Early stage venture – dead or alive?

Consider these conflicting pieces of news.

1. Sevin Rosen has decided to pass on raising a new fund see link.

2. Sequoia is the sole VC backer in YouTube, and may have made 43x their US$11.5MM investment…all in less than 19 months see link.

3. One Canadian-based fund of fund manager, with $150MM for “Venture Investing”, has decided that “venture” — at least in Canada anyway — also includes the Oil and Gas industry. A sector that is about as well financed a sector as we have in our country.

4. The Tech fund of fund investing team of a major Ontario-based pension plan, with $400MM of current venture fund investments around the world, appears to have completely moved on. This pension fund has historically been as supportive of Canadian venture GPs as any. Let’s hope they staff-up again.

While there are pools of capital out there for entrepreneurs to tap, including ours, the horizon may not be all that rosy in terms of new fund formation.