Venture Capital firms rely a lot more on deal flow and network effects. Their focus is usually on early stage private financing. There are certainly hedge funds which also do similar investing, but by and large they don't play a role during the investing process and largely work with public securities and other instruments. This is also why VC and PE industries tend to hire from B schools, and look for backgrounds very different from hedge funds which by and large tend to pick students from more quantitative or scientific disciplines.