Are these "boomy" times another dot-com bubble?

[mandy]

Excitement over a new class of programs that help consumers customise how they use the web has fuelled fears in the internet industry that a second dot-com investment bubble may be taking shape.

But new data on US venture capital investments from Thomson Venture Economics suggests that the actual amount of internet investments is falling, despite the wave of interest in what industry insiders refer to as "Web 2.0".

full article: http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,3...666,00.htm

[jezebel]

The whole social networking blogs craze is a bubble but the rest of the industry sure isn't in another bubble.

[mandy]

Enthusiasm is brimming once again in the venture capital community, causing some startup investors to aggressively compete for the hottest deals. That's one of the reasons valuations are on the rise -- an amazing turnaround from just three years ago when most venture capitalists were struggling with the aftereffects of the dot-com boom.

But times have changed. And that has some VCs concerned that certain segments -- social networking, mobile gaming and local search, to name a few -- are overheating.

full article: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/250549_vc02.html

[Kristijntje]

VCs backing `magic' of youth
AFTER POST-BUST LULL, TWENTYSOMETHINGS BACK IN DEMAND

When Jim Breyer, venture capitalist at Accel Partners, courted Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg last year to make an investment in his start-up, he couldn't buy Zuckerberg a drink because he hadn't turned 21.

But Breyer still managed to beat out a competing offer from Don Graham, chief executive of the Washington Post. And his firm pumped $12 million into Zuckerberg's Palo Alto-based Facebook, a social networking site for students.

Zuckerberg's fundraising, and the little bidding war he enjoyed, is mirrored by scores of other twentysomething entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley...

full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13854234.htm

[regic]

A related article:

The market for high-technology start-up businesses is so intense in Silicon Valley that some companies are being showered with millions of dollars from investors -- without even asking for it.

It is a phenomenon called "pre-emptive financing," and it has become more common in the past several months.

The question is whether venture capitalists are moving too quickly, funding risky, untested start-up businesses -- just as they did during the heady, and ultimately unsustainable, technology-stock boom of 1999 and 2000.

Pre-emptive financing happens when a venture capitalist seeks out a promising start-up business and offers it money out of the blue, before the company tries to raise a second or third round of cash. If the offer is good enough, in theory, the venture investor will snag a piece of the company quickly, thus avoiding a costly bidding war that could erupt later once the company says publicly it is looking for cash and attracts several suitors.

full article: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB1...?mod=blogs

[jezebel]

The question is whether venture capitalists are moving too quickly, funding risky, untested start-up businesses -- just as they did during the heady, and ultimately unsustainable, technology-stock boom of 1999 and 2000.

:popcorneaters:

Are these "boomy" times another dot-com bubble?