Clearstone's Jim Armstrong shares some sobering year-end perspectives. "Things Trouble in Venture Capital? "Keep Keep the faith!" Things get good as fast as they went bad," Jim encourages. Is it the beginning of another great buying opportunity?

Last week I hosted a panel of Los Angeles Venture Capitalists with Jim Armstrong (Clearstone Ventures), Mark Suster (GRP), David Travers (Rustic Canyon), and Brian Garrett (Crosscut Ventures). Here is the latest presentation from Adeo Ressi of TheFunded: “ The Caranie is Dead: Something is Wrong in Venture Capital Q3 2008″ There has been a lot of conjecture about how the Venture community will respond to the economic downturn. My personal opinion is that its going to be bad, really bad.

in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures. The firm was founded in 2008, and according to regulatory filings that funding came in January. The company was incubated by Clearstone Ventures, which has been actively pulling together management teams and funding new startups in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Tags: clearstone Santa Monica-based Geodelic announced today that the firm is shipping a new application for local discovery, along with T-Mobile USA. According to the venture backed firm, the new software for T-Mobile's myTouch 3G, learns a user's favorite

DECEMBER 2, 2008 Roundtable Jim Armstrong , Managing Director, Clearstone Venture Partners My dear friend Debbie Landa, supreme queen of DealMaker Media is hosting another kick ass event in Los Angeles, and… I’M GIVING AWAY A TICKET TO THE EVENT (keep reading below). VC Outlook 2009: If You Need Funding You’re Fuc%ed ( or

The firm is venture backed by Mayfield Fund, Clearstone Venture Partners and IDG Ventures. READ MOR Los Angeles-based Rubicon Project, which develops online advertising optimization software, announced this morning that it has hired on two executives to the firm. Rubicon said that it has hired Mark Douglas as Vice President of Engineering, and Seizo Welch as Vice President of Finance.

The company is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, Mission Ventures, the Pasadena Angels, the Tech Coast Angels, and others. Pasadena-based LeisureLink has signed on a loyalty and incentive company, Destination Rewards, as part of its travel services, the firm said earlier this week. LeisureLink, which provides online distribution and marketing of vacation lodging, said that it will offer consumer rewards and loyalty programs that can be used for vacation travel and merchandise.

Six Degree Games is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners and Prism Venture Partners. Marina Del Rey-based Six Degree Games is targeting youngsters for its new sports-themed virtual world, Action AllStars , aimed at six to 14 year old kids interested in sports. The new virtual world--which was developed in association with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLB.com), allows children to play games, socialize with friends, and interact with a sports-themed community.

Rubicon, which is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, IDG Ventures, and Mayfield, said that it has hired on Josh Wexler as Director of Strategic Publisher Acquisition, who will head up its New York offices. Santa Monica-based Rubicon Project , which provides web advertising optimization software, has expanded into New York, the firm announced Thursday. Rubicon Project offers helps web publishers optimize their advertising revenue, by monitoring the performance and adjusting which advertising networks get a share of a site's ad inventory.

BigStage is venture backed by Mission Ventures, Selby Ventures, and the Tech Coast Angels, and is based on research from the University of Southern California; the firm's CEO, Phil Ressler, was formerly a venture capitalist at Clearstone Ventures, and the firm was co-founded by Jon Snoddy and Jon Kraft, who also helped co-found music service Pandora. Pasadena-based Big Stage Entertainment , the venture-backed startup which is developing photo-realistic avatar technology, has exited its beta and officially launched its site. The firm said the official launch will allow users to create

Most of the companies Clearstone invests in have angel money. When a company comes to Clearstone with some money in the bank from smart in-the-know angels, we get interested quickly. In the past few years, angels have become much more active than they were following the tech crash of 2000. As a VC, I divide angel investors into two buckets.