A New Approach to Investing?

Tom Evslin notes the new QuickStart Seed Funding program from Charles River Ventures at Fractals of Change "The QuickStart program solves two problems for entrepreneurs and at least one problem for VCs."

From A VC in NYC:

Josh Kopelman, a well known early stage investor who we have co-invested with successfully, has a good post up on CRV Quickstart. He points out some of the issues with larger funds doing seed investing. While Josh's points are good ones, I still think this program is a good thing for both CSV and entrepreneurs. Matt Marshall at VentureBeat also has his take on it.

And from Paul Kedrosky

It's nice that Charles River Ventures is getting some press for offering loans to early-stage companies, but this is more of a marketing exercise than a financial one. Most venture firms have been offering convertible notes for ages -- yes, sometimes even at the seed stage -- so forgive me if I don't get too worked up about CRV getting a little press for the practise.

Technorati Tags: early stage investing, entrepreneur