venture capital

Without going into detail on what AdSense is all about or what a niche is or any other info that can be saved for a later article, I'll just write as if you're already familiar with these topics.

Google AdSense has been around for a few years now. Blogging has been around since the late 1990s and Opt-in Email Marketing has been with us ever since that first innovative internet marketer decided to get the names and email addresses of folks who visited his website by placing an Opt-in form on his site and enticing folks with a free report or free eBook just for filling out that form.

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With gas prices hovering at $3/gallon, global warming showing no signs of abating and hefty price premiums on hybrid cars, investors as well as consumers are wondering if there is a better way out.

Enter Ethanol. A hitherto unknown alcohol traditionally used for alcoholic beverages, Ethanol is now a hot topic for investors.

The Washington Times, yesterday had an excellent article on the Green Technology Boom . The article describes how some ultra-rich VC's and business leaders -- Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla, John Doerr etc are committing some serious cash to investing in what they describe the next disruptive technology.

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Recently, there has been a spate of investments in Indian companies that provide online travel services. This is probably one of the earliest forays by VC's into an an entire Internet sector in India.

Kleiner Perkins in Cleartrip
WestBrige in Travel Guru

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Youtube.com -- one of the hottest Web 2.0 companies announced earlier this month that Sequoia (a premier Bay Area VC) was funding their expansion by investing $8 million in a Series B investment.

Note, this is in addition to the $3.5 million Series A investment for YouTube.

Again, there are few details on how the money will be used, or the implied valuation. However, I have a few conjectures:

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