Venture capital is the NASDAQ on steroids in the private sector, which directly links venture capital returns to how rich public valuations are.
[Update 4/29/13: Rocketmiles has now closed on $2 million from Atlas Venture, Link Ventures, and Peterson Ventures and several angel investors.].
The round was led by August Capital, and saw participation from existing investors Peterson Ventures, Link Ventures and Atlas Venture, as well as new investors, Chicago Ventures and Match.com CEO Sam Yagan.
Investors in the round included Cross Link Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, KEC Ventures and Foundry Group, the latter which led AngelList's largest syndicate to date, accounting for $434,000 of the new investment.
The IMF has since called for "possible non-commercial activities" linked to the venture to be spelled out.
The industry has already had its share of false dawns: a few years ago, for instance, foreign investors poured money into a promising entertainment venture linked to Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood's biggest star.
Wheen, a Private Eye contributor and well-known author whose works include a biography of Karl Marx, is the first high-profile journalist to be linked with the venture, which is being led by former Independent on Sunday editor Stephen Glover.
A venture linked to cycling or brainwaves may very well be expected to produce product and returns of some kind, even, say, the non-spendable kind.
Wagner did not mention the recent demise of his own retail-linked venture, a business he had hoped would encourage this "engagement", but instead collapsed into administration in February, having burned through £147m since 2013.
At one level, this is an amusingly nerdy procedural: Maxine examines a big internet security firm called hashslingrz, and descends into a world of Mafia-linked
