Benchmark Capital?s Stand: We Will Never Do a Seed or Late Stage Fund

Editor's Note: This is part two in an in-depth series exploring the ramifications of the explosion of late stage capital being raised by the Valley's elite venture firms. For part one, go here. In the mid-2000s when nearly every top venture capital firm was expanding to India and China, Benchmark Capital did not share its peers' worldly ambitions. In fact, while the firm retained its Israel fund (for now?), it spun off the top performing UK fund Balderton Capital and retrained its focus firmly on the US. Earlier this year, when early stage investors were losing deals at the hands of the super angels and firm-after-firm launched aggressive seed investing programs, Benchmark Capital did not. It refused to compete with the Ron Conways and Mike Maples of the world; it would wait its turn and invest later. And now - as Benchmark's early stage peers are raising $1 billion growth funds and throwing huge sums of money at established companies like Facebook, Zynga and Groupon - once again, Benchmark Capital is refusing to follow suit.

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