Boston VCs: Counting the Billions of Dollars Raised

This is a revised version of an essay that Microsoft’s Don Dodge published today in his personal blog and contributed simultaneously to Xconomy.

Commonwealth Capital Ventures held their annual open house this week at their Winter Street offices on “VC Hill” in Waltham. VC Hill is to Boston/Waltham what Sand Hill Road is to Silicon Valley—the center of Venture Capital for the region.

Commonwealth Capital recently closed on a large new venture capital fund. Longworth Ventures, another Boston/Waltham based VC firm, also recently closed a new fund. In fact, over the past year or so, several Boston firms have raised over $2 billion in venture capital. While the financial markets on Wall Street are in a panic, the venture capital community in Boston is strong, with billions of dollars to invest in innovative startups.

Boston based VC firms that have raised funds over the last year or so include Flybridge Venture Capital, Spark Capital, Fairhaven Capital, Commonwealth Capital, Longworth Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, 406 Ventures, Ascent Venture Partners, and Staley Capital.

If you look over the past three years, with giant firms like Polaris Ventures, Highland Capital, and General Catalyst raising huge funds, the total funds raised in Boston exceed $10 billion.

Author: Don Dodge

Don Dodge is a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks. Don is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. The goal is to help VC's and start-ups be successful with Microsoft, and together, provide great products for our customers. He writes a daily blog, Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing. Don has been in the software business for more than 20 years. He started his software career with Digital Equipment, aka DEC, in the database group. He worked with 5 software start-ups over the next 12 years. Forte Software was the first multiplatform object oriented development environment. AltaVista was the first search engine on the web. Napster was the first P2P file sharing network. Bowstreet was the first web services development environment. Groove Networks was the first secure P2P collaboration platform. Now he is at Microsoft... "the biggest start-up in the world"... working with VC's and start-ups in the greater Boston area. Don, a native New-Englander, holds an MBA from New Hampshire College and a BS in accounting from the University of Southern Maine.