Just for fun tonight, and hoping to view a potentially entertaining mass freakout over the market, I decided to attend one of those ubiquitous Silicon Valley panels where entrepreneurs can ask venture capitalists questions. Nobody broke down or waved dangerous weapons or anything at the VC Connect event held in Palo Alto and hosted by VC Taskforce , a group that brings together entrepreneurs and VCs in a series of regular events. But I noticed that, even before the event started, more people than usual were happy to partake of the wine, even one of the VC panelists. Anyway, given the ugly turn of the markets lately, not to mention news of grim meetings by VCs with their portfolios companies and scary emails by angel investors, I was surprised VCs weren't even more bearish than they sounded. All of them said they don't plan to slow their pace of investing. I'm not sure I believe them, especially if the market continues tanking, but venture capital is funny that way. I mean, even the rather muted returns of venture investments in recent years now must look appealing to institutional and other investors next to the train wreck that is conventional stocks. In particular, the VCs were surprisingly positive about the prospects for very early-stage startups, which after all don't have to worry about paying customers for a little while. "I'm very bullish about the seed stage," said Jorge Calderon of Launch Capital , a new, small VC firm in Pa ...
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