Venture Capital in China: David Chao of DCM (Part 1)

David Chao is the co-founder and general partner of DCM. He has been active in the information technology industry since the 1980s. At DCM, he guides portfolio companies in formulating corporate and product marketing strategies, developing strong management teams and implementing domestic and international partnerships. SM: Let’s start by talking about your background. What experiences

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The Web Startup Success Guide (Part 3): Early-stage Venture Funding

By Guest Author Bob Walsh [In this next excerpt from “The Web Startup Success Guide”, which will be published on July 22, Bob turns to early-stage funding in an interview with Rebecca Lynn, a principal at Morgenthaler Ventures. With over $2.5 billion invested in 300-plus companies over the years, Morgenthaler Ventures is one of the

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Forbes Column 2009: Venture Capital: Get Back To Basics

Zero-In this week focuses on the future of venture capital, suggesting a return to old-fashioned ideas and assumptions. Read it here.

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 7)

SM: What is the future of venture capital? GT: It will go back to its roots. It will be a smaller industry with fewer firms practicing it as a craft. There will be smaller fund sizes. I do not believe there is evidence that venture capital is an industry that scales.

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 6)

SM: A third major area in which I would like to see leadership is in education. What do you think needs to happen for that momentum to build up? GT: We are seeing innovation on education in two fronts. One innovation trend in education is the notion of crowdsourcing education in modules.

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 5)

SM: There was a time when VCs stepped into uncharted territory even though they did not understand the risks. The disruptive potential made all the risk worth it. Today, if we need to break open new areas of potential, my guess is that they will be in territories which require cross-domain innovation. That will require

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The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 4)

SM: Since the dot-com crash we have seen a few different things come together. The SaaS market has really developed, and the Web 2.0 and cleantech markets have also developed. SaaS and Web 2.0 are not capital intensive areas which have had a lot of investment while cleantech is very capital intensive. What is your

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The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 3)

SM: You are a $300 million fund, but is your structure a standard 2 + 20? GT: We don’t discuss the actual structure of our fund, but it is identical to our historical structure. When we started, [we were] circulating the idea that we would raise Trinity 10 with an identical focus to our other

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