Larry Cheng, Managing Partner at Volition Capital recently put together a list of the top VC blogs according to traffic. On that list, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures is the top VC blogger, followed by Guy Kawasaki of Garage Technology Ventures and Paul Graham of Y Combinator. But which VC firm Websites attract the most attention? Today, Cheng released another list. This time, he ranked technology VC firms by traffic to their websites during the fourth quarter of 2009 (as measured by Compete).
Topping the list is First Round Capital, with 31,632 average monthly uniques. Sequoia Capital, which sports a very spare look on its site with only a searchbox and four faint links underneath (“U.S.,” “Very Early,” “Early,” and “Growth”), has the second-most popular site with 22,441 average monthly uniques. Rounding out third place is Bessemer Venture Partners with 14,825 average monthly uniques. In order to make the list, the firm’s website had to have monthly unique data from Compete for October, November, and December 2009. Volition Capital averaged the traffic and ranked 150 VC firm sites. Of course, the traffic stats are just one benchmark of popularity, but Cheng did say he will be updating the list quarterly.
These are tiny numbers as far as most Websites go, but these are not consumer-oriented sites. The people who go to the sites are prospective startup founders, partners, and people looking for information on VC portfolio companies. Still, it’s interesting to see that First Round took the top spot; perhaps because its VCs are heavy bloggers. In fact, there seems to be a correlation between blogging and traffic to the related VC website VC and seed firms with investors who blog heavily, such as Founders Fund, Founder Collective, Foundry Group, Union Square, and Spark, all have top 25 websites.
Here’s the list of the top ten:
Venture Capital Firm Directory (Avg. Monthly Uniques – Q409)
1. First Round Capital (31,632)
2. Sequoia Capital (22,441)
3. Bessemer Venture Partners (14,825)
4. Highland Capital Partners (12,704)
5. Garage Technology Ventures (12,375)
6. Draper Fisher Jurvetson (11,823)
7. New Enterprise Associates (11,762)
8. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (10,924)
9. Polaris Venture Partners (10,217)
10. Benchmark Capital (10,162)