Thanks in part to the Facebook IPO, venture investors in 2012 saw their best return on invested capital in a decade. A steady rise in the ratio of portfolio company exit size to capital raised continued through the year.

Bill Gurley has a message for institutional investors: Stop blasting money at what have historically been top-tier venture funds. “You’re not in the stands. You’re in the field. And when you allocate [your capital] obsessively to firms in the top quartile, it will have an impact on how things play out.”

Venture capitalists may have to turn back to M&A in order to rack up big returns for LPs. Which tech industry verticals will fare best, based on history?

Across Silicon Valley, people are getting rich through sales and IPOs of startups in the social media and software sectors. But they’re not getting as rich as they thought they would, so they’re being more careful about how they spend their money, wealth advisors say.

Photo-sharing site Pinterest raises a mega-round–and, at a valuation that already puts it well past Instagram’s deal value.

Altos Ventures GP Ho Nam wonders what it takes to go from a startup to a big, legendary company such as Apple.

Amazon has spent 24 months crushing brick-and-mortar competitors and driving the company’s share price through the roof. And they’ve gone and done it in a way that bankers hate to see–without much M&A.

Just six Brazilian tech startups landed venture capital investments in 2009, but that number grew to 17 in 2010 and to 45 last year, according to Diogo Gomes, an online entrepreneur and blogger based in Brazil.

Venture investors took their foot off the gas in the first quarter and cut back on the money they pump into young companies by 19%. This could be the result of last year’s public market volatility or another sign the venture business’s consolidation.

Trending on peHUB this week: Facebook, Instagram, Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, Foundation Capital, Fred Wilson, Mark Suster, Brad Feld, Oaktree Capital, Summit Partners, Q1 VC fundraising.