Uh-oh: the Fred Wilson VC index is showing zero activity too #startups

11 Dec, 2012



We wrote earlier that the Samwer cloning index was flatlining, meaning that the Samwer brothers haven’t copied a single US startup idea in the last months. And they’re not the only ones finding it hard to find good ideas to pour money in: Fred Wilson, the VC who started the recent hand wringing about the state of the consumer web, hasn’t  hasn’t done a single deal in 2012, according to Fortune.

Fred Wilson is the VC perhaps best known because of his early investments in Foursquare, Twitter and Zynga.

Fortune notes that Wilson’s firm, Union Square Ventures, has made plenty of investments over the past 12 months. But Wilson personally hasn’t led any of them, while he typically does two or three deals per year.

According to Fortune, it’s worth noting that Wilson isn’t the only VC who’s been extremely careful with money this year:

Matt Cohler of Benchmark Capital, for example, said in late October that he had yet to do a new deal (although, like Wilson, some of his existing portfolio companies have done follow-on rounds). Sequoia Capital star Roelof Botha hasn’t led any Series A deals in 2012, although he did participate in the $50 million Series B round for Instagram — which agreed to be acquired just days later by Facebook (FB).

spotted by @robinwauters

via Fred Wilson hasn’t done a 2012 deal – The Term Sheet: Fortune’s deals blog Term Sheet.

Photo: VC flatline, theHalo, Flickr

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Raf Weverbergh

Editor of whiteboard. Raf Weverbergh was a magazine journalist at Humo whose work appeared in magazines like Rolling Stone, Playboy, Mail on Sunday, Publico and South China Morning post before starting Whiteboard in 2012. He profiles entrepreneurs and businesses and loves to chat on Twitter, Linkedin or Skype (rafweverbergh).

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