Alastair Goldfisher

How’s this for irony. InsideVenture, which has been helping late stage companies achieve liquidity in one of the worst public markets in recent memory, has been bought. SecondMarket, which provides an online marketplace for private companies to trade its shares, has acquired InsideVenture, which helps match late stage companies that might otherwise go IPO if […]

At 3:30 p.m. today (EDT), the FDIC will meet to vote on a proposed policy governing restriction to private equity firms investing in failed banks. For you policy wonks who can't get enough CSPAN-like viewing, you can check out the video online by going to this link. Also, Dan says he plans to cover the meeting live, so stay tuned to peHUB for your up-to-date FDIC coverage.

A short time ago, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) told Bloomberg that he would like to see the FDIC and other financial regulators to come up with rules for private equity firms that want to buy beleaguered U.S. banks. I suppose the mantra here should be, “Better late than never.” Reed, who chairs the Senate subcommittee […]

Happy holidays, everyone. While my sons were finding eggs and gifts that their mother, I mean the Easter Bunny, left them overnight, I found this little hidden gem on the Internet. It's a website devoted to basically air grievances about Goldman Sachs. The website, located at the demonic-sounding http://www.goldmansachs666.com/, includes an excerpt from a Bill Moyers interview of William Black, which makes for some interesting reading on a Sunday morning. I emailed the registrant of the site, a Michael Morgan based in Florida. Haven't heard back yet. A disclosure on the site says that he was shorted GS stock. "We need to begin to break up companies that have as much control over world finances as Goldman Sachs," the site says.

Another turnaround player that has come on the scene is the ConJoin Group. The firm, which has been under-the-radar for more than a year, officially launched and hung up its shingle this week as a turnaround advisory for investment firms with struggling portfolio companies.

Greg Case should have no problem a few years from now recalling his first day on the job at LLR Partners. Case began working as a partner at the Philadelphia-based growth equity investor on Sept. 15. That was the day Wall Street was hit with the news that Lehman Brothers would file for bankruptcy protection, […]

Kennet Partners—the growth stage firm that invests in U.S. and European tech companies from a single fund—today is announcing the close of Kennet III at $315 million (or about EUR 200 million). The firm raised about $215 million for its previous fund in 2000. I spoke with Managing Director Javier Rojas last week before he […]

I’ve heard people call DFJ’s Steve Jurvetson one of the smartest people they’ve ever met anywhere, not just in VC land. I’m not gonna argue. Among his credentials, he finished his degree in electrical engineering in 2.5 years (according to his entry on Wikipedia) and finished at the top of the class, that’s No. 1. […]

Zingdom Communications (f.k.a. Convoq Inc.), which was launched five years ago to develop software to enable online meetings, shut down at the end of November, company co-founder Christopher Herot wrote in his detailed blog. “While the company was an innovator in online meetings, and had a core group of enthusiastic customers, it never achieved the […]

VoIP seems to have taken a beating lately, what with eBay saying it overpaid for Skype Technologies, SunRocket closed down earlier this year and ongoing patent problems at Vonage. But VoIP continues to remain an area for investment. Witness the fact that Louisville, Ky.-based Chrysalis Ventures, which focuses on young growth companies in the South […]