TheFunded Calls Ben Horowitz The Most Disruptive VC
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TheFunded, the site where entrepreneurs can anonymously review venture capitalists, sometimes a reputation for being anti-VC (especially in its early days), but it’s not above showing investors a little love. Today it’s the announcing the winners of its awards for Top Investors 0f 2011.
Adeo Ressi, founding member at TheFunded, says these awards were determined by user ratings, though a five-person committee, including Ressi, made the final choices. The site has given out these awards for the past four years, usually in private ceremonies (this year’s ceremony happened last week), but Ressi says he’s trying to make the awards “more public” this year because of “the massive amount of transformation going on in the investment industry.”
Here’s the list, with descriptions from TheFunded:
- Most Disruptive: Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz — Andreessen Horowitz modeled their fund off of the modern talent agencies to provide a big network of value to their portfolio companies, reinventing the venture capital firm.
- Best New Manager: Dave McClure of 500 Startups — 500 Startups has done over 250 investments in less than two years since launching with deals being done all over the world, making 500 Startups the most prolific early-stage investor operating today. (TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis actually interviewed McClure at the event.)
- Top Rated in Americas: George Zachary of Charles River Ventures — Charles River Ventures has pioneered the seed-stage investing model that has been copied by most venture firms worldwide, and they continue to be one of the most prolific seed stage investors, evolving the seed-stage venture model.
- Top Rated in Europe, Middle East and Africa: Philippe Herbert of Banexi Venture Partners — Banexi Venture Partners is an active early-stage investor in the French startup ecosystem, supporting incubators and other new models to grow the success of European startups.
- Top Rated in Asia: Yuri Milner of Mail.ru Group, Formerly DST — Mail.ru is renown for creating the “DST round,” where top internet and technology companies secure hundreds of millions of dollars at multi-billion dollar valuations, changing the entire late-stage investment market.
And here’s a video of Horowitz accepting his award, where he outlines how his firm mirrors the model of Hollywood talent agencies.
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