New RSS Investors Fund

By Paul Kedrosky · Thursday, June 30, 2005 ·
Not to rain on a new fund's parade, but to the extent that newly-closed $100-mm fund "RSS Investors" follows a strict investment mandate of chasing RSS opportunities it will be tough. While there are few hard and fast rules in venture capital, one is that people need to be disciplined about investing, but opportunistic about domains. Over-orthodox sector selection, right down to the level of specific transport protocols, is a marketing exercise, not a realistic approach to generating significant IRRs for limited partners.

Tom Foremski of SiliconValleyWater accidentally backdoors his way into making the same point in talking about the new fund:

This reminds of years ago when Kleiner Perkins launched a $100m Java fund in 1996. It marks a next stage for RSS and how this technology will be used.
Precisely, and that fund was a flop. While there are oodles of Web 2.0 opportunities, they are predicated on solving real problem, not on transport protocols.
Topics: Venture capital
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