Posts Tagged ‘venture capital’

The rise of VC

Via: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen – Fortune Management: “I never heard the term ‘venture capital’ until I got to California. I got a job and landed in Silicon Valley, and I found out about this venture capital thing. And I was dumbstruck. ‘You mean there are people who will give you money to invent new things and start a company? Really? Seriously? It’s like wow! That’s really cool!’  And of course we got lucky.”

Caught in the middleThat was 20 years ago. There was a lot less media coverage of VC, deals, angels, etc.

What would be an interesting exercise is to see when VC firms in Asia started? Is it all pushed by the democratization of media?

The fact that today, media is cheaper – everyone and his uncle has started a publication of some sort. In tech, it seems that most of the media will only cover VC-related stories (i.e. money driven). They’ve forgotten real tech.

MAVCAP, the largest VC fund in Malaysia, only started in 2001. A mere 12 years ago! Singapore’s first firm started in 1984 – Seavi Advent Private Equity (29 years ago) – though I’m not sure if they deal with tech much.

So is this the rise of VC/angels/incubators/etc. or the rise of media?


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