Andreessen Horowitz introduce a new type of venture capital fund |
Register here for our next TechFlash Live networking event, March 23, featuring an expert panel discussing the future of online advertising.
Marc Andreessen
If you want to get some cash from Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen, you now have an easy playbook as a guide. In a detailed blog post, the Netscape founder laid out exactly what he -- along with partner Ben Horowitz -- are looking to invest now that they have $300 million in the bank.
Andreessen lays out no fewer than seven characteristics of the type of entrepreneurs and companies he hopes to invest in -- including a preference for technical founders who can hold the CEO reins. Andreessen and Horowitz also have a preference for companies in Silicon Valley, with Andreessen writing that: "We do not think it is an accident that Google is in Mountain View, Facebook is in Palo Alto, and Twitter is in San Francisco."
But Andreessen's been known to venture into Seattle in the past, most recently leading a $5.1 million deal with Madrona Venture Group in ExtraHop Networks.
And before Microsoft crushed Netscape, the Internet upstart was led by another executive with ties to Seattle: former McCaw Cellular CEO Jim Barksdale.
This isn't to say that Andreessen will be trolling Seattle any more than other places where smart geeks hang out. In the post, he makes it clear that he's looking for big world-changing ideas.
"Above all else, we are looking for the brilliant and motivated entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team with a clear vision of what they want to build and how they will create or attack a big market," he said.
The structure of the firm also is interesting. Horowitz and Andreessen are the only partners, and they reserve the right to invest as little as $50,000 and as much as $50 million. (That's quite a range). He also noted that they may invest in buyouts, public stocks and founders' shares.
"We will hang our hat as a firm on the fact that both of us have extensive direct entrepreneurial and operating experience," he said. "We have built companies, from scratch, to high scale -- thousands of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue. In short, we have done it ourselves. And we are building our firm to be the firm we would want to work with as entrepreneurs ourselves."
Meanwhile, here's how Claire Cain Miller of The New York Times describes the methods of Andreessen and Horowitz.
In a recent conversation, the two men shed some light on their investment strategies, including their “secret plan” to watch which start-ups get acquired by big companies — and then finance firms that are doing what those start-ups would have done if they had stayed independent.
UPDATE: Connie Loizos at PeHub.com
has a great Q&Awith Andreessen, with the tech executive explaining why he didn't invest in Facebook in the early stages and why he couldn't invest in FriendFeed.
John Cook is co-founder and executive editor of TechFlash. He has been covering the technology beat for nearly a decade, writing about startups, entrepreneurs and venture capital, most recently serving as a reporter/blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
READ FULL BIOGRAPHYSeattle University Software Engineering
Chinwe Okeke (MSE’08) pursued her graduate degree while working as a developer and technical analyst for the Boeing Company. She picked the SU-MSE program for small class sizes and real world learning opportunities offered through the academic service-learning and capstone projects.
The MSE program at Seattle University is geared for working professionals with classes offered in the evenings. The program builds upon the computing experience of its students and offers courses in a variety of technical and management areas of software engineering, with an emphasis on teamwork and a disciplined approach to problem solving.
Marchex is one of Seattle’s largest ad technology companies with 300+ employees providing call and click based performance marketing products, and managing over $100m in ad budget for tens of thousands of advertisers. Our customers range from local businesses to the Fortune 500.
Our talented and creative product engineering group is hiring.
If you are an innovative software design engineer interested in solving difficult problems at scale, across a wide array of technologies from Lucene to Hadoop to Asterisk and SIP then we’d love to hear from you!
Apply now.
Technology Tax Planning – Did You Take The Deduction?
Technology companies require professional advisors who can assist in all aspects of the business. The BDO Technology Practice provides a full range of services tailored to help address the changing needs of domestic and international companies. In addition to core audit and tax services, BDO professionals can assist technology companies with:
· Revenue recognition
· Business combination accounting
· R&D tax credits
· Compensation and benefits
· Business valuations
Backed by 38 national offices and an international network in 110 countries, we have the domestic and global footprint to serve growing technology companies. Contact sphilpott@bdo.com (audit partner), mreeves@bdo.com (audit partner), psmith@bdo.com (tax partner), tzambito@bdovaluation.us.com (valuation), tfiscus@bdo.com, Director, 206.624.2020