I got an email from a VC colleague regarding Charles River dipping their toe in the angel game. Interesting move to get themselves integrated earlier in the development cycle and expand their expertise through low risk investments (i.e. no pay out for any of these, but maybe they learn enough for a first round with a Google exiter). Right of first refusal is something we talk alot about here for our “strategic” partners but in reality the bank works with tech partners to learn more than produce. We usually end up building things internally after light joint ventures give us some exposure to an opportunity area.

A partnership or in the case of CRV a “loan” can give you access to the knowledge that enables you to jump on a fatty and hit it out of the park.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 4.58pm and is filed under venturing, VC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.