Yahoo’s $1.1 billion purchase of blogging site Tumblr is the largest exit of a pre-public venture-backed New York-based company in the city’s history, according to CB Insights.

Norwest Venture Partners is apparently preparing to open a New York office, eager to expand its presence in the Big Apple’s Internet startup scene, sources say.

Venture capitalists in general wrote fewer checks in the third quarter, but investment enthusiasm varied widely from region to region. New York, Texas and the Pacific Northwest logged strong performances, despite an overall 12% decline in dollars going to startups nationwide, according to a peHUB analysis of MoneyTree Report data. New England, the Midwest, the [...]

Meet Warren Lee, head of Canaan Partners’ New York office. A specialist in digital media, Lee was promoted to general partner in June after spending six years with Canaan. He recently sat down with peHUB for a quick Q&A on a wide range of topics:

Q: Is there a bubble in tech?
A: I think there are bubbles in selective categories such as flash sites and social media startups. There are too many ‘me-too’ startups without any real differentiation getting funded by investors. How many different services can your average online consumer subscribe to before getting fatigued?

Q: What did you think of Specific Media buying Myspace for $35 million?
A: I was surprised the price was so cheap. Thirty five million isn’t a lot if you can execute and take advantage of the asset. [They've] gotten a fair price. They’ve also gotten Justin Timberlake and you can’t beat that combination. There’s still lots of traffic [at Myspace] and lot of profiles. They’ll get value out of it.

Time to catch up what your peers found most interesting on peHUB this week. Here are the top 10 posts that garnered the most pageviews from regular readers from July 18 to July 22. Hot topics include LP interest in first-time funds outside of Silicon Valley, performance of vintage 2006 funds held by CalPERS, Redpoint’s hot streak and Q2 venture investment trends.
1. Slideshow: LPs Keen to Back Newbie VC Funds Outside of Silicon Valley, by Lawrence Aragon
2. Slideshow: CalPERS’ Mid-Decade Venture Boom — Commitments Jumped in 2006-08, by Mark Boslet
3. Slideshow: Redpoint Ventures’ Red-Hot Deals, by Jonathan Marino
4. Slideshow: Top Second Quarter Venture Deals Show Internet, Health Care And Late Stage Focus, by Mark Boslet
5. Slideshow: The New England, New York Rivalry And The Cheapest Place To Do A Second Quarter Venture Deal, by Mark Boslet
6. Legal Battle Brewing Over Quick Flip, by Bernard Vaughan
7. Slideshow: Texas County & District’s Top-Performing Funds, by David Toll
8. Slideshow: Quattrone Is Back with a Vengeance; His Qatalyst Partners Has Advised PopCap, GoDaddy and 11 Others this Year (subscription required), by Luisa Beltran
9. Chicago Shop Rolls Out Exits As It Eyes Fund X, by Bernard Vaughan
10. Shocker! Someone’s Making Money in Newspapers, by Luisa Beltran

By now you know venture investors turned more active in the second quarter, with a substantial uptick in dollars flowing from their checkbooks to startups. What you may not know is that New York was one of the cheapest places to do a deal in this ebullient period. And that New England didn’t waste time [...]

Silicon Valley is tops–no doubt about it. But back East, there’s a fight shaping up for the country’s second-best VC city. However, a close examination of first quarter data show Silicon Valley regained ground as the center of the venture business while New York continued to give New England a run for its money. The [...]

Want to catch up on what your colleagues found most interesting on peHUB this week? Here are the posts written by our staff that garnered the most pageviews from March 14 to March 18.

1. Source: Seed-Stage Rounds Up 50 Percent in New York; Valuations Up 30 Percent LINK – by Connie Loizos

2. Scathing Report Details CalPERS Bribery Scandal LINK – by Gregory Roth

3. Who Cares About HCA? Silver Lake, KKR Make Five Fold Gain on Avago Investment LINK – by Luisa Beltran

4. KKR Kinda Sorta Talks Succession At First Ever Investor Day LINK – by Luisa Beltran

5. West Coast, East Coast Investment Rivalries Heat Up LINK – by Mark Boslet

6. Cleantech Far From Down And Out: 83 Funds Said To Be Raising $23.5B LINK – by Mark Boslet

7. Social Scene: Feld Shares TMI for Fitbit, Bathroom Humor at SXSW, 4 Birthdays Coming LINK – by Lawrence Aragon

8. Cleantech’s Nemesis: Consumer Awareness Still Lags LINK – by Mark Boslet

9. BrightSource Raises Another $122M As Speculation Of IPO Increases LINK – by Mark Boslet

10. Winning! or Losing? A Look Into the Super-Fund Movement LINK – by Connie Loizos

As Frank Sinatra crooned: “I want to be a part of it. New York, New York. I want to wake up in that city. That doesn’t sleep. And find I’m king of the hill. Top of the heap.” Sinatra could have sung his number in chorus with SIlicon Valley VCs. As Mark Boslet reported in [...]

Early stage investing may feel bubbly to some in New York. That’s not true of the folks backing NYC Seed, a seed stage fund intended to help cultivate nascent Web startups within New York’s five boroughs. Owen Davis, managing director, says that NYC Seed is likely to “soon put together the next phase of the fund,” and [...]