The resurgence of dot-com investment
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The resurgence of dot-com investment
Venture capitalists are pouring money into internet startups again: they’ve invested $9.5 billion in various startups so far this year, according to the latest MoneyTree report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters.
The report claims we haven’t seen this much venture capital floating around since 2001, as the dot com bubble was starting to deflate. Right now, web ventures are getting the most investment money, and biotech is a distant second.
“The amount of capital that a startup requires now is much less,” says venture capitalist Peter Cohan, president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. Cohan says startups are cheaper now because technology is so much more advanced than it was in the 90s. And it costs a lot less.
Some startups that failed in the 90s are being tried again. Things like online courier services. They weren’t feasbile in the 90s, because there weren’t any smart phones yet.
“It was very difficult to track curriers and pinpoint where they are so it was very difficult to deliver,” says Jalak Jobanputra, founder of Future Perfect Ventures, another venture capital firm.
Is all this startup money blowing up a bubble? Jobanputra says yes. But it probably won’t pop. Instead, she expects it to deflate, slowly.
Correction: an earlier version of this story misspelled the word ‘courier’. The text has been updated to reflect the correct spelling.
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