"A New Kind of Venture Capitalist Makes Small Bets on Young Firms"

I spoke to these guys a couple months ago and was very impressed. We aren't ready to take funding yet but they gave us some very good advice, asked excellent questions, and were generally nice people. I'm not surprised they are getting some good pub.

This is precisely the exact kind of trend and evolution entrepreneurs need. Rather than hands-off dumb money at crazy valuations and major dilution, young web firms need smart VC's who act more like angels than ever before.

What's sad is how much money many of these VCs want you to take even if you don't need it. They do this, in part, to secure their ~2% admin/management fee, which they only receive for deployed capital.

Here's Fred Wilson's blog. He's a partner at USV, the featured company.

http://www.avc.com/

Its impressive how they manage to juggle between nurturing entrepreneurs while still meeting their responsibilities to investors. Its a tough balancing act and a model worth studying more.