Clearstone's Jim Armstrong shares some sobering year-end perspectives. "Things VC returns are nearly 100% correlated to the IPO market; and that's troubling! Trouble in Venture Capital? "Keep Keep the faith!" Things get good as fast as they went bad," Jim encourages.

couple of years ago, William Quigley of Clearstone Venture Partners wrote an appropriate blog post, Value of Certain Angel Investors : Perhaps they previously started a company in the same industry or were part of a successful company targeting the same market.  Better still, these angels typically know the going terms for a start up in their market. Part IV of a Continuing Series on How to Select an Angel Group Several months before Jason Calcanis’ crusade (or jihad—depending on your political affiliation) against for-profit angel groups, I wrote a post about evaluating

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. LeisureLink's vacation property service markets vacation rentals, timeshares and other properties through online travel sites and travel agents. The company is venture backed by Clearstone 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. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Early stage VCs typically say that the ebbs and flows of the stock market don't effect the valuations they pay in start up financings. VCs tend to put greater weight on the potential market size of the product being built, the reputations of the founders and the number of existing competitors than they do on swings (positive or negative) in the NASDAQ index. These firms most definitely do look at public stock market valuations as a measure That may be true. At the formation stage, when a start up is little more than a business plan and a few dedicated engineers, there are

So here's the Hot List for 1/1/2009 - 1/15/2009 Top 5 Posts The 7 Ways to Get Traffic on the Web Why You Need To Lead A Tribe - Seth Godin LA Gets Dugg, Hammered, Screwed How To Get The World Excited About Your Business –The James Siminoff Interview Viral analytics and metrics - go viral young startup Top 20 Keywords SEO Metrics Marketing Social Media Alelo Google Yahoo Mahalo MySpace Tech Coast Angels Idealab Mission Ventures Clearstone Hollywood Santa Barbara Venice San Diego Santa Monica Twiistup

Among the rampant fear the bouncing market has instilled in entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, there are more than a few people hyperventilating about what that means for the high tech market. One of those taking a calmer view of the markets is William Quigley of Clearstone Venture Partners (a sponsor of socalTECH), who recently crafted this editorial on his perspective. On the other hand, there are some who are trying to take an objective view on what this really means, in the long term. We’ve republished his editorial here (it ran on VentureBeat earlier

The firm--which has been running its own series of reports on the online advertising market--attributed the increase in CPMs to holiday ad spending, as well as interesting in celebrity news topics. The firm is venture backed by $42M in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal's Peacock Equity Fund. Los Angeles-based Rubicon Project , the online ad optimization firm, said today that its analysis finds that online spending in Q4 of 2009 was up, resulting in an increase in CPMs by 34%. Rubicon said it expects 2010 to be a "strong

Los Angeles-based Rubicon Project , which provides online advertising optimization for web publishers, reports this morning that its latest advertising market survey finds that CPMs are up "significantly" in Q2. Rubicon is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and IDG Ventures, and has raised $33M in funding. The firm, which pulls pricing data from publishers and ad networks using its service, said that it is seeing ad pricing jumps as big as 270% among music sites. Overall, the firm reported CPMs are up about 38% in Q2.

Katz 360 Sales, the digital sales arm of Katz Media Group--which itself is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications--provides sales and marketing services to the broadcast industry, particularly for radio and television firms. The firm is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and IDG Ventures Asia. Santa Monica-based Rubicon Project has signed a New York company, Katz 360 Sales, to give Katz access to its inventory of premium display ads, the firms announced today. Katz 360 Sales said it is using Rubicon Project's Internet advertising infrastructure

Katz 360 Sales, the digital sales arm of Katz Media Group--which itself is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications--provides sales and marketing services to the broadcast industry, particularly for radio and television firms. The firm is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, and IDG Ventures Asia. Santa Monica-based Rubicon Project has tapped a New York company, Katz 360 Sales, to sell premium display ads to advertisers, the firms announced today. Katz 360 Sales said it is using Rubicon Project's Internet advertising infrastructure to customize content