Venture returns are improving, but it’s still too early to say we’ve seen the last of poor industry performance. With the exception of the 15-year returns, which declined slightly, venture capital performance improved across all time horizons from the end of Q3 to the end of Q4 2010, according to Cambridge Associates and the National [...]

To gain better perspective on, and more information about, the Midwest venture industry, the National Venture Capital Association today named Ray Leach, CEO of the Cleveland-based nonprofit organization, JumpStart, to its board. PRESS RELEASE: Ray Leach, chief executive officer of JumpStart Inc., a Northeast Ohio-based nonprofit venture development organization, was named to the board of [...]

Venture capital firms are increasingly welcoming Internet and tech startup investments in developing markets, including South America and Asia, they said Wednesday at the VC65 gathering in Boston. And they’re being welcomed right back. Asian countries seek to host American businesses coinciding with China’s loosening of borders for foreign firms, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Managing Director [...]

I almost never agree with a single thing written on the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. Yet, I found myself muttering “amen” to myself a few times as I read this morning’s editorial on “Whatever Happened to IPOs?” It is just stunning to me how little interest there seems to be on the part of [...]

A better exit market brought a welcome lift to short-term venture returns in the third quarter, but 10- and 15- year returns slumped as the venture capitalists continue to right the ship. The improvements were small, but suggested the first signs of recovery from the financial markets crash of 2008. The gains are predicted to [...]

Perhaps no other investment theme sparks as much enthusiasm from healthcare investors as personalized medicine. Combining advances in computer processing with breakthroughs in gene sequencing and analysis, the sector offers sophisticated diagnostics that will determine not just an individual’s risk profile for a particular disease – but the optimal personalized therapy to treat it. Naturally, [...]

Were you sniffing about the economy last year? You must have been among the seemingly select few who didn’t sell their startup in 2010. According to new exit data published by peHUB parent Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association, last year saw more venture-backed M&A exits since people began recording this kind of thing in 1985. According to their findings, 420 deals were sewn up last year, roughly 18 percent of them IT-based.

A notoriously slow period of deal-making, even 2010′s fourth quarter was pretty good for M&A, with 88 venture-backed M&A deals reported as of December 31. Combined, the average disclosed deal value in the fourth quarter was $157.7 million, with HealthSpring’s acquisition of Bravo Health winning biggest venture-backed deal in the quarter. (It was apparently a win for investors, too. Bravo Health sold for $545 million. Backers including New Enterprise Associates and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners had sunk $157 million into the healthcare services company since its 1996 founding.)

The IPO market is on the mend, but the revival is nothing to crow about. There were 14 venture-backed IPOs during the third quarter, down slightly from 17 in the second, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters (publisher of this blog). While the decrease isn’t alarming, the bigger picture [...]

tional Venture Capital Association formed Medical Innovation and Competitiveness (MedIC) Coalition. This is an alliance comprised of both venture capital firms and their life sciences portfolio companies. The MedIC Coalition will lobby for policies and regulations that advance U.S. medical innovation and protect the country’s global leadership position in the life sciences industry.

The NVCA and Cambridge Associates today released new VC performance data (through March 31), showing improved short-term returns but continued weakening of 10-year returns. Five-year returns experienced a modest bump, after dropping the last time around.

Overall, 10-year mean VC returns stand at -3.7%, compared to 2.3% for the DJIA and -6.3% for the Nasdaq over the same time period. Five-year returns for VC come in at 4.9%, compared to 3.3% for the DJIA and 3.7% for the Nasdaq. One-year returns (for whatever they’re worth) for VC was 6.5%, compared to 49.6% for the DJIA and 56.9% for the Nasdaq.

You can download all the relevant data after the jump…