CapLinked, whose collaborative platform is aimed at helping entrepreneurs, private investors and advisors build relationships and interact online, has raised $525,000 in angel funding, bringing its total financing to $900,000. The money comes from well-known Silicon Valley investors including PayPal founder Peter Thiel and 500 Start-ups founder Dave McClure. Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale; Aman Verjee, CFO of Sonos; and David Anderson, managing partner of 7th Rig, also contributed. CapLinked is based in Los Angeles.

My take on various PE and VC-related events and news last week. On Bubbles: Are seed stage valuations for hot Internet startups getting out of hand? That’s been the subject of raging debate across the venture pundit-sphere in recent weeks. Connie Loizos and Mark Boslet added their takes on the topic this week, looking at [...]

For months, there’s been talk of a seed-stage bubble, and plenty of reason to believe it exists. Just one indicator is San Francisco magazine’s newly published cover story on “Tech’s New Angels.” It’s fully 15 pages long, thanks in part to the public’s growing fascination with Silicon Valley’s newest “moguls,” as well as the angels’ willingness to talk [...]

My take on some notable PE and VC-related events and news in the past week.

Questioning the Fanboy Fascination with Andreessen Horowitz

In the last few weeks, I’ve friended an employee at Andreessen Horowitz, who I consider a smart guy and someone worth knowing and who always has smart tweets. By no fault of his own, he may be working at an overhyped firm. Or, at the very least, it’s a firm that has not yet generated the cash-on-cash returns that justify the amount of attention it has been getting.

At least that was my takeaway from reading a story about the firm from my colleague Connie Loizos, who took a look at the media frenzy surrounding Andreessen Horowitz since it was launched in mid-2009 with a $300 million fund. Connie talked to social psychologist Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School, who recently produced research suggesting that people are likely to see someone as competent if they’ve demonstrated expertise in just one area, even if they later display incompetence elsewhere.

So whereas Andreessen and Horowitz are great technologists, the jury is still out on whether they’re investment geniuses. You be the judge on whether they’re overhyped.

The post drew 17 responses, most of them in agreement with Connie’s assessment. Reader Eric wrote: “Nice balanced article, Connie. It’s good to have at least one rational voice out there willing to do their own thinking, rather than simply serving up the pre-packaged PR flak that we seem to be getting from others. Kudos to Andreessen Horowitz for the savvy to tap the LP’s while they are enthusiastic for the unproven product, rather than waiting for the (possibly good, possibly bad) performance to manifest itself.”

If it was all about who you know when it comes to launching a startup, Dan Greenberg would certainly be at the head of the class. Greenberg, founder and CEO of Sharethrough, is announcing today that his startup, a provider of social video advertising services, has closed a $5 million Series A round led by [...]

Tonight, TechCrunch was leaked what may be the most shocking email that I’ve ever read, and I’m guessing many Valley watchers will feel the same. Over the now famous Bin 38 dinner, Ron Conway — Silicon Valley’s best-known seed-stage investor and a mentor and inspiration to many of the angel and seed-stage investors to emerge [...]

Last night, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington reported that on Monday night, a group of high-profile Silicon Valley angels met at a San Francisco restaurant, where, Arrington said he later learned, “collusion” and “price fixing” were on the menu. The story has been refuted by at least one angel who was at the dinner, but Arrington told [...]

Dave McClure is rather unlike most investors in Silicon Valley. He curses like a sailor, for one thing – publicly. He tweets almost constantly, no matter the time of day. He has also become a central character on the seed investing scene, seemingly through sheer will, and has taken to bashing venture capitalists on a [...]