Will 2012 be a continuation of the good, bubble-like times for the venture capital industry and startups that are raising money? Or will we see a dramatic, economic-doldrums-induced slowdown like we did at the end of 2008?
Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch has raised these interesting questions in a post that recalls the R.I.P. Good Times slide deck that Sequoia Capital produced in 2008 as it was predicting disastrous times for startups and advising those startups to batten down the hatches and get ready for a long dry spell.
Schonfeld quoted Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital. Kopelman (pictured right), warned, ?I think 2012 will look more like 2008 than 2011.? Kopelman and others said the froth of the last 18 months is coming to an end. The number of seed fundings is exceeding the number of Series A fundings, which could result in a crunch for companies seeking Series A fundings.
The economy looks fairly weak, unemployment is at 9 percent, and in a survey released today, about 44 percent of Silicon Valley residents feel like they are not participating in an economic recovery. The latter report comes from the Survey and Policy Research Institute, which polled 458 Silicon Valley adults from Oct. 18 to Nov. 12, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
Only 35 percent of valley residents said that they felt an improvement in their own lives from an economic recovery, according to the Silicon Valley Pulse survey. What?s your own view of whether the startup fundraising environment is improving or getting worse? Please take our poll.
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Companies: First Round Capital, techcrunch
People: Erick Schonfeld, Josh Kopelman
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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