well, summer vacation in technology is certainly over. it’s already been an exciting month with news from apple, news from twitter, and as i’m writing this post about our investment in angellist — blackberry is being taken private. and it’s only monday!

back to angellist. as you may have seen, nivi and naval announced a new funding round for angellist, and i’m proud to be leading the investment in nivi, naval, and their colleagues on behalf of kleiner perkins. i’ve known naval for a number of years (back to when he was  starting vast an early investor in composite software jim armstrong introduced us) and we have always wanted to work together. so, when this opportunity developed, there was no way we were going to miss out on partnering.

everyone by now knows that a platform like angellist democratizes financing for startups. it also saves founders time. it enables investors outside of the valley to get access to early-stage deals and helps companies outside the valley echo chamber gain visibility. at kleiner, (like many other firms i imagine) we watch the angellist newsfeed and network with other peers.

on a personal level, as a former seed investor (before joining kleiner), i find the concept of syndicates to be incredibly compelling, both as a follower or the lead on an opportunity. if this existed years ago, maybe i would’ve started my own fund for syndicates!

again, i am very excited to work with nivi, naval, and the angellist crew!