Venture Money in Open Source

prostoalex writes "Interesting statistics from VentureOne and New York Times on open source venture capital investments: "In 1999 and 2000, according to VentureOne, venture capitalists invested $714 million in 71 open-source companies." Even more interesting stats: "Most of those projects collapsed." The article talks about both successes and failures: Red Hat, TurboLinux, JBoss."

Which is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

So is RedHat a success or a failure?

Only 70 companies

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

This number should go down to 70, because SCO can't be included in the count... :-)

No mention of VA Software?

[anthony_dipierro]

Now there's an open source company with a stock chart [yahoo.com] to be proud of.

Re:$714million is a lot, but...

[ErikZ]

"While the money invested in open source is a lot, I'd venture to say it's but a fraction of total venture capitalist investment?"

As opposed to what? All of the total of venture capital investment? 126% of the total?

Even if it's 95% of the total, it's 19/20th. A fraction of the total venture capital investment!

Man, I hate that phrase. When comparing two numbers, it's HARD to not have one be a fraction of the other.

Slashdot Extra Bonus Round!

[xenocide2]

"The article talks about both successes and failures: Red Hat, TurboLinux, JBoss."

For an extra 200 points, match which label goes with which product!

Re:No mention of VA Software?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually nowadays it's called OSTG

Of course, like many companies it's renamed itself after its best known product: Open Source Talk and Goatse.