Stories tagged with Venture Capital
Google wants to take on the venture capitalists
By Laurie Bennett | July 31, 2008 at 10:08am | 1 
Google is planning a venture-capital division, to be headed by David Drummond, company SVP and chief legal officer.
Investors want shakeup at CNET
By Laurie Bennett | January 7, 2008 at 3:34pm | 0
A consortium of investors, led by Barry Rosenstein’s Jana Partners, is trying to seize control of the CNET Networks board.
Jana has joined Alex Interactive Media and the VC firm Spark Management in an effort to increase the size of the board from eight directors to 13. The group plans to nominate seven people at the next shareholders’ meeting.
The group has also filed suit in Delaware Chancery Court, to stop CNETfrom rejecting its proposals.
In a press release issued today after the New York Times published a story about the dispute, Rosenstein said, “This effort is about taking an underperforming company and increasing shareholder value by building on its top-notch editorial talent and premier internet assets.” .
The stuff that Tom Perkins’ dreams are made of
By Ali Jones | December 16, 2007 at 9:46am | 2
It can be hard to measure the size of someone’s ego. But not that of venture capitalist Tom Perkins.
His ego measures precisely 289.1 feet long and is named the Maltese Falcon, a new class of super yacht.
Perkins co-founded in 1972 what is now Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the most successful VC firms in the world. At one point, Perkins was a director of 14 portfolio companies, three of which he chaired and which were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
In-Q-Tel provides view of future security operations
By Laurie Bennett | October 8, 2007 at 10:55am | 0
If you want insight into the federal government’s vision of safeguarding America in the future, take a look at the investment portfolio of In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the CIA.
In-Q-Tel was formed in 1999 to provide capital to startup companies developing technologies that could be used for national security. It operates not as a division of the CIA, but as an independent nonprofit.
High on its list of priorities is finding new ways to analyze massive amounts of information. Many of In-Q-Tel’s portfolio companies provide technologies that gather and make sense of data. For example, Language Weaver provides automated language translation. NovoDynamics reads and translates text in Mideastern languages.
