Madrona's current portfolio companies.

Quoted: Madrona is a venture capital firm that teams with Northwest technology entrepreneurs to nurture ideas from startup to market success.

Lots of data describing the reasons behind and current condition of the current economic downturn. Finishes up with advice for startups in the new economic climate.

Quoted: Sequoia Capital recently made a presentation to its portfolio companies about how to try to survive an economic do...

Disney's VC fund.

Quoted: Steamboat Ventures is to help young companies successfully face the challenges of becoming leaders in their markets. We invest in early- to mid-stage, technology-focused companies that are pursuing opportunities in emerging digital media and consumer technology markets. Although the fund is primarily focused on technology investments, we also consider venture investments in other areas of broad strategic importance to The Walt Disney Company.

Wishpot gets an additional $1M in funding and Rob Monster takes a board seat.

Curious Office has been an early investor since Sept 2007 - looks like they converted into this A round.

Ning raised $60M on $500M pre-money valuation. They don't really have a great use for these funds - they just want to "keep their powder dry" to let Ning grow even through an impeding recession.

Quoted: All TechCrunch Web 2.0 Articles for

The origins of venture capital.

Quoted: Amazon.com: Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital: Spencer E. Ante: Books

Andy Sack and Chris Devore (both of Judy's Book) have created a $2M fund and co-working space for new internet founders. Very nice idea. I like the investment tie they are making between founders in the fund to get a pool of equity in each other's companies (I talked about doing this last year - but these guys are actually putting $ behind it).

Yelp is a great site - I've recently been using it to find great spots to grab a weekend breakfast. They have raised a total of $31M. Wow - that's a BIG NUMBER. And one wonders - WHY? Certainly the technology development and data center costs can build the equivalent site for far less.

An even bigger number - their purported $200M valuation. That's $25 per monthly unique. That's BUBBLE territory, in my book.

Revenues are claimed at "sub $10M". My (generous) guess - they're getting 20M monthly page views at $4 CPM -> that's less than $1M per year. It doesn't make sense to me they can be making anywhere near $10M.

Quoted: Yelp, the popular local review site, will soon announce a new $15 million dollar round of financing led by DAG Ventures. The valuation ...