iB4m an american living in germany. founder and, until recently, ceo of software company which plans to go public next year. planning to return to the states to get into the v.c. business. how valuable will my experience be to a reputable u.s. vc firm? what is a good source of information re. careers in the v.c. arena? does anyone know of reputable firms that fund european companies?

-- Paul D. Casey (pauldcasey@yahoo.com), November 02, 2000

Answers

Paul, I am not a part of the venture capital community and recently on a flight to Vancouver I met a guy called Gavin who was, and I really should have got hold of his business card. What I do know is that there are two types of VC's, the more refined and stateman VC's like that are represented by people like John Doerr and the iconic VC's represented in the book by Richard E Stross called Eboys.

I suggest you read Eboys to get a flavor of this market because I think it does give an indication of the culture and experience that create the make up of a "rock star" VC. If you get anything out of it, it will still be an interesting read.

The list below provides a list of VC's out there

http://www.vfinance.com/vencaentire.asp

Also go to http://www.redherring.com and http://www.thestandard.com two stalwarts magazines that feature Venture Capital news. Hopefully an experienced VC will trudge along here and give you inside answers to the rest of your questions. Check out Red Herring in particular, it is usually full of VC related news and info.

-- Mark Zorro (zorromark@consultant.com), November 02, 2000.