"Natural gas prices are quite strong and the percentage of capital dollars being directed toward gas is greater today than at any other point," said Ken Hersh, managing director of Natural Gas Partners, a $950 million venture equity fund in Fort Worth focusing on oil and gas.
After all: The two companies were fairly comparably capitalized and staffed, with GrubHub growing to over 350 employees and Seamless over 300, while GrubHub raised about $84.1 million from a mix of venture and growth equity firms (including Benchmark, Origin and Amicus) and Seamless raised $51 million, $50 million of which came from private equity firm Spectrum Equity.
Isabel Fox, head of venture at private equity firm White Cloud Capital, says she accepts that early-stage businesses cannot predict everything.
Nor was the sheer weight of venture capital and equity investment sufficient to change the behaviour of customers overnight, either in retail ("B2C" in the ghastly shorthand) or in wholesale (B2B) markets.
It was filled with Silicon Valley's rich and famous like Scott McNealy, the former chairman of Sun Microsystems, Frank Quattrone, the investment banker, and a bevy of venture capitalists, private equity investors and senior executives from companies like Apple, LinkedIn and, of course, Facebook.
Groupon is close behind, with a $950 million round led by DST, with Morgan Stanley and a long line of venture and private equity firms in the mix.
Investors in Phononic's new round of funding came from a mix of venture and public equity firms: GGV Capital, Lookout Capital, Eastwood Capital Corp ,Venrock, Oak Investment Partners, Tsing Capital, Huaneng Invesco WLRoss, the Wellcome Trust and Rex Healthcare Ventures.
For many startups, rounds of venture or private equity funding are thought of as stepping stones on the way to an initial public offering -- the ultimate corporate symbol of having arrived.
First, the risk-lovers had better opportunities elsewhere; they left investment banking, where they could only make millions, for the worlds of venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds, where they could make billions.
Only the top quartile of venture capital and private equity funds historically outperform equity markets, and many insurance companies would not have access to top funds.
She's not sure whether they'll take equity stakes or a percentage of venture money raised, but "equity is better than cash," she says.
