Angel investor and startup advisor Jeff Clavier (pictured with Digg founder Kevin Rose) just announced a new $12 million early stage venture fund today at the TechCrunch40 conference. The new fund will be called SoftTech VC II.
Clavier, who has a degree in computer science, has been actively investing in startups over the last few years and has had notable successes such as Truveo (acquired by AOL for a rumored $50 million), Userplane (acquired by AOL for a rumored $35 million), MyBlogLog (acquired by Yahoo for $10 million), Kaboodle (acquired by Hearst for a rumored $30-40 million), Mayas Mom (acquired by BabyCenter for $7 million), Dogster, Kongregate, Edgeio and many others. In other words, he has an eye for winners. His investment philosophy will remain much the same, he says. He’s just now investing money from limited partners as well as his own capital.
He says he’ll invest the fund in a total of 30 to 40 seed stage startups with investments ranging from $100k – $500k. SoftTech VC will focus on consumer Internet.
Clavier has made four initial investments through the fund: Satisfaction Unlimited, Social Media Network, Grouply (which will launch at the conference today) and Active Athlete.
hmm – when was this announced?
Shit… Why can’t you people do the same?
Create your own Venture fund.
Notable successes?
I don’t see a single successful exit worthy of a VC.
aah – just announced now – post went up early i guess
Hey,
Clavier’s web sites notes that he is/was only an advisor to MyBlogLog, not an investor. As far as I know, the company did not take any outside capital.
I don’t know him well so this may be off the mark, but in brief discussions with Jeff at a recent event he came across as so cocky and arrogant I think I’d rather go bankrupt than work with him as an investor. Guess it takes all types. Good luck with the fund.
so its an average of 100K for investment, i would rather not take that little of an investment, 100K wont last me 6 months, its not worth it especially if he is going to take 30-40%
Edgeio and dogster are successes? By who’s mark?
cool, I’d like to see more people/companies funding startups at the angel phase though.
@ #6
Yes, Jeff comes across as cocky and arrogant.
#6 #10 agree – Should go back help his native land France. Loud and obnoxious
@ all you player-haters above: you guys need to get your heads out of your collective asses & get a clue. jeff is terrific. if you want arrogance & cockiness, there are plenty of other Silicon Valley VCs with a lot more attitude and a lot less intelligence than Jeff has in his left butt cheek alone.
i’m personal friends with at least 4 of the CEOs in Jeff’s startups, and without question they all feel he is one of the smartest, friendliest, & most reasonable VCs they’ve ever worked with. i’ve personally co-invested with jeff in 3 companies, worked with him on the SDForum Search SIG (where he’s pictured above with Kevin Rose), and hung out with his family & kids. he is both intelligent & a good guy, and (when he’s not too busy) one of the best VC bloggers around. if anything, jeff is usually way more engaging & polite than most tech investors… and given the # of requests for his time these days i’m surprised he’s maintained an even keel.
re: successes above, they may not be the kind of wins Sequoia needs to make money, but for an investor who’s putting in money early, jeff is doing VERY well… i don’t know of ANY other “Web 2.0 VCs” who have the kinds of winning ratios jeff gets from his companies. 5 decent exits from
(continuing)
re: successes above, they may not be the kind of wins Sequoia needs to make money, but for an investor who’s putting in money early, jeff is doing VERY well… i don’t know of ANY other “Web 2.0 VCs” who have the kinds of winning ratios jeff gets from his companies. 5 decent exits from
in short, Jeff is on the top of my list for investors i refer startups & entrepreneurs too. along with other sharp folks like Josh Kopelman & Reid Hoffman, he’s the kind of person i’d take money from, co-invest with, and recommend highly to folks who want a great startup partner.
- dave mcclure
http://500hats.typepad.com
What a pioneer Jeff is. What vision it takes to stump up with funding for companies that are already on the way to sucess, taking a hefty percentage for your trouble. The guys who really earn their money are the angel investors, those that fund an idea, not those parasites that take advantage of companies that are cash strapped.
@Grinch: um, you obviously haven’t a clue what you’re grinching about. jeff is usually participating in most startups at the same time as other angels (like myself) are.
Don’t forget he’s also an investor in Mint, the winner of TechCrunch40 2007’s top $50,000 award.
Congratulations on the new fund, Jeff.
That’s a rumored $10M for MyBlogLog.
and, yup, i’m with dave in saying that playing with Jeff is the best way to play.
very nice we also search fund for our news site any one interested we are happy to discuss , nice news for all new startup
Dave:
You may be right about Jeff as person, but you definitely do not understand investing, which the the portfolio identified on your blog confirms.
A professional VC, as opposed to an angel, should be embarrassed with exits that *at their best* are between $25-50M. These are disasters, not positive outcomes. In fact, by definition, he is building companies to flip (or features) not real companies.
To compare Jeff to Reid and Josh is like saying Steve Kerr is in the same class as Michael Jordan.
Finding the best companies to invest in does not seem like a difficult task. The best option for figuring out the companies to invest in would be to follow the big money-spenders out there *cough cough* Google *cough* and do some trending and tracking.
Club Penguin was an “of course”, for instance (Disney is a failure in so many areas and MMORPG was the answer to ads and hyperreality build-up), TechCrunch should really start a big investment firm, I’d join in for the trending and tracking. I still don’t understand why most firms haven’t implemented Numenta yet or started developing apps with that platform — there’s a strong chance of perfect predictive analytics and AI — Rather interesting
I am really surprised at some of the negative comments that are being spewed here. It’s pretty interesting how all the as Dave put it player haters are writing anonymously and putting Jeff down. I have not personally met him so I can not say one thing or another about him but it seems immature and not the right place for you to give your opinion on him personally from a 5 min or so conversation.
I have heard nothing but good things about him as a person as well as investor and advisor and it is in my opinion bad taste to bash him in this forum.
As the saying goes….if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it.
Jeff…..congrats on the launch of the fund. I am sure you will get some more great winners with the new fund.
Jay,
Most “real companies” never approach those kind of values at all. Ever.
Most companies never even get to the stage where they’d attract a multi-million dollar VC investment.
You appear to be blinded by the trickle of large exits that gets all the attention. They are the exceptions rather than the rule.
A professional VC should not care about the size of the exits, but about the return on investment, as should everyone else involved. If you don’t get that, it’s you who don’t understand investing.
That goes for founders too – not everyone wants to take the risks and make the investment in terms of sacrifices and workload needed for a one shot at the huge exits rather than actually have a life while building a solid company, get a reasonable exit and move on to their next thing.
You, rather than Jeff, is the one that should be embarrassed over making those claims about Jeff’s exits based on nothing but the dollar amount.
@Jay: um, you can judge my portfolio for yourself, and ultimately the exits over the next 3-5 years will be a better arbiter, but i’d say *you* are the one who doesn’t understand [startup] investing.
angels in the valley typically invest $25K-250K, usually for companies with pre-money valuations at between $1M-$5M, perhaps up to $10M. at those valuations, exits in the range of $25-75M that occur within 1-3 years do quite fine for their investors.
VCs typically invest $2-10M, perhaps up to $25M, usually for companies at pre-money valuations that are between $5-50M, or higher for later stage firms / financings. at the $5-50M valuation, exits in the range of $100M-$500M+ within 2-5 years are required to make them work.
you may be assuming the former category of investing require the returns of the latter category to work, but you would be WRONG. (and some might say, f***ing clueless, but i digress).
of course, the % of wins in each is also important, but in both cases most groups assume a 1 out of 5 winner to loser ratio is doing pretty good. VCs tend to aim for bigger wins, and have lower %’s. angels can aim for smaller wins, but probably need higher %’s.
altho technically Jeff’s new fund is in the category of “small VC”, his investment size is probably still in the angel category, and thus his return requirements are likely similar. right now Jeff appears to be hitting on 1 out of 4, with exits in the $10-75M range, and a lot of his portfolio yet to come in. that’s pretty good.
if you want an education on VC investing, read The Venture Capital Cycle, by Gompers & Lerners. it came out in ‘99 so it’s a bit dated, but the general principles still apply. however, it’s likely sparse on angel investing.
in any case, hope this info is helpful.
again, ask around the valley and most people (entrepreneurs, angels, & VCs) think that Jeff is doing a pretty damn good job.
- dave mcclure
After the TechCrunch40 panel “Gettiing Funded”, I listened to Jeff take elevator pitches from several entrepreneurs. He was very respectful, listened carefully, and asked unique questions that dug to the core issue. Even those who were “turned down”, seemed pleased he was attentive and honest with them. I walked away impressed.