Early-stage IT and healthcare investor Grotech Ventures announces it has raised a new $225 million fund after a 20-month process.

Venture capitalists began 2013 by pouring money into startups at the slowest pace in two years, suggesting a reset for an industry where dollars coming into new funds has trailed portfolio company investments for six years.

The first quarter won’t close till Sunday, but an early look at the period finds the soft venture-investment environment continued. Venture capitalists in the United States put $6.2 billion to work in the quarter fueling 707 deals, according to a tally by PitchBook

U.S. daily deals online firm Living Social Inc is expected to announce on Thursday it is cutting 400 jobs, representing 9 percent of its workforce, as demand for daily deals and emailed daily discounts dries up, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the plans.

Mark Zuckerberg’s deal-zeal has Facebook spending a fortune as it runs up to its IPO. What’s next?

Recently, Washington Post columnist Steve Pearlstein wrote a wake-up call to the nation’s capital. In it, he argued that while “local economic boosters love to remind anyone who will listen that the Washington region boasts the greatest concentration of technical or knowledge workers in the country,” the claim is “misleading.” The reality, wrote Pearlstein, is that [...]

Lightspeed Venture Partners will seek $675 million for its ninth fund, the VC firm stated in an SEC filing Thursday morning. The figure is about 15 percent shy of what its most recent fund, a 2008 $800 million vehicle, amassed. Along with the ongoing fundraise comes a handful of personnel moves for the firm. In [...]

(Reuters) – Groupon Inc’s main business grew in November as the largest daily deal company extended its lead over rival LivingSocial, according to estimates released on Wednesday. Groupon’s gross billings totaled $154 million in November, up 6 percent from the $145 million it collected in October, Yipit estimated. LivingSocial’s gross billings declined 5 percent to [...]

(Reuters) – The daily deal industry has jolted a formerly sleepy corner of the $30 billion online advertising market as Groupon battles with rivals to attract new customers. The customer-acquisition rush centers on the local part of the paid search marketing business, which is dominated by Google Inc in the United States. SEM, as it [...]

M&A in the daily deal space may have jumped in the past two years but valuation multiples are dropping, according to a report from CB Insights.

Since 2009, 72 acquisitions have occurred in the sector with more than half, or 44, taking place in Q2 and Q3 of this year, according to CB Insights.

M&A may be up but valuation multiples are “declining very quickly,” CB Insights says. I asked Jonathan Sherry, CB’s co-founder, for more info on the multiples, but he declined to disclose further information. That data is only for subscribers, he says.

The CB report did reveal that daily deal price per subscriber sold multiples has dropped 36% in Q3 from their peak in first quarter. Price per voucher sold multiples has also declined 40% in Q3 versus a high in Q1, CB said.