VC hotspots

The National Venture Capital Association reports strong advances in 4Q 2010 VC investments in software, clean energy and other hotspots. Details here.

The Street not good at raising capital?

New York Times Magazine recently carried former WSJ reporter Roger Lowenstein's jeremiad against what he sees as Wall Street's poor performance in raising capital, which drew the ire of blogger at Sub Specie Æternitatis, whose identify remains unconfirmed by VNC.

VC investment in Tech down 30 pct.

The New York Times reports on today's report out of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA.org), showing the lowest level of VC investment in tech startups since 1997: $17.7B in 2,795 deals.

Frontier Cap exits health IT, data cos.

Maybe now that Charlotte, N.C.-based Frontier Capital has exited Peak10 and Anodyne Health Partners (announced yesterday), it'll have more cash to shop Tennessee companies, per its plans announced nearly a year ago, before the recent economic unpleasantness. At left is Seth Harward, Frontier's dealflow developer, who occasionally visits Music City. Anodyne was bought by Waterown, Mass.-based Athena Health,which is in the EHR and practice-management space. Frontier's share of Peak10 was taken out by Omaha-based McCarthy Group LLC.

VC quarterly update

PWC-NVCA-MoneyTree roundup says $16.8MM went to five TN firms in 3Q. The TSN reports it here. One firm named: edo Interactive. Meanwhile, PEHub, among others, complains about conflicting numbers.

Jaworski's new ventures

Dave Jaworski and Skip Franklin, both former execs with the now-deceased PassAlong Networks, aren't letting moss grow on their plans for new ventures. Here's what they're up to, now.

Chambless heads new fund

Nashville Capital Network Executive Director Sid Chambless is now also managing partner of the newly christened Tennessee Angel Fund. Chambless also operates NCN Angel Fund I LP, a sidecar fund. The VNC story's here.

U.S. VC investing dips further

The National Venture Capital Association announced that during the quarter ending March 31, 2009, venture capital returns declined 2.9 percent, as reckoned by Cambridge Associates U.S. Venture Capital Index®, the NVCA performance benchmark. This represented the third consecutive quarterly decline of the Index but was an improvement over the previous quarter's 12.5 percent decline. NVCA said, "Deterioration was also evident in the 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year time horizons for the period; the 15- and 20-year horizons showed mild improvements. Despite the declines, the venture capital index did outperform other major market indices across all time horizons." For details click here.