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5.0 Crv Has Definitely Evolved...
Fund: Charles River Ventures
Posted by Anonymous on 2012-03-21
CRV used to be the class of the Boston VC community, and the firm's mid-90's-vintage funds ranked among the very highest performers anywhere. But their early-2000s funds stalled and they even returned capital from one fund without investing it.
Since then, CRV has come down off the WInter Street hill in Waltham, hired a whole new crop of young, aggressive partners to replace those who are retiring on their success (where have you gone, Ted Dintersmith?), and immersed themselves in the Kendall Square/Cambridge community.
10 years ago, you mostly went to CRV later in the process, when it was time to scale up with a Series B and were looking towards an IPO. Then, CRV's bets were big ones, and you didn't even talk to them for less than $5-10 million.
Now, according to a partner we pitched recently, they rarely do Series B's -- concentrating on Series A investments. One common thread, though, is that they get most excited by size of market potential, and want to see a company that has a plausible story that could get them to a $1B market cap.
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