Seed and early stage investing jumped to new heights in the second quarter, and Internet fever appears to be the cause. Venture capitalists put money into 464 seed and early stage startups during the period, accounting for 48% of all deals, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based [...]

What’s up with Roger McNamee and Elevation Partners?

This 29-year investment veteran and Elevation co-founder vows he will go seed stage. Yup, that’s the same private equity firm presently making “large scale investments in market-leading media, entertainment and consumer-related businesses.” So what’s afoot?

McNamee discussed his new approach late last month during an address to the Paley Center for Media, a Los Angeles-based forum. He acknowledged having changed his focus several times during his career. Apparently the time is

(UPDATE: Just heard back from Josh Kopelman, who says, “Unfortunately we’re not commenting on the new fund.” That probably means the firm hasn’t held a final close. We’ll keep you posted.) First Round Capital, which has already recorded more than six a dozen exits from its 2-year-old debut fund, has raised a sophomore fund totaling [...]

Seed stage investments have become so popular that even angels are finding it difficult to keep up their pace. To wit: Half of the deals done by angels between 2002 and 2007 were with seed and early stage companies, but that figure fell to 35 percent last year and is likely to be 35 percent or [...]