There was a great article today on thedeal.com entitled “Intel Capital Says Yes to Seed Investing”. Great read!

My favorite quote (attention all VCs, syndicates, and LPs in the Southeast):

Angela Biever, vice president of Intel and managing director of Intel Capital’s consumer Internet investments, explains that the venture group will invest in companies at any stage. When it comes to consumer Internet startups, it’s possible today to start a company so small that if an investor wants to get in on the deal, it must be prepared to play at an early stage. Also, many consumer Internet startups find themselves acquired before they get the opportunity to raise a Series B or an expansion round.

“If you’re not in a deal early, you frequently don’t get a chance to play,” Biever says.

I couldn’t agree more. For some reason, this got me thinking about LPs.

So much has been said about the lack of early-stage capital in the Southeast, and there are a lot of truisms there (along with a fair amount of rhetoric). However, not much has been said about the expectations of the limited partners (LPs) of those funds.

We need to obviously plant a lot of trees if we hope to have a good harvest in the market. Perhaps we should put more pressure on the LPs to give new venture funds some leeway in making some true “early-stage” investments as a small allocation of the larger fund. For without taking risk on little companies, we don’t get to enjoy the benefits of harvesting the larger ones.

Cheers.

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