recently rated:

Rated by 20

2.6 2.3 2.8 2.8 2.2

2.6

Crosslink Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

top rated funds:

Rated by 11

4.1 5.0 4.4 4.1 4.5

4.4

Rincon Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Barbara, CA, US West

Rated by 19

4.7 4.8 4.5 3.3 4.3

4.3

Foundry Group

Certified

$$$$$ Boulder, US Central

Rated by 18

4.4 4.3 4.1 3.7 4.5

4.2

New Atlantic Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Reston, US East

Rated by 29

3.5 4.2 4.1 4.0 4.1

4.0

Leapfrog Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 37

3.5 4.0 4.3 4.1 3.9

3.9

True Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 29

4.0 4.2 4.1 2.9 4.2

3.9

406 Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Boston, US East

Rated by 59

3.8 3.9 3.8 3.4 3.9

3.8

First Round Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 11

3.9 4.2 3.2 3.6 4.0

3.8

Mangrove Capital Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Luxembourg, Europe

Rated by 42

3.8 4.1 3.4 3.7 4.1

3.8

RRE Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ New York, US East

Rated by 29

4.1 3.8 3.8 3.4 4.1

3.8

Altos Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 102

4.7 3.7 3.7 3.0 3.5

3.7

Sequoia Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 11

3.6 3.7 3.6 3.8 3.4

3.6

Flywheel Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Fe, US West

Rated by 18

3.4 3.3 3.9 3.6 4.0

3.6

DFJ Mercury

Certified

$$$$$ Houston, US Central

Rated by 25

3.7 3.5 3.8 3.7 3.5

3.6

FLOODGATE

Certified

$$$$$ Palo Alto, US West

Rated by 16

3.6 3.5 3.8 3.5 3.5

3.6

August Capital

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 10

4.0 3.8 3.9 2.8 3.7

3.6

Updata Partners

 

$$$$$ Red Bank, US East

Rated by 60

3.7 3.6 3.4 3.4 3.9

3.6

Trinity Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 10

3.5 3.8 3.7 3.4 3.8

3.6

IDG Ventures SF

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 12

3.8 3.5 3.6 3.5 3.1

3.5

In-Q-Tel, Inc.

 

$$$$$ Arlington, US East

Rated by 20

3.5 3.6 3.5 3.2 3.4

3.5

Wellington Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Munich, Europe

Rated by 12

3.2 3.6 3.4 3.0 4.2

3.5

DN Capital

 

$$$$$ London, Europe

Rated by 16

3.9 3.7 3.2 2.9 3.5

3.5

GRP Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Los Angeles, US West

Rated by 13

3.8 3.7 3.6 2.9 3.6

3.5

Meritage Funds

Certified

$$$$$ Denver, US West

Rated by 17

3.2 3.5 3.5 3.1 3.8

3.4

Blumberg Capital

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 19

3.8 3.1 3.4 3.2 3.3

3.4

Draper Richards

Certified

$$$$$ San Francisco, US West

Rated by 25

4.1 3.7 2.8 2.8 3.5

3.4

Index Ventures

Certified

$$$$$ Geneva, Europe

Rated by 48

3.8 3.5 3.1 3.4 3.2

3.4

Menlo Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 31

3.3 3.3 3.2 3.6 3.7

3.4

Clearstone Venture Partners

Certified

$$$$$ Santa Monica, US West

Rated by 16

3.9 3.7 2.9 2.9 3.6

3.4

Versant Ventures

 

$$$$$ Menlo Park, US West

Rated by 12

3.0 3.8 3.4 3.2 3.4

3.4

Fidelity Growth Partners Europe

Certified

$$$$$ London, Europe

HomeShowcaseTermsAdviceOpenDiscussCoFound

Sign-upHelpFor VCsFor MediaAdvertiseTop VCsBanned VCs

At last week's 9th Founder Showcase, we celebrated the best investors of 2011 with TheFunded.com's Entrepreneur Investor Awards.

Anthony Ha of TechCrunch covered the awards here (including a video of the ceremony).

Here are the winners of the 2011 Awards;

---

Most Disruptive

Ben Horowitz, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

Top Rated in the Americas

George Zachary, General Partner, Charles River Ventures

Top Rated in Europe, Middle East and Africa

Philippe Herbert, Partner, Banexi Venture Partners

Top Rated in Asia

Yuri Milner, Founder and CEO of Mail.ru Group

Best New Fund Manager

Dave McClure, Founding Partner at 500 Startups

Other finalists included;

• Brad Feld (Managing Director at the Foundry Group)
  
• Bryan Schreier (Partner at Sequoia Capital)
  
• Chris Dixon (Founding Partner at the Founder Collective)
  
• David Skok (General Partner at Matrix Partners)
  
• David Sze (Partner at Greylock Partners)
  
• James D. Robinson IV (General Partner at RRE Ventures)
  
• Jeremy Liew (Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners)
  
• John Backus (Managing Partner at New Atlantic Ventures)
  
• John Doerr (Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
  
• Jon Callaghan (Founder and Managing Partner at True Ventures)
  
• Joshua Kopelman (Managing Partner at First Round Capital)
  
• Marc Andreessen (Co-Founder and General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz)
  
• Maria Cirino (Co-Founder and Managing Director at 406 Ventures)
  
• Mark Suster (General Partner at GRP Partners)
  
• Matthew McCall (Partner at DFJ Portage Ventures)
  
• Mike Maples Jr. (Managing Partner at FLOODGATE)
  
• Roelof Botha (Partner at Sequoia Capital)
  
• Ron Conway (General Partner at SV Angel)
  
• Shlomo Dovrat (General Partner at Carmel Ventures)
  
• Steven Arnold (Co-Founder and Venture Partner at Polaris Ventures)
  

We had a great meeting with Lars, he mentioned that he was extremely interested in our company, our traction, had some great feedback on our product and concluded that he was very interested and wanted to come down to our office to spend the day with us.

Following the meeting, he failed to respond to many messages sent both to him and his assistant. I heard identical stories from two other CEO's who were left perplexed and annoyed

We slowed down a few other conversations to allow time for Lars to engage with us - big mistake. This guy is a waste of time. It is a shame, he came recommended and we ended up with a bad taste about the firm.

Last Thursday, over 300 people gathered in Silicon Valley for the 9th Founder Showcase, hosted by TheFunded.com and the Founder Institute.

At the event, 8 companies competed on stage in a free pitch competition, and taking the Grand Prize was Michael Mayernick and Spinnakr - a service for displaying targeted messaging on your website based on the specific audience segments. Spinnakr graduated from the Washington D.C. Founder Institute, and is also in the current 500 Startups class. Here is the video of their winning pitch;

Coming in an extremely close second place was Kloudless, a service for managing all of your stuff across the cloud and devices. Their pitch can be seen below; 

All in all, it was a very impressive slate of contenders. Others who presented include:

• Appsperse - Appsperse is a cross promotion platform for mobile applications.
  
• Gickup - An easy to use video chat gaming platform
  
• IndustryGraph - A local sales & support channel for B2B cloud services
  
• JetJaw - The proactive way to protect & promote your brand
  
• PetHub - Award-winning technology to keep pets safe
  
• Zoko - Kickstarter for parties
  
• Demo Table Competition Winner 1: ClientMagnet
  
• Demo Table Competition WInner 2: TagSeats
  
• Demo Table Competition Winner 3: Breezy
  

And of course, a special thanks goes out to our great Judging Panel; 

Scott Hartley, Venture Investor, Mohr Davidow Ventures

Scott is a venture capitalist at MDV focused on mobile and consumer Internet. He has worked at Google, Facebook, and Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He is interested in disruptive platforms that can address issues he has observed working on five continents, and at the White House and United Nations.

Bruce Taragin, Managing Director, Blumberg Capital

Bruce has 20 yrs experience as a VC, entrepreneur, banker and attorney. Prior to Blumberg, he co-founded and held management positions within many companies, including Charles River Computers. Past investments include ZipZapPlay, eVoice, PureSight, IP Infusion, GO Networks, and Siperian - all of which were acquired.

Matthew B. McCall, Partner, New World Ventures<
Matthew McCall is a Partner at NWV and co-founder of DFJ Portage Venture Partners. His investments include Apptera, BrightTag, Cognitive Concepts, Facebook, Feedburner, Performics, Playdom, Siimpel and TicketsNow. He was an AlwaysOn Top 100 VC in the US, and writes the popular blog, VCConfidential.

George Zachary, General Partner, Charles River Ventures
George joined CRV in 2004, bringing more than 17 rs of operating and investing experience in computing and consumer technology. He focuses on building services and software technology companies, and he's led CRV's investments in Twitter, Yammer, Millennial Media, Cloudshare, Geni, SocialMedia, Metaplace, and Scribd.

Dave McClure, Founding Partner, 500 Startups

Dave McClure is a greedy venture capitalist & founding partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. Dave has  worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O'Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft.

Thanks to everyone who attended! The next event will take place on April 24th in San Francisco, and tickets will go on sale shortly.

Founder Insight is a weekly newsletter that provides global insights from the people building great startups. Each week we’ll send you an exclusive training video from inside the Founder Institute, as well as other helpful resources from startup communities around the globe. Click here to subscribe

Editor's Note: At last week’s Founder Showcase, we watched a series of amazing interviews on stage with Mark Suster, Mike Maples, Jr., and Dave McClure. Many of the people in the audience told us they were the best talks we've had on stage to date (and that is really saying a lot!).

- Jonathan Greechan (@jonnystartup)

Great Discussions on TheFunded:

Sharing the Names of VCs that You are Pitching

Bad Credit Score: Funding Options

Recommended Resources:

The Uphill Battle of Social Event Sharing: A Post-Mortem for PlanCast
[Mark Hendrickson via TechCrunch]

Stealth Mode, Schmealth Mode: The Real Reasons Why Startups Don’t Talk
[OnStartups]

Upcoming Events:

New York City Pitch Bootcamp
Date/Location: January 26, 2012: 6:00 PM-9:00 PM: New York, NY
Description: In just three hours the Founder Institute will help you improve your startup ideas, come up with new ideas, and find a cofounder. Best of all it's free, and many local CEOs will be in attendance - including Gabe Zichermann and Ven Medabalmi.

Women 2.0 PITCH Competition 2012
Date/Location: February 14, 2011: Mountain View, CA
Description: The full-day conference will be the only platform that unites the entire ecosystem to nurture and support the fastest-growing demographic in the startup space - women - as creators and consumers. Over 800 investors, entrepreneurs, engineers and designers will be exploring up-and-coming trends in innovation and discussing "nuts & bolts" solutions through case studies. Founder Insight readers get 10% off using the code 'FOUNDER'.

To receive this every Wednesday as an email, click here to subscribe

We pitched Stephen at Crosslink and although we were not the right fit for us at the time, the feedback was open, honest, and helpful.

You will need to have revenue and be geographically close to them if they are to invest.

They are responsive but you will need to have $2+ million in revenue for them to consider you.

The iGlobe team isn't well known, but have been part of some really good deals and still make investments when they believe in the team. They have excellent connections into China and Southeast Asia, and are willing to work really hard for things they believe in.

We had a terrible pitch meeting with the partners, Lou Volpe in particular. He made fun of us and of our idea. Left that meeting (and stupidly left our slide deck behind). Less that a week later we discovered they had funded another company in the same space (they didn't divulge that up front), and much of the marketing materials we had left behind in our slide deck appeared VERBATIM on that company's web site. We went back to one of the other partners and complained and he said he'd investigate. He got back to us and admitted that yes indeed, one of the partners had taken our information, and passed it along to the company they'd funded, and that company had used it on their website. Since there was no NDA (which there never is with a VC), there wasn't much we could do about it. But we learned a valuable lesson and learned to never work with Kodiak.

We pitched all of the partners at Prism after been introduced by another entrepreneur who had made them a great deal of money. They seemed to be very excited about what we were doing and asked it to run it past the CTO of one of the largest companies in the US. Told us if this CTO liked the idea they'd invest. THEY set up the meeting with us and the CTO, we pitched him and he was ready to buy as soon as we had product. Had a follow up call with Prism partners and the CTO where CTO reiterated what he told us to Prism. Went to follow up with Prism (taking them at their word that they'd invest if the response was favorable) - NEVER received a return phone. We tried for months and never heard a word back from them.

We pitched Joe for our start up and while we decided it wasn't a match, we found him to be personable and willing to connect us to other funding sources.