream of distressed deals, a full year after the financial meltdown. Dis...

A recent study by the NVCA and Dow Jones VentureSource reveals valuable metrics on VC board behavior, composition and dynamics. In the area of board conflict, one observation from the study begs to be discussed further in the context of the current operating environment: A suggestion that there is strong agreement between VCs and CEOs regarding the key challenges and sources of conflict in the boardroom.

I don’t believe this reflects the reality of the situation because my continuing personal experience and other anecdotal experience from the field shows very little progress in this area.

The level of personality conflicts and stress are unprecedented in the venture-backed company boardroom today. I do not believe that much progress has been made in defining more constru...

Written for VC-backed entrepreneurs…

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

Oh, the Mistakes You Will Make,
The Money you’ll Waste
Maybe Your are Moving
With much too much haste!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes,
You can Steer yourself
Any Direction you choose

You have clouds in your head.
You have to take care,
Your burn rate’s outrageous!
You are in for a Big Scare

You are on your own
And You know what you know
And YOU are the guy

Who’ll decide where to go

Be Cautious, Be Bold
Lead the Charge up the Hill,
We’ve given you our cash,
Watch out for the ...

Although big deals seem to be picking up, exits–you know, the part where you make money–have not. Aside from the IPO resurgence (and then questions over whether the window has closed already), exits have not been on the table. This slideshow depicts the ten largest PE exits, globally, by M&A this year.

Get them after the jump.

...

When the final numbers come out next month, it’s likely that venture capitalists will have invested less money in 2009 than in any year since 1997. It’s currently tracking at just over $16 billion for U.S.-based companies, with the only silver lining — from a deal volume perspective — being that Q3 and Q4 figures were improvements over Q1 and Q2.

But the investment slowdown didn’t affect everyone. peHUB has compiled a list of the 10 companies that got the most VC love over the past year. It includes five cleantech compani...

Last year, the largest LBO list looked like a tallest midget contest. This year, it looks like a frat party. Yes, the top deals of 2009 were largely alcohol-fueled.

Beer giant AB Inbev spent the year scurrying to unload assets to meet a $7 billion payment on its debt this fall, a hangover from the $52 billion merger of Anheuser Busch and InBev in 2008. Buyout firms pounced at the opportunity, giving AB-Inbev divestitures three of the 10 spots.

The year’s largest deals included both an infrastructure and a real estate play. The largest deal ...

Nobody is picking up the phones today, so time for another dreaded top 10 list. This time, it’s the year’s most popular posts on peHUB. We’ve excluded all the First Read and Second Opinion posts, and consider the multi-page VC Walking Dead to be a single story. No idea why the top post was the top post, or why it became a veritable meeting place for GE Capital employees (past and present). We’re just glad they chose peHUB to be their virtual dartboard. Each of these posts typically sits behind the firewall (peHUB subscriptions make great stoc...

Venture capitalists entered the decade on a dotcom high, and this week will end it on an exit-starved low. In between, they invested in over 16,000 U.S.-based companies.

What follows is a list of the 10 most active VC firms, based on our VentureXpert database (which, coincidentally, is being retired at year-end). The rankings are based on the number of U.S.-based companies in which a firm invested over the past decade — regardless of number of financing rounds. And, just as a reminder, putting lots of money out the doo...