The January issue of the Venture Capital Journal (subscription required) has a one page profile of Claremont Creek Ventures. This is a new, $130 MM fund focused on Series A deals in technology companies located in the East Bay area of California (Oakland, Berkeley, etc.).
Here's what I find interesting:
Goldhaber [one of the Managing Directors] says that despite the advances of communications and teleconferencing, part of the problem with getting funding to East Bay startups is the logistics of a VC having to drive from Silicon Valley to the East Bay for board meetings or to handle company issues. He notes that the startups he and his partners are targeting often need a iot of hands-on attention from VCs, so most firms have simply avoided coming to the East Bay.
Interesting that some VCs would be so geographically focused as to not look at deals 30-60 miles away. As I said in my "Predictions for 2006", this is a good example of what we'll continue to see with respect to new funds: Sharper industry/market focus, sharper investment stage focus, and a tighter geographic focus.
By geographic focus, I don't necessarily mean "smaller" focus. But, the geographic focus will be increasingly well defined for new funds, I think. Intead of funds investing "anywhere", they will be East Bay, or DC Metro area, etc., etc. Now in some rare cases, the geographic focus is the default. If you're on Sand HIll Road, you don't have to invest all over the planet, especially in technology. But for most funds and most geographies, this is simply not the case.
Comments