TheFunded.com, a site where entrepreneurs can anonymously share their experiences — good or bad — with venture capital firms, recently came out with its list of top-five venture firms. Making the cut: InterWest Partners, of Menlo Park, CA; Los Angeles-based Clearstone Venture Partners; First Round Capital, of West Conshohocken, PA; and Trinity Ventures and Sequoia Capital, also from Menlo Park, CA.
In an article in Red Herring, which profiled TheFunded earlier this week in honor of the top-five list, Bruce Cleveland, a partner with number-one ranked InterWest, said, “There’s never been another way, except back channels, for people to get a taste of venture firms. It’s about time for companies to get a chance to tell us what they think of us. We spend a lot of time telling companies what we think of them.”
The Red Herring piece notes that the idea for TheFunded was born when its founder, who chooses to remain anonymous, experienced a “bad funding situation.” Entrepreneurs now have a place to vent their frustrations and hopefully save some fellow business starters from suffering similar bad fates. But TechCrunch, in a March review of TheFunded.com, notes this as one of the site’s flaws: “Since most startups are turned down for funding, there will be a tendency for people to leave negative comments, and readers need to take that into account.” That, though, doesn’t bother TechCrunch as much as the fact that TheFunded gives out venture capitalists’ contact information. The blog suggests that this information be removed or made available only to members.