Seeing last week’s Venture Capital Dispatch in the online Wall Street Journal, When Venture Capitalists Let One Slip Away , reminded me of Jim Armstrong’s (Clearstone Venture Partners) comment last year about false negatives. “You Tags: General Anti-Portfolio Bessemer Venture Partners Clearstone Venture Partners Joe Platnick Pasadena Angel 8220;You can afford to have a false positive; you can afford to invest in things and fail, but because the big ones are so rare, you cannot afford a false negative. You cannot afford to be looking the wrong way.”

couple of years ago, William Quigley of Clearstone Venture Partners wrote an appropriate blog post, Value of Certain Angel Investors : Given that Clearstone has invested in one of our portfolio companies— LeisureLink —that’s managed by two of our members, it’s a pretty good bet that the Pasadena Angels fall into the first bucket. Tags: Fundraising General Angel Groups Clearstone Venture Partners Joe Platnick William Part IV of a Continuing Series on How to Select an Angel Group Several months before Jason Calcanis’ crusade (or jihad—depending on your

Pasadena-based LeisureLink , which operates an online marketplace and service for vacation rental booking, has raised $3.5M LeisureLink has previously raised funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Group RCI, Kodiak Ventures LP, Mission Ventures, Pasadena Angels and the Tech Coast Angels. in a funding round. The round came to light through last week's PricewaterhouseCoopers/NVCA MoneyTree report.

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. The company is venture backed by Clearstone Venture Partners, Mission Ventures, the Pasadena Angels, the Tech Coast Angels, and others. 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. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pasadena-based SupplyFrame , which operates a service for searching for information on electronic components, has raised $1.5M The firm has previously raised funding from such companies as Clearstone Venture Partners, US Venture Partners; CommerceNet is also now listed as an investor. ...Tags: in an initial funding of a $4.0M round, according to a regulatory filing.

Pasadena-based LeisureLInk , which operates an online platform for vacation rental and specialty lodging providers, said Wednesday that it has signed on a Florida luxury resort, Silver Lake Resort. LeisureLink provides online travel booking software used by vacation rental and specialty lodging operators, and is venture backed by Mission Ventures and Clearstone Venture Partners. Financial impact of the win was not disclosed. According to LeisureLink, the resort has implemented its booking engine on its web site.

Pasadena-based LeisureLink has closed on $6.2M LeisureLink, which provides a distribution and booking service for specialty lodging, said the round was led by Mission Ventures and Clearstone Venture Partners, and also included participation from its other insiders. in a first tranche of additional funding for the travel firm, the company disclosed today. LeisureLink helps specialty lodging and vacation rental providers to get bookings.

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. 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. The firm said the official launch will allow users to create what the firm calls an "@actor" -- a 3D avatar which can be inserted into movie and TV clips, music videos, still images, and elsewhere.

An article posted on the WSJ site talking about an increase in VC interest in travel quotes local venture capitalist Jim Armstrong , of Clearstone Ventures , who says:  “We’re excited about categories with a lot of money around them and there’s a lot of money in travel.” There’s Pasadena-based LeisureLink (funded by Clearstone), Pasadena-based AdventureLink (funded by Mail Room Fund, Anthem, and Allegis Capital), Redondo Beach-based TravBuddy (bootstrapped), Los Angeles-based Placely , LuxuryLink , also in Los Angeles, plus Demand Media’s Trails.com

Pasadena-based BigStage (www.bigstage.com) is one of those rare companies that has taken technology developed from university research, and is now bringing that technology to the commercial market. We spoke with Phil Ressler--a former venture capitalist from Clearstone Ventures--who is now CEO of BigStage. For I had gone into Clearstone at their invitiation, and had a really The firm's technology--which creates a 3D, virtual avatar from digital photos--was originally developed at the University of Southern California for the CIA, and was spun out into a venture funded company targeting the consumer market.